Checkfront Software

Versatile, Cost-Effective Platform with Good Customer Support

Checkfront helped us migrate from a very inefficient reservations system (email and paper) to one that is largely automated and this has vastly improved our customer experience, saved us a lot of staff time, and given us better tools to manage and understand our business. As a small non-profit tour operator with tight margins, we are not only very happy with Checkfront's pricing structure, but also grateful that they offer a non-profit discount. In spite of a few limitations, overall we are very happy with Checkfront and have been using it for 3+ years.

Pros

Checkfront is very affordable relative to other tour booking platforms (they charge a flat annual fee rather than a percentage of sales - which I believe is the fair way to operate), and it works great for many purposes. There are lots of options for customization, and it is easy to learn how to configure and manage the platform using Checkfront's tutorials and documentation. There are lots of helpful integrations (Stripe, PayPal, Google Analytics, etc.) that are easy to set up. Checkfront support is always very responsive and helpful.

Cons

Checkfront is designed to work across many types of booking environments including hotels, hourly tours, daily tours, weekly tours, etc. Because these types of businesses have different needs, Checkfront balances those but, in my experience, isn't perfect for any one type of business. As a tour operator, sometimes we have needed to come up with workarounds to meet our specific needs or live with certain shortcomings. Checkfront support is always helpful, but if there is a feature that you need, the best you can do is submit a "feature request" and hope that enough other people request the same feature for development.

Checkfront Has Changed The Game

Overall our experience with Checkfront has been hugely positive. The support provided by the team throughout the customisation process was always fast, easy to understand and tailor made for me.

Pros

After operating our business for years without an online, pre-paid bookings system we had no idea of the positive impact Checkfront would have, not just for our business but for our lives. Red Star Music is a recording studio and rehearsal spaces and there was initial concern that introducing this type of system would 'scare away', deter or frustrate existing customer but to our surprise, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It has been a win/win situation for everyone.

Pros for customers:

* No longer have to rely on getting in touch with us to book and check availability.
* No longer have to request invoices.
* Checkfront with the addition of digital access to the spaces means we are able to be open 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Pros for us:

* Protection from financial losses due to people not showing up for bookings, cancelling last minute and refusing to pay. With Checkfront's pre-paid system and our compulsory terms of agreement, the responsibility is placed entirely on the customers to organise themselves.
* Protection from human error during the bookings process (on our part).
* We are now open 24hrs/7 days a week and no longer are required to have onsite staff members collecting payment whenever there are bookings.
* We have more time to focus on other aspects of the business and our lives rather than having to be on call around the clock. Our phones are very quiet these days and we have more bookings than ever.

Cons

Understanding that our needs are fairly complicated when it comes to a customised bookings system, there are really only a few very minor things:

It'd be nice to be able to set a rule that a certain time slot booking can only be booked when another before it is in place. For example - we'd like to run a 2hr discount session from 9-11pm as a gap filler on week days but we only want customers to be able to book that session if a 5-9pm session is already booked so that we aren't blocking a potential 4hr 7-11pm, higher value session. Does that make sense? No biggie though!

There are a couple of things with the mobile app however:

1. If I'm away and I want to check tomorrow's bookings on my phone to see whether I need to be there or not, I can open the app and see in the list of customers from earliest to latest (top to bottom), but I have to tap into each individual customer to see what time they are actually booked, making it difficult for me to get and overall visual of how I'm going to organise the day, hire gear etc.
2. I often want to be able to contact customers when I'm away to give them instructions but there doesn't seem to be any way for me to access contact details, phone/email for the bookings in the mobile app. Being able to tap copy their phone numer and send a quick text would make life much easier.

Haliburton Forest Review on Checkfront

Overall, we have been extremely satisfied and find that checkfront has more benefits than cons, but it would be nice if the cons could be improved. We have only been using checkfront for a little over a year and couldn't ask for an easier program to use. It has definitely improved how we manage our reservations and are constantly learning about new features and how others work.

Pros

This is very user friendly, both on the back end/set up side as well as the user side. The reservation system we used to use is extremely limited. We love that we can create a reservation and easily make changes. Our old system was not as user friendly and we would have to delete a reservation and re-create it even if we wanted to something as simple as change a date.

Cons

The website version is awesome, but the mobile app is not as user friendly as we would like and we are not thrilled with the reports. For the app, we are unable to check booking documents or update the reservations. That's great that we can check them in, but if they need to add a feature or change their dates at time of check in, we have to switch over to the web version, then switch back for payment. Which is another issue. We have connected checkfront with square, and a lot of the payments don't register with checkfront, so we have to first take the payment, and then record the payment. Very frustrating. We already had a few issues with the checkfront reports, which we have been able to work around, but now that we have connected to square, we are finding it extremely difficult to balance and now our bookkeeper has to refer to multiple reports, which of course does not help. One huge thing that would help is that our items in checkfront be able to communicate with square directly. Right now they convert over and say 'Custom Amount'. In one square report the booking id is referenced, but not others. Very, very frustrating. But if an item, like snowmobile passes, could actually transfer over as snowmobile passes, that would be huge. There are a few other issues, but those are the main setbacks we have currently.

Easy-to-use booking software made in Canada

Pros

The software is easy to use for clients and staff alike. As a result, we spend less time answering emails and the phone as people book themselves in. I also love that the company is based in Canada, and that the team is very responsive and the software is constantly developed. There is an affordable option if you just wanted to get started with booking software that does not break the bank.

Cons

A few very specific things would be great to straighten out. For example, we offer 2 different overnight tours - the 2-day Seal Cove Adventure and the 3-day Cape Chignecto Adventure. We cannot run those tours parallel or overlapping - it is either one or the other -, so we set the availability to 0 by hand in the inventory the other tour every time an overnight tour gets booked. This way, however, we also have to block out the day before to ensure no overlapping tour gets booked even though in reality the date is available as the last day of a potential trip that starts earlier. It's not a huge impact, but we might loose a few bookings to this.

Also, we cannot accept single bookings for tours where nobody else is booked on yet as we require a minimum of 2 guests for any tour to run. We have set the booking form (at least for the overnight tours) so that the field 'Adults' is automatically filled with the number 2. We do, however, accept single bookings if other people are booked on already, and we also would accept a pair of Adult/Child as a minimum. I wonder whether there is a way to streamline this.

Complicated systems for Dummies :)

I own and operate Stellar Micro Creations, in Rome, Italy. I have absolutely no experience with systems and programming. The check front booking system was incredibly over my head because it was very complicated but in the end it is good that it was so complicated because now I know that it can accommodate every complicated need of booking for my products.. I learn more and more options as I go along. The thing that has made this all possible for me to do is the fantastic support team at Checkfront. Once I got into the groove of communicating with Checkfront I have made hastened the development of my learning curve and am WAY more relaxed and not worried because I know that there is a support team that can help me. Anyway, I have so much more to say. There is also support in the Blogs. I had changed my approach to how I would start my business by reading one of the blog posts about referral business instead of using the costly Adwords which were not really working with my small companies start up budget. I consider the support team and the system as a partner of my business.

Pros

I like that this software can accommodate any complicated idea that I want to achieve when it comes to booking my tours.. and also I have just discovered the power of the Partners accounts. It has broadened my idea of how I can sell and increased my success potential. I do not have a lot of experience in this field but the featured of check front has given me a platform of growing my business and gives me a vision of what I can accomplish..

Cons

I haven't really discovered anything so far that I like least because I am in such a learning curve.. I am in the mode of discovering all the new things that I can do so far.. I might have a comment on this in a year or so. Oh yes!! It would be fantastically helpful if Checkfront would send a notification to my cell phone from the app or something that I have got a booking.. I have to log into check front all the time to see if I have a booking..

Checkfront = Next Level

Checkfront affords is the ability to automate so much of the reservation process that not only do we have extremely organized and fluid interaction with customer’s reservations but we can streamline so many other elements of our system such as housekeeping as well.

Pros

Multiple configurations allow us to customize our back and front facing reservation database even though we are not a traditional hotel. Support is usually very detailed and forward thinking. If what we want can’t be accomplished, we always get good insight on workarounds and temporary solutions, that sometimes work better than what we had planned. CF constantly works to improve itself. We get monthly updates that bring new funtctions and extension platforms into the mix. It’s about 75% of the way to eliminating the rest of our internal support platforms - loyalty rewards, staff scheduling, & customizable customer profiles are the remaining topics we’d like to see incorporated into CF.

Cons

We hold little hope that our feature requests will ever be developed. Configuration on the backend comes with a significant learning curve. One can get lost in the labyrinth of configuration options. I understand it’s necessary for all the functionality on the front end but if hotels are configuring this themselves, the labyrinth could be a little less complicated (topics re: parameters, & alias are very confusing).

Perfect for our Family Business

Really, us integrating Checkfront into our website and online booking was a game-changer for our family business. It has literally saved me so much time and sanity on making/changing/cancelling customer reservations, as well as monthly reports for my own records (and comparing year over year data), as well as for Hotel Tax, and easy viewing for scheduling our employees and cleaning. A true game-changer for taking our business to the next level.

Pros

Seamless integration with our website. Easy to streamline with our credit card processor. Powerful Reports at our fingertips. Customer Service if there is an occasional snafu. Helpful community and tutorial videos when setting up new accounts, items, events, etc.

Cons

This was tough, but of course there is a bit of a learning curve when you are first setting up all the parameters that are right for you business. Plenty of customer service and a large community support to post your questions, or search for an answer because someone has already crossed that bridge successfully. Also loved that once I set up my "Item Event" (think: 3 day minimum stay for Labor Day) then I can easily use a copy button to make each subsequent year's Item Event. So I do not have to recreate the wheel.

Helpful for Small Businesses

Overall we are very satisfied with Checkfront. Any time we have had to contact support for a problem, they respond quickly and provide satisfactory solutions.

Pros

Basically Checkfront is fairly easy to use. As a tour operator, there is a lot of flexibility given to obtain the information we need from our passengers. We feel it is easy to maintain and fits our needs. For our guests using the software, we have never received any negative comments and feel it is user friendly. We like that we were able to link our liability waivers for the guests to complete ahead of time which saves a lot of time and paper. Another timesaver is the way the bookings are linked directly to our Quickbooks account. Overall, we are very satisfied with everything that Checkfront does for us.

Cons

Reporting seems to have a fair amount of issues. We have contacted support about this and they are aware of the problem but just haven't figured out a solution yet. This is very time consuming to manually calculate monthly and yearly sales totals which are definitely incorrect in the Checkfront system.

I have a very small business. I wanted software to handle online bookings. In no time it was done!

It handles all my bookings. It's like I have someone in an office full time.

Pros

The most thing I like about this software is the support. Even before I became a customer, Checkfront was answering my questions. I didn't know if the software would handle the things the way I wanted. The tutorial got me started and it provide the base for me to ask intelligent questions. Checkfront answers each question quickly and usually gives me 2 to 3 step by step solutions I could use. The software interfaces seamlessly with my website and their E-Commerce handles my selected payment method flawlessly. Because my business is seasonal, I simply select hibernation mode and my monthly charges are ended until next season. I had no idea what a great fit it would be.

Cons

The only 'Con' I have is when I search help I can't think of the right term to define what I'm looking for so, I get frustrated with the search. However, I can easily overcome that by dropping a note to Checkfront support.

Best and quick to reply!

I've been using Checkfront since day 1 and also have been one of the first companies that support their tour operator applications. I think it is now almost 11 years.. What can I say, just 'simply the best! I've met the team at a conference/travel technology event once and it just shows that this company is built and run by people - real people with a passion to make it easier for anyone to run their business without worrying about the technical details. Keep it up Team Checkfront!

Pros

It's got it all.. from booking setup to distribution channels.

Cons

Not easy to integrate and display various currencies. Or take payments in different currencies, but hey - they are working on that.
Also not easy to hide certain products from the public and only allow access with an URL for special events or products that may only be viewed by some customers.
Resource management feature is not live yet, but it sounds like this will be a complete game-changer; making it possible to manage all guides, transport, the hiring of equipment and even activities and accommodation required for trips and tours.

Great for small camp and conference centers.

We are a small Christian Camp and Conference Center in southern New Mexico. The previous director was fully analog, doing reservation in a Day-Planner. This dramatically helped to bring us into the 21st century. We had looked at other camp and conference center booking systems, but they were in the thousands of dollars, plus initial setup fees. Checkfront allowed us set everything up on our own. There was a significant learning curve to setting it up, but once done, it has been a breeze.

Pros

The software is very customizable and affordable. It has allowed me to create an online booking system for our camp and retreat center. The biggest advantage is that it provides most of the functionality we need, at half the price, or less, of other camp booking systems. The pictures and video option for our various cabin rentals is great.

Cons

There are a few minor function problems that I wish would be fixed. We sometimes have a group of folks who set up a booking together. They then want to pay separately, and there is no place to input the credit card zip code on the payment page. I have to go back and edit the original booking zip code to do this. Again, it’s a minor issue, but would be a nice feature. One other one would be an option to print a payment receipt, rather than just printing an Invoice that lists the payment being made.

Best Value for Money

Using a booking platform has dramatically improved our business and Checkfront has been a great partner in this. They are willing to work with us to solve our problems and are constantly adding new functionality that is relevant to my industry. it is obvious that they have spent the time to understand the industries they are serving instead of creating a product and expecting customers to change to fit them.

Pros

I found the functionality of Checkfront to be the best for the cost of use compared to all of the other platforms I tried (and I tried many). As a Canadian business I also appreciate a Canada-based booking platform priced in Canadian Dollars, and their customer service has been second to none. The built-in waivers/documents feature us a great idea, as is their web-builder.

Cons

The only feature I find lacking in the system is a resource management tool (i.e. being able to link staff to a particular tour) but this is in development and I understand they will be releasing it soon.

A good foundation but could do better

Overall, we have been happy with Checkfront. There is some improvement we'd like to do on the notification and invoicing side of things so that the booking process is more informative and smooth. The guides could provide more indepth information on this topic.

Pros

Going from paper based to cloud based has been a big help in recording all our bookings and allowing multiple users to view what bookings have been entered.
We use Checkfront for our accommoation, catering, meeting rooms and equipment bookings so need a level of complexity to do this and Checkfront is up to the task. The main difference for us is that we manage the bookings in house after an enquiry is made via phone/email or our website. We do not run a live booking portal for guests to make bookings from.

Cons

The intergration with Xero does not talk back and forth therefore, invoices that change totals after they are booked show discrepancies with the final amount.
Setting new rates in advance through the item events function was recommended however, it does not suit more complex items such as rooms with multiple occupancy etc.

Now THAT is service !!!

We are a small belgian family entertainment center based in Brussels in the heart of Europe, CHECKFRONT changed our lives ! We have now dozens of bookings each day automated, planned as such and in multiple language (we have three languages over here) The reason I give them a 5 star ranking is that their service is just unseen !!! Try it out, their support team is outstanding and they really listen to idea's and input of their customers. I think Checkfront will be the leading booking software worldwide with this approach. Their service is amazing, you can mail them, chat them, even if you raise a question no one has raised before their customers advocate comes back to you after some time and they find a work-around !!!!! Put your money in this product, you will not regret it ! I wrote this review on my own initiative after I have been blown away by their outstanding service over the last months. Checkfront team knows what they are doing and they are really really good at it !!!!

Pros

Great service and the software does everything it promises !

Cons

Nothing, because all new future requests are dealt with and they keep improving the software.

Solid, feature-filled software product that seamlessly integrates with our business

Checkfront very easily allowed us to move the vast majority of our reservations from over the phone reservations to online reservations freeing valuable staff time. Nothing but good feelings about Checkfront.

Pros

Checkfront is easy to use for our customers, extremely reliable on the back-end, provides amazing value for our business at its cost, is continually improving their product, and provides fast and clear-cut support for any issues. It is easy to integrate with our existing services and online presentation, giving our customers a seamless and easy-to-use experience when ordering through our website.

Cons

Sometimes I wish the customizations for automated email communications were more granular in terms of controlling what information goes out and comes in based on product types.

Super easy to navigate!

I love checkfront. Customer service is great. Responses are quick. The app is user friendly and easy to use.

Pros

I love how easy this software is to use. Setting up tours, packages, classes and hire options has been a breeze with easy shortcodes to include booking links on my website. Also love that if a class requires certain hire equipment, with each booking the hire equipment also books out - meaning I can't overbook our standard equipment hire. The app is super easy to use and love that it all syncs with my phone's calendar.

Cons

Would like a "membership" option for those that frequent our business. I know there's a workaround but it's not really the easiest way. The upgrade to using liability waivers is a pretty big price difference! Would love a smaller pricepoint option for single option upgrades as I don't need all features on the next tier.

Checkfront review

The Checkfront platform has improved my overall customer experience and improved the workflow for my staff. We have integrated waivers, automatic notifications and the ability to take reservations when the office is closed.

Pros

Checkfront offers the best value for money of any online reservation software I've explored. They offer great functionality for very reasonable monthly rates - and they offer prices in CAD, which is rare.

Cons

I have virtually no complaints. As is the case with any software that isn't fully custom you will never find a perfect solution to match a unique business. I think Checkfront has done a great job of ticking enough boxes that I can workaround any challenges that they don't address directly.

Central to our organization

I just wanted to convey a HUGE THANK YOU! We did a data export from Checkfront for one of our routine procedures and noticed that the "End Time" data has been added to the "End Date" field for all Booking Index exports, as we requested in the Help system, and even on the screen displays. THANK YOU SO MUCH for doing this... it will be a huge boon for us in managing the resource usage for hourly bookings. Checkfront is absolutely central to our studio management here (https://www.urbanglass.org/studio). Now its very more valuable.

Pros

It's infinitely adaptable, and when faced with limitations, you bring them up with the support staff, and they will see to having the program modified.

Cons

Only that its real-life software, so perfection is still a ways off.

FRUSTRATING !!

It was a good system to get me started in my business but it doesn't offer me the flexibility i need. It was easy to set up. Easy to navigate.

Pros

A relatively simple system to use and easy to navigate. The layout is good on the calendar pager and the reports offer valuable information.

Cons

I find the system very inflexible to my needs, eg. Can not offer Room only and Rooms with breakfast from the same inventory stock.
There are no error messages when you are clearly not setting things up correctly. Eg, Setting up an event, you have to go to the help page all the time to ensure you are doing it right. Pop ups with helpful tips would be better & time saving.
Item Event Rules/rule sets are too complicated and open to user error, the software doesn't make it user friendly, there are too many pages to refer to. The software allows you to enter dates that overlap other events, this should not be allowed, its frustrating when setting up seasonal prices. The system is too time consuming and requires manual input when it should be cross checking dates and pop up an alert if incorrect, quite often the event doesn't work....Frustrating!
Having to import every booking that goes through a channel manager and unlock it first ! Time consuming ! Why doesn't it go into the calendar automatically?
Unable to change the price on the initial page when making a new booking, this has to be amended afterwards.....frustrating that you can not enter it right first time !
Unable to set up more than one policy. This is so inflexible when you are selling services and accommodation which have different policies for bookings.
I have been waiting 6months for you to fix my inventory errors and minimum stay rules.. Poor communication and no urgency whilst I lose money & bookings.

Definitely a good business solution

Overall the decision to go with CF has been very positive. It has definitely made handling the large volume of customers much easier. The automated parts, like guest confirmations, has been time saving for sure. We do find the product set up with dates and times to be rather confusing and almost always involves support emails to get us sorted out. It would be great if this could be more intuitive. Also the option to handle retail items would be a huge asset. The only real negative is that I can't hide my financial reports from the front line staff. If I restrict this access it also restricts the reports they need to cash out at days end. I would consider switching off of CF if I was made an offer by a similar company who offers this feature. (I simply haven't looked yet, but plan to do a system review in the fall). Overall the support and features are worth the very reasonable price for what we find to be a stable system.

Pros

The ease of the real time online booking for our customers and the automated guest management functions

Cons

-lacks basics like being able to hide financial reports from front line staff.
-can't return partial funds to a credit card, must return full amount charged
-managing AR/AP payments is confusing and a huge hassle
-no way to visually separate products by time on the dashboard calendar (i.e.: afternoon tour from morning tour, etc, based on start time)