Property management system (PMS)

A property management system, or PMS, is the operational core of an accommodation business. It holds the inventory — pitches, cabins, rooms — and the calendar of who is staying where and when, and it ties bookings to guest records, payments, invoices and housekeeping tasks. Staff work from it every day to check guests in and out, take payments, and see what is available to sell. A modern PMS is usually cloud-based, so it can be reached from reception, a phone or the office without installing anything, and it exposes data to other tools through integrations. For a campground, a PMS has to handle mixed and seasonal inventory — tent pitches, motorhome bays, cabins, glamping units — as well as touring guests who arrive without a reservation. It is the system every other module (booking engine, channel manager, point of sale, compliance exports) connects back to.