How to choose a PMS for a small Indian hotel

A property management system (PMS) is the software your front desk lives in: the reservations calendar, check in and check out, guest bills, housekeeping status and the night audit. For a small hotel it often becomes the place where every other job starts too.

This guide is for owners and managers of independent hotels in India with roughly 10 to 100 rooms. It covers what to check before you sign, the Indian rules your PMS has to handle, and the questions that bring out the real price.

Disclosure: Keyvasa makes hotel software. This checklist is written to be useful whichever system you choose.

Start with a normal day, not a feature list

Every PMS brochure lists hundreds of features. A better test is to write down what happens in your hotel on an ordinary day and check that each step is easy:

• A booking arrives from an OTA, from your website and from a phone call.
• A guest checks in, shows an ID, and gets a room that is clean and inspected.
• Housekeeping cleans the rooms that checked out, and the desk sees it at once.
• A guest asks for towels or reports a broken AC, and someone owns the job.
• The guest checks out, pays by UPI or card, and gets a correct GST invoice.
• The night audit closes the day and the cash matches.

If a vendor cannot show you this whole day on a demo, with your room types, keep looking.

Indian rules your PMS has to get right

GST on rooms changed in September 2025

From 22 September 2025, hotel accommodation with a value of up to ₹7,500 per unit per day is taxed at 5% without input tax credit, and accommodation above ₹7,500 stays at 18% (GST Council FAQ, PIB). Your PMS should pick the rate night by night from the value of the room, so a stay that crosses the line, or a rate that changes mid stay, is still billed correctly. Restaurant, banquet and other services have their own rules, so ask your chartered accountant to confirm the rates the PMS applies before you go live.

There is a second effect that many owners miss. If most of your rooms sell at ₹7,500 or less, you charge 5% without input tax credit, which means you generally cannot claim back the 18% GST on your software subscription. Compare prices with GST included.

E invoicing above ₹5 crore turnover

Businesses whose aggregate turnover has crossed ₹5 crore in any financial year since 2017 to 2018 must issue e invoices for business to business supplies, a rule in force since 1 August 2023 (Notification 10/2023 Central Tax). If you host corporate guests and you are near that size, check that the PMS can generate e invoices or connect to a system that does.

Reporting foreign guests within 24 hours

Under the Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025, a hotel must send Form III (earlier called Form C) for every foreign guest, including OCI cardholders, within 24 hours of arrival, and send the departure details within 24 hours of departure (Rules, rule 17). A good PMS captures the passport and visa details once at check in, reminds the desk of the deadline and keeps the record. We explain the whole process in our Form C guide.

Guest data and the DPDP Act

The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were notified on 14 November 2025, with an eighteen month period for phased compliance (PIB). A hotel collects a lot of personal data: names, phone numbers, ID documents and passport details. Ask any vendor:

• Who on my staff can see a full ID number, and can I limit it?
• Where are ID scans stored, and who can open them?
• Can I delete a guest's data when they ask, and is that logged?
• Do marketing messages go only to guests who agreed to receive them?

Selling rooms: OTAs, your website and Google

Most small hotels sell through several OTAs. Without a channel manager, the desk updates each extranet by hand and overbookings happen. Check:

• Is the channel manager built in, or a separate product with its own fee?
• Which OTAs does it connect to two ways (rates and rooms out, bookings in)?
• Does a booking on one channel close the room on every other channel at once?
• Is there a booking engine for your own website, and does it take UPI?
• Can your direct rates appear on Google's free booking links? Google does not charge for these listings (Google Hotel Center Help).

Your staff will use it on phones

Room attendants, engineers and security guards rarely sit at a computer. Ask whether floor staff get a phone screen made for their job, whether it works in Hindi or your team's language, and whether you pay extra for each staff login. Per user pricing quietly punishes hotels that want everyone on the system.

Work out the real monthly cost

PMS prices are quoted in different ways: per room per month, a flat price for a band of rooms, or per user. To compare fairly, ask each vendor for a written quote for your exact hotel and add up:

Then divide the yearly total by your rooms. That number, not the headline price, is what you compare.

Before you sign

1. Ask for a demo with your own room types and a real day's bookings.
2. Ask how you can export all your data (bookings, guests, invoices) if you leave, and in what format.
3. Ask who answers the phone at 11 at night when the night auditor is stuck, and in which language.
4. Ask for two hotels of your size that use the system, and call them.
5. Get the price, the term and anything included in writing.

A good PMS should make the desk calmer within a few weeks. If the demo already feels complicated, it will not get simpler after you sign.

Sources

• GST Council, FAQ on the GST rate changes effective 22 September 2025, question 71: gstcouncil.gov.in
• Press Information Bureau, "Lower taxes to support tourists and craftsmen", 22 September 2025: pib.gov.in
• CBIC Notification No. 10/2023 Central Tax, 10 May 2023 (e invoicing threshold of ₹5 crore): tutorial.gst.gov.in
• Immigration and Foreigners Rules, 2025, rule 17 and Form III: thc.nic.in
• Press Information Bureau, DPDP Rules, 2025 notified: static.pib.gov.in
• Google Hotel Center Help, "About hotel free booking links": support.google.com