Car Hire Reservations

• Project ID:

  7300

• Project Type:

  Fixed

• Budget:

  $100-$500 USD
  

Project Description:

I need a reservations system for a small but ambitious car hire company.
The client has asked for the following features:
He must be able to update the car models, prices and availabilities by himself.
The visitor of the site will fill a form with the car model, he will choose the start and end date of reservation from a calendar (like in Expedia) and then the system will show availability of that car or not and calculate the total price and the deposit needed for the given time period.
There will be online Credit Card transactions and a bank will be used for that. The bank will offer the script for the transactions and they will give instructions how to connect their system with the reservation system of the client.
The reservations system must be able to generate all necessary reports about the completed reservations and the admin of the system will have access to these reports online.
An optional feature is that travel agents will have access to the reservations system and they will be able to book cars for their clients. In this case no credit card payments will be required but the system must calculate the commission for the agent and generate the appropriate reports for the site's admin.
In every case that a reservation will be made (from visitors or agents) the availability of cars must be updated automatically.
English will be used in the beginning but adding more languages must be an option for the future, so having an easy to translate system is a serious advantage.

I hope my description has given you a clear idea about what my client needs. I will prefer to work with someone who has done this already and he will have a working system to show to me.
The client will also need a small site for his car hire company, so it will be good if you can give me an offer for both. In this case I will need to see your work first, so you should provide me with web addresses of RELEVANT working sites that you have designed.

Additional Project Description:

10/28/2004 at 7:33 EDT:
Perhaps my description was not clear in the beginning and there have been misunderstandings already. Let me describe exactly what I will need for the CAR-HIRE system:

1. The car company will be able to enter new cars with photos and descriptions into a database. The system will create thumbnails and also compressed and re-sized photos from the original photos. For example, if the admin uploads a 1024*768 pixels photo, then the system will resize it to 600*400 and compress it and then create the thumbnail as well.
2. The admin will be able to update availabilities for each car type. Every car type will include a different number of cars, for example SUZUKI VITARA is the car type and the company owns 5 of them.
3. The admin will be able to update prices for each car type and choose different prices for different time periods (high season, low season, etc.)
4. The visitor of the website will be able to browse cars and see availability for each of them.
5. The visitor will choose start and end date from a calendar (like Expedia.com) and the car type. The system will show availability for that car and calculate the total price and the deposit required.
6. If the visitor is satisfied with the above, then he will move to the Bank Credit Card system where he will complete the transaction. The Credit Card Transactions system will be provided by a certain bank but it has to be connected to the Reservations system.
7. The system will keep a record of the transaction, send a confirmation email to the client and the ADMIN and will update the availabilities.
8. The ADMIN will be able to make reservations directly bypassing the online transactions.
9. The system should be easy to translate in other languages, especially the Front Office (what the visitors will see).
11. The system should be able to generate reports about the sales made, reports for agents and everything else that will help the ADMIN to run his business effectively.
12. Technical support is essential. All bugs should be corrected VERY SOON, especially if a system is running online. How shall we handle the technical support issue? I would like your suggestions about this.
EXTRA FEATURES:
Please give a price separately for each of them:
a. Webdesign for a site for the car hire company with 5 pages: HOME/CARS/BIKES/POLICIES/CONTACT
b. It is possible that a bigger company will be interested in this reservation system and they may have different offices (branches) in different cities. All of these offices should have access to the reservation system. Will the system be able to handle different simultaneous requests? Will there be any problem with making bookings from different offices at the same time? Will the availabilities be updated in real time?
c. Agents will also have access to the reservations system with username and password and they will be able to make reservations directly for their own clients. In this case NO online transactions will be made. The system will record the transaction, estimate the commission for the agent and inform the ADMIN by email. Reports about the activity of each agent (No of reservations made in a specific time period, value of reservations, agent’s commissions) must be generated.
d. An extra option are the Split Days for a car reservation. For example a visitor (client) wants a car for 3 days: not 3 continuous days but 3 separate days, like Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
e. I believe that the reservation system will be sold to more clients in the future. Those clients will probably need a simple website like the one mentioned above plus the same reservation system. How much would you charge in this case?
I try to make my requests as clear as possible. I am the owner of a big travel portal for the island of Crete in Greece and I will probably need similar systems for hotels and real estate agents. I also need websites designed for clients. What I mean is that we may have a constant and long co-operation. I prefer to have one or two associates for all my projects than looking for a new co-operation each time there is a new project.
Communication between you and me is very important and I must be able to reach you easily and get answers and solutions as soon as possible. I try to reduce my business stress and I need associates who will be effective, skilful and creative.
Please give detailed answers. If you need additional info or explanations you may PM me.

Regards,
Yannis Samatas.

Skills required:

PHP