How to post items with a zero price from the Simphony POS to a guest's room account in RMS.

Overview

When a Point of Sale (POS) item is priced at $0.00 and has no discount applied, the Simphony POS integration will not post the charge to the guest's room account in RMS. This applies to items that have been set to a zero price at the POS menu level, such as complimentary items, package inclusions, or promotional items.

This is a known limitation of the integration. Zero-value postings without an associated discount cannot be passed through, because the integration cannot record them as a meaningful transaction.

A workaround is available that allows these items to be posted to the room account without any changes to RMS configuration. The workaround is applied entirely on the Simphony POS side.

Guide

To post a $0.00 priced item from the Simphony POS to RMS, the item must be given a price at the POS and then discounted back to zero at the point of sale before being charged to the room.

Steps:

1. In the POS item setup, set the item to its standard or nominal price (for example, the menu price, or a nominal value if the item has no standard price).
2. Apply a 100% discount to the item at the POS. This reduces the charged amount to $0.00 while ensuring the transaction is recorded with a valid price line and a discount line.
3. Charge the item to the guest's room as normal.

The integration will recognise the discounted transaction and post it to the guest's account in RMS. The item will appear in RMS with the full price and the 100% discount recorded against it, resulting in a net charge of $0.00.

Why This Is Required

The integration validates that a posting has a non-zero price or an associated discount before allowing it to pass to RMS. This prevents blank or empty transactions from being created on guest accounts.

By applying a 100% discount, the posting satisfies this validation: the item has a real price, and the discount brings the net charge to zero. The result is a correctly formed transaction that RMS can record and report on.

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