Creating daily audit reports are necessary for the success of any hospitality property. So, which reports are the most important?
Welcome to another edition of hospitality property school.
Today, I’m going to take a look at the Reports You Need for Your Revenue Management Strategy
A healthy revenue management strategy requires daily upkeep.
Many hospitality properties will conduct their reporting in the late evening when most of the check-have arrived and guests are tucked in for the night.
Nightly reports will help you close out the present day and prepare for the next.
The List of Reports You Should Run Every Night
Room and Tax Report
This report is fairly clear. The room and tax report list all your room revenue and taxes for the day. You want to run this report daily in order to know exactly how much money is coming into your property each day and then use this report to identify possible issues.
For example
You can compare it to your arrivals, departures, and continuous reports to make sure that your revenue falls within a normal range for your existing occupancy.
If you decide not to run this report, it could cause you problems.
For example
If someone did not check out, but their revenue posted, it will cause accounting problems later on. Instead of having to make an adjustment later, you can catch it immediately and lessen disorder later.
Shift Audit Report
Each front desk agent or user needs a shift audit report at the end of their shift or the day. The report includes a breakdown of every transaction sold by category and item. It also should include a breakdown the for methods of payment, including
- cash
- credit cards (mastercard, visa, AMEX, etc)
- and any other means
This should be used for each front desk agent or user to balance their daily shift by checking and balancing each revenue and cost source.
The shift audit report needs to include:
- Cashier or User ID
- Category/Department Breakdown
- Payment Type Breakdown
On the top, the transactions are sorted by category and item.
After each item, there is a subtotal and under each category is a department grand total.
Then there is a payments section that lays out each form of accepted payments.
You will then have the grand totals for both departments to compare to the payments grand total – make sure they match.
If the grand totals will not match, you’ll be able to find where the payment discrepancy occurred with these reports.
If these daily audit reports are not complete by staff, it could create accounting problems in the future. These reports allow you to see patterns, track them over time, and identify problems when they occur.
It also helps keep employees in check. A daily report will show discrepancies in the cash flow or inventory levels. If there is missing cash or missing inventory, you’ll know exactly who was in charge during that time period.
Daily audits will help you easily create monthly reports, which help quarterly reports, which then help yearly reports and beyond.
Departures Report
Every night, your night manager or auditor should create two departure reports, one for the present day and one for the next day.
The present day departures will show everyone who was supposed to check-out that day. This will help identify any guests that didn’t check-out and identify other possible issues such as over bookings.
The next day departure report helps your staff prepare for the next day’s departures. Your front desk needs to know which rooms will be vacant and available for incoming reservations and cleaning staff will need to take the necessary steps to prepare the rooms.
Each report should include the following:
- Room assignment
- Reservation/Confirmation Number
- Guest Name
- Arrival Date
- Departure Date
- Room Status (in-house, checked-out)
- Balance
If complete nightly departure reports are not done, you could put yourself at risk for overbookings.
Arrivals Report
The night manager or auditor should also produce the arrivals report that includes the list of arrivals for the upcoming day and includes basic information:
- Reservation/confirmation number
- Guest name
- Arrival date
- Departure date
- Number of nights
- Room type booked
- Room assignment
The report helps you identify which guests have been assigned rooms and those who have not. You have to make sure that the assigned rooms will be open when the guest is scheduled to check-in and assign where unassigned guests will stay.
Use the departure report to ensure the arrivals list match up and make necessary changes.
The arrivals report also helps you keep track of no-shows. If a guest doesn’t check-in and cancels their reservation, your arrivals report will show it. You can then make the necessary changes in your property management system so that your daily audits and departure reports remain accurate.
Arrivals reports help prevent overbookings while enabling you to plan out the day’s logistics.
Housekeeping Report
The housekeeping report shows the property’s room number, front desk status, housekeeping status, departure dates, and unit type.
This enables the front desk and the housekeeping staff to know which rooms have to be cleaned and by when. Housekeepers need to know which rooms are being checked out of so they can prepare to replace bed clothes, towels, amenities, etc.
This might not be necessary for smaller inns or bed & breakfasts.
Without this report, properties run the risk of check-in delays because rooms are not cleaned.
Also, if guests have not checked-out by the allocated time, housekeeping will know to contact the front desk and get the problem sorted out.
Continuous Report
A continuous report helps you keep track of guests who have extended their stay. When a guest extends their stay, often, a new reservation will have to be created.
It is also possible that continuous reservations might mean the rate per night is different. The accurate room rate needs to be reported to your room and tax report so all is correct.
If you don’t complete a continuous report, you run the risk of assigning arriving guests to occupied rooms.
The six reports will help you keep track of your daily revenue and effectively manage your reservations.
Once you have these reports running effectively, you’re ready for the next step.
The following reports will give your hospitality property a competitive advantage.
Sell Strategy Report
The Sell Strategy Report includes;
monthly analyses
market research
customer segment performance
including ADR and RevPar
A large branded hospitality property will divide their guests by group in order to see who their most profitable and target them appropriately.
Daily Pickup Report
This report shows the daily rates and ADR for any given day and is generally run every day to keep prices active. It helps the revenue management team analyze which rates are selling or not selling for the given day and how to proceed. If rates are meeting their goals and projections, they know they’re on the right track. But, if not, they can make corrections in real-time.
Conclusion
Effectively managing your revenue when you’re an independent hospitality property can be difficult. By taking a long-term look at your revenue management strategy and use all the available information with these few reports to your advantage, you too can act like the big boys while staying small.
If you have any interesting stories about Your Revenue Management Strategy and would like to share or have any questions or feedback you can leave them in the comments section of the show notes.
You can find them at:
keystonehospitalitydevelopment.com/KHDC067
That’s it for this session of hospitality property school.
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So, as always, let’s work together to put heads in your beds.
Until next time, have a fun day.
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