Accommodation is in beta. It is switched on for a small group of schools while it is being tested. To join the beta, message Teach 'n Go support. It is part of Teach 'n Go Pro, and free to use during the beta.
Accommodation keeps your host families, apartments, residences and hotels in one place, shows which beds are free, books students in, and adds the stay to their fees. It lives under Accommodation in the left menu and on an Accommodation tab on each student's profile.
Admins only. Teachers and staff cannot open the accommodation pages. Students and parents only see their own stay on the portal.
The Accommodation page has six tabs: Providers, Bookings, Occupancy, Arrivals and departures, Payables and Reports.
Providers, rooms and rates
A provider is a host family, apartment, residence or hotel. Each provider has rooms, and each room has beds. Capacity is counted by bed, so a twin room with two beds can hold two students.
Go to Accommodation → Providers and click Add provider.
Enter the Name, Type and Payable terms (On check-out, Monthly in arrears or In advance), plus the Contact name, Email, Phone, Address and any Notes.
Tick Approved for students under 18 if the provider may host minors. Tick Show the notes above to students and parents in the portal if the notes are meant for them, for example house rules.
Click Add provider, then click Add room for each room: Room name, Type (Single, Twin, Shared or Studio), Beds and Board (No meals, Breakfast, Half board or Full board).
Rates set what the student pays and what the provider costs you. Add them with Add rate:
Rates for the whole provider: used for every room that has no rate of its own
Rates for this room: when a room has its own rate, the provider rates are ignored for that room
Unit: Per night or Per week
Student price and Provider cost: in your school's currency
Valid from and Valid to: leave the end empty for no end date
The rate valid on the check-in date prices the whole stay. Editing or deleting a rate never changes existing bookings; they keep the price they were created with. If you later change a booking's dates, room or beds, it is priced again from the current rates, unless you type a different price.
For a weekly rate, part weeks are charged at the nightly rate, or a seventh of the week if there is no nightly rate. The Pricing for part weeks setting on the Providers page can switch this to a seventh of the weekly rate for every night. Only the main school can change it.
Providers and rooms cannot be deleted, only deactivated. Deactivate hides them from booking; existing bookings are not affected. You cannot lower a room's beds below what current and future bookings use.
To load many providers at once, go to Import from a spreadsheet and choose Accommodation providers and rooms (one row per room) or Accommodation rates (for providers and rooms that already exist). Bookings cannot be imported.
Booking a student in
Bookings start from the student.
Open the student's profile, go to the Accommodation tab and click Book accommodation.
Enter the Check-in and Check-out dates. If the student is in only one active class with start and end dates, those dates are filled in for you. Narrow by Beds, Room type or Board and click Find rooms.
Choose a room. The list shows Free beds and the Price for the stay. Rooms with no rate show No rate; full rooms only appear if you tick Also show rooms that are full.
Check the Student price total. It is worked out from the rate and you can type a different amount. Under Extra fees (optional), add any one-off fees such as a deposit or cleaning fee.
Under Save as, choose Requested to hold the beds with no charge yet, or Confirmed to add the charge to the student's fees now.
Click Save booking.
Nights run from check-in up to, but not including, the check-out day. A room is full on a night when all its beds are taken by requested, confirmed or checked-in bookings. To book past capacity, tick Book it anyway (over capacity) and give a Reason; the booking is then flagged on the student's Accommodation tab.
For a student who is under 18 on the check-in date, providers approved for under 18s are listed first. Booking an unapproved provider shows a warning but is not blocked.
The Bookings tab lists every booking, newest first, and can be filtered by status. The student's profile header also shows where they are staying or are booked to stay.
What the student is charged
Confirming a booking adds a one-off fee to the student's account, due on the check-in date, described as "Accommodation: provider, room, check-in to check-out (nights)". Each extra fee becomes its own fee. A requested booking has no charge until you confirm it.
If you change a confirmed or checked-in booking, an unpaid charge is updated to match. A charge that is paid, on an invoice or on an autopay schedule is never changed. Add a charge, refund or credit by hand for the difference, or adjust the invoice. Extra fees can only be added when you create the booking.
Cancelling a booking frees the beds. Unpaid charges are removed. A paid or invoiced charge stays, and you refund it or add student credit from the student's billing.
Confirming, checking in and checking out
A booking moves from Requested to Confirmed, then Checked in and Checked out. Use the Confirm, Check in and Check out buttons on the student's Accommodation tab, and Change to edit the booking. Cancel booking is available until the student checks out; checked-out and cancelled bookings are final.
Once a booking is confirmed, Email provider opens a plain-text confirmation to the host with the student, dates, nights, room, board and beds filled in. You can edit the subject and message before clicking Send email. The provider needs an email address and messaging must be switched on for your school. Nothing is emailed automatically to hosts, students or parents.
The Arrivals and departures tab lists who arrives and leaves in a date range, with student and provider phone numbers, and has Mark checked in and Mark checked out buttons for the day's movements.
Accommodation letters for students
You can add a student's accommodation details to any student document template, for example an accommodation confirmation letter. Go to School settings → Student → Student documents, open a template, click Variable list and add any of these:
{accommodation_provider_name}: provider name{accommodation_provider_type}: host family, apartment, residence or hotel{accommodation_provider_contact}: contact name{accommodation_provider_phone}: contact phone{accommodation_provider_email}: contact email{accommodation_provider_address}: provider address{accommodation_provider_notes}: provider notes, only if they are shared with students and parents{accommodation_room_name}: room name{accommodation_room_type}: single, twin, shared or studio{accommodation_board}: no meals, breakfast, half board or full board{accommodation_check_in}and{accommodation_check_out}: stay dates{accommodation_nights}: number of nights{accommodation_status}: booking status
The letter uses the student's current stay. If they are not staying anywhere tonight, it uses their next confirmed booking, then their most recent past one. Requested and cancelled bookings are never used, and a student with no booking gets blank values. Prices and provider costs are never available as variables.
Occupancy, payables and reports
The Occupancy tab is a calendar with rooms down the side and days across, up to 90 days at a time, colour coded by booking status. Click a bar to open the booking.
The Payables tab shows what you owe each provider for a period, from the provider cost on each booking and the provider's payable terms. Monthly in arrears stays are split by month, and each month falls due on the 1st of the next month. Record payment logs a payment you made yourself; nothing is paid from Teach 'n Go.
The Reports tab has five reports, each with Export CSV:
Occupancy rate: bed-nights booked against bed-nights available, per provider per month
Provider payables: the same figures as the Payables tab
Accommodation margin: student price against provider cost per booking, grouped by check-in month, extra fees excluded
Arrivals and departures: one line per movement
Students by accommodation: who is staying where on a chosen night
The students list also has a hidden Accommodation column showing the provider and room of the current stay, or of the next confirmed one.
The portal
A student with a confirmed or checked-in stay, and their linked parents, see a My accommodation card on the portal dashboard with the provider, address, contact name and phone, room, board and dates. Prices are never shown. The provider's notes appear only if you ticked the portal option on the provider.
Branches
If your school has branches, providers, rooms and rates belong to the main school and are shared with every branch. A provider can be pinned to one branch, and a provider a branch admin creates is pinned to that branch automatically. A pinned provider can be edited by that branch and by the main school. Each branch sees its own bookings, and the main school sees all of them. Payables are managed by the main school only.