Your room count and what you pay

How MAYA counts your rooms

About every five minutes, when MAYA reads your bookings, it also adds up the rooms in your active room types. It adds them up again the moment you save changes under Room types on the PMS tab. Two kinds of type are left out:

• Types you have unticked as rooms. On the PMS tab, each room type has a Counts as a room box. Untick it for anything nobody sleeps in, such as a meeting room, a spa slot or a court. An unticked type is left out of the count whatever its name. A ticked one is counted whatever its name. Your answer is final in both directions.
• Types you have not answered for, whose name reads like something nobody sleeps in. When a type arrives from your system, MAYA reads its name, as set out below. A name that reads like a bedroom is ticked as a room. Any other name shows unticked on the PMS tab, tagged "needs your answer" (or "not a room" when your history import proposed it), and stays out of the count until you tick it. This is only a reading of the name, and one tick from you overrides it.

Some words leave a type out whatever else its name says, such as meeting, conference, boardroom, banquet, parking, massage, treatment, storage and day use. Others leave a type out only when its name has no bedroom word in it (room, suite, king, queen, villa or cabin, for example). Spa, pool, cabana, court, event, hall, package and fee are words of this second kind. So "Spa Suite" is counted, while "Meeting Room", "Garden Cabana" and "Pool House" are left out.

If the Billing page lists a type as not counted and guests do sleep there, tick it on the PMS tab and press Save: it joins the count at once.

The count is the same for every night: rooms out of service change your occupancy, not your bill. Nothing is measured while your history is still importing, so an empty read is never treated as zero rooms. Nor is anything measured while a room type ticked as a room still shows 100 rooms, the number it has until your system's count arrives: no banner, no email and no change to your bill until it is counted. While MAYA has paused work on the property because its subscription has lapsed, nothing is measured either, by a sync or by a save on the PMS tab.

What the billing page shows

The Room count section of the Billing page starts with "Your plan covers 20 rooms. We check this against your property management system." Then, depending on your property:

• "Not counted, because they don't look like guest rooms:" followed by the names. MAYA read these names and left the types out. If one of them is a guest room, tick it under PMS, then Room types, press Save, and it joins the count. Each of them shows unticked there.
• "You've marked these as not rooms:" followed by the names. Your own unticks. Change them on the same tab if one is wrong.
• "Every room type is marked as not a room, so we can't measure your count." in amber. Tick the types guests sleep in and press Save.
• "Your PMS currently shows 24 active rooms." when the measured number differs from the billed one, followed by either "You're paying for more than that" and a prompt to lower it here so your next invoice drops, or a note that the number comes from your property system and updates on its own as you open or close rooms.

Under those lines sit the Rooms billed box and the Change button, covered below.

While MAYA counts more rooms than you are billed for, or more than 500, a link sits right under the section: Fix your rooms on the PMS tab, with a ? beside it. It opens the PMS tab on the property you are billing, scrolled to Room types, which it highlights for a moment. Nothing is ticked for you. Everyone who can open the Billing page can save room types, so everyone who sees the page sees the link.

Running more rooms than you pay for

1. 1

   First a banner, then an email

   The moment MAYA measures more rooms than you pay for, the top card on the Billing page and the dashboard banner turn amber: "You're billed for 20 rooms but running 24", then "MAYA charges per room, so 4 rooms are not being paid for." At first it adds "Raise your billed count, or untick anything that isn't a guest room under PMS > Room types. We'll email you before anything changes." (above 500 rooms it says something else, as Over 500 rooms explains). Once the email is out it says how many days remain: "Raise your billed count, or untick anything that isn't a guest room under PMS > Room types, within 7 days and nothing else happens. After that we'll update it to 24 for you and adjust your next invoice." Once those days have run out it reads "We'll update it to 24 shortly and adjust your next invoice. If that isn't right, change your billed count, or untick anything that isn't a guest room under PMS > Room types."

   The email follows at the next daily check (once a day), so it can arrive the day after the banner. Above 500 rooms it never comes, as Over 500 rooms explains. It goes to the address on your billing account, the one that receives invoices. Its subject is "Your MAYA plan covers 20 rooms, and your PMS shows 24", with your own numbers. Its heading is "Your room count has changed", and it says what your system lists, what your plan covers, what you pay today and what you would pay at the measured count ("$110 today, $120 at 24 rooms"), that you have 7 days to set the number yourself, and the date after which MAYA updates it. A button, Set your room count, opens the Billing page. Under it the email offers the other fix: "Counting something nobody sleeps in, like a meeting room or a parking space? Untick it under PMS > Room types and press Save. Your count is checked again straight away.", with PMS > Room types as a link to that section (you sign in first if you need to). It also names any types that were left out and why, so your own count and MAYA's reconcile, and ends "Once your plan covers the rooms counted, nothing else changes."

2. 2

   The 7 days

   The 7 days count from the email, not from the first measurement, so you always get the full week after being told. If the measured number changes again during the week, a new email goes out about the new number. MAYA never corrects a count it has not emailed you about.

3. 3

   After the 7 days

   If the billed count is still lower than the measured one, MAYA raises it to the measured number. It looks at the measured number once more just before it does, so a count you put right with a save that same moment is not raised. Stripe works out the difference for the part of the period you have already paid and adds it to your next invoice. Nothing is charged on the day and nothing is charged separately. The banner clears and the Room count section shows the new number.

That is how the correction works today. The Terms (clause 7.5) also allow the difference to be charged separately, and allow us to invoice for rooms that were in use but not paid for during the previous 12 months. MAYA does neither on its own: the raise above is the only change it makes to your bill, and it charges only from the day of the raise. Terms and legal lists the clauses.

Any shortfall counts. There is no tolerance band: one extra room is a real amount every month, so one extra room triggers the email.

Two ways to fix it

Either one ends it, whichever fits:

• Raise the count you pay for, when the rooms are real. Type the measured number in Rooms billed on the Billing page and click Change (Changing the count yourself).
• Untick what isn't a guest room, when the count includes something nobody sleeps in, like a meeting room, a court or a parking space.

Untick what isn't a guest room on the PMS tab, under Room types: Fix your rooms on the PMS tab under the Room count section of the Billing page takes you there. Untick each such room type and press Save. Saving counts your rooms again straight away, rather than at the next sync. If the count is now no more than you pay for, the banner goes at once, the 7 days stop, and no email or raise follows. If more rooms are still counted, the banner stays with the new numbers, and the PMS tab says both, for example "Saved. 22 rooms are counted and you're billed for 20." Room types and rooms out of service has the detail.

Unticking a type also takes it out of sellable occupancy and the revenue per room behind your calendar colours, so untick only what guests really do not sleep in. A type ticked again later rejoins the count on save. If that brings the shortfall back, the banner comes back and the steps above start again.

Paying for more rooms than you run

MAYA never lowers the count for you. A wing closed for a fortnight's refurbishment would otherwise cut the bill without anyone asking, and put it back up with a warning email when the wing reopened. Instead, the Room count section says "Your PMS currently shows 16 active rooms." and "You're paying for more than that", and you lower it yourself if you want to.

Lowering the count gives a credit for the unused part of the current period, taken off future invoices. It is never a cash refund.

If a wrong rooms number has already raised your count

On Mews, if the count MAYA measured does not match what you run and the 7 days run out, MAYA raises your billed count to the measured number. That happens when your spaces in Mews hold rooms you do not sell, such as an old space still switched on, or when Mews listed no spaces and every category took the one rooms-per-category number. Here is how to put it right.

1. 1

   Put the count right at its source

   Switch off in Mews any space you no longer sell, or untick a category nobody sleeps in on the PMS tab and press Save. If every category shows the same units, email us with your property's name and how many rooms each room type has, and we check why MAYA has no count from Mews. Where Mews lists no spaces at all, we set your property's rooms-per-type number, and within about five minutes the Room count section of the Billing page shows the new measured number. Where MAYA can't read your spaces from Mews, that number doesn't change the counts it already has: they stay, and nothing is measured for your bill, until a read works. We hear about it once three cycles in a row fail to count your rooms.

2. 2

   Lower Rooms billed to that number

   Once the new measured number shows, type it in Rooms billed and click Change. Two things bring the email back, and a new raise 7 days later: lowering the count while it still shows the old measured number, and lowering it below the new one.

3. 3

   The credit

   Stripe credits the difference between the two counts for the rest of the current period, and the credit comes off your next invoices. The days between the raise and your change stay billed at the higher count.

If you want those days looked at too, say so in the same email. Anything beyond the credit is up to us, case by case. The Terms call it a one-off courtesy, so we cannot promise it.

Changing the count yourself

1. 1

   Open Billing and find Room count

   The section is there while the subscription is running. A General Manager or Hotel Admin can change it.

2. 2

   Type the new number in Rooms billed

   Any whole number from 1 to 500. Anything else shows "Enter a whole number between 1 and 500." Change stays greyed out until the number is valid and different from today's.

3. 3

   Read the quote

   Before you save, a line shows what the new bill will be, from the same brackets Stripe bills: "$110 up to $120 per month. Your next invoice is adjusted for the part of this period you have already paid." Going down, it adds in green "That is $22 less." If the new count lands in the same price, it reads "Still $110 per month."

4. 4

   Click Change

   It reads "Saving…", then "Room count updated." Stripe confirms the change to MAYA a moment later, so the number on the page can take a moment to catch up.

Messages you might see:

• "This property has no subscription to change." Set up payment for the property first.
• "This subscription has nothing to change." Email us and we look at the subscription.
• "Could not change the room count. Try again shortly." Wait a moment, then try again.
• "This property's subscription is not active, so MAYA has paused work on it." The subscription has lapsed. Fix the payment first.

The count is changed here and only here. Stripe's billing portal does not offer a quantity control, because MAYA measures the count and would correct a number typed there.

Seats follow the billed count

How many people can be on your team depends on the rooms you pay for: 2 seats up to 20 rooms, 4 up to 40, 5 up to 60, 6 up to 80, 8 up to 500. Raising the count raises the seats at the same moment. Inviting and removing people has the details.

Over 500 rooms

Self-serve stops at 500. If MAYA measures more than 500 rooms, the banner still turns amber, for example "You're billed for 20 rooms but running 600", and ends "That's above what we sell self-serve. Email us and we'll set it up with you, or untick anything that isn't a guest room under PMS > Room types." The banner's button reads Email us and opens an email to us. On the Billing page our email address sits under it. Nothing changes on its own: above 500, MAYA sends no room count email and makes no automatic correction. The Rooms billed box does not take a number above 500 either. If the count includes room types nobody sleeps in, Fix your rooms on the PMS tab under the Room count section takes you to untick them. Otherwise email us and we price it by hand.