Excuse Me! Are You Looking for Hotel Reports? Here They Are

The moment I started working on this blog, I felt nostalgic. It took me back to my college days, when I was completing my internship at the Lemon Tree hotel. 

The memories of night audit, creating hotel reports and discussing them with my manager; all flashed across my mind. 

I still remember our hotel’s front office manager telling me – 

"Invest time in learning hotel reports. It'll help you gauge the performance of any property in financial aspects. As a manager, one day, you will be responsible for the rise and fall of the figures in it."

In this blog, let me share…

What are some of the important hotel reports?

As we all know, a hotel has two major divisions:

1. Operations (Front office, food and beverage (F & B), kitchen, housekeeping)
2. Admin (HR, finance, maintenance, purchase, sales and marketing)

And, each department has a few crucial reports. Let’s take a dig at each of them individually

1. Front office reports

The front office department handles one of the core aspects of the hotel “Room Revenue”.

A majority of the transactional processes such as reservations, night audit, bill settlement, and others fall in the front office department. These transactions get reflected in certain hotel reports.

Here are some of the front office reports used in hotels.

a. High balance report

Many hotels have credit facility to let guests extend their stay, without worrying about payments.

It enables guests to use services at the moment and pay later. This amount is settled during check-out.  

It’s given based on the fidelity of the guests and their credit scores. But, it has certain limitations known as the house limit.

Everyday, the night auditor checks if any guests have crossed the house limit. Details of such guests are registered in the high balance report.

For instance, a guest staying in your hotel has a house limit of $500. However, night auditor notices that the guest has a pending bill of $850.

He will immediately create a high balance report and share it with the front office manager (FOM). The guest receives an email from FOM to pay the exceeding amount.

In the case of corporate billing, hotels send invoices to the company’s accounts department. 

Here is a sample of a high balance report used in the hotels for your reference.

b. Daily arrival and departure report

Hotels have numerous check-ins and check-outs every day. It’s mandatory to keep their records.

A copy of this report is available with the housekeeping, sales and concierge departments, mainly because:

1. The front desk staff can initiate the check-out process for guests with early departure. This would save time and avoid chaos in the bill reconciliation process.
2. The housekeeping department can get the rooms ready before the guest arrivals, so they don’t have to wait for room allocation.
3. It assists the sales and marketing team with the count of rooms available for booking.
4. The concierge can align the pick-up and drop off facility for the arriving and departing guests.

Here’s how the arrival and departure reports look like.

c. Concierge report

A concierge’s task is to make travel arrangements for guests residing in the hotel. It could be either pick-up and drop-off or local sightseeing. 

The guests can request for these services at the concierge’s desk or reception as per their convenience.

The concierge shares a detailed report of all the travel services guests availed with the front desk, at the day end.

Some guests opt for the prepaid way, while the ones with a house limit prefer to pay later. 

The night auditor posts these charges in respective guests’ folios. If you don’t have a concierge report, here’s a format for your reference.

2. Night audit reports

Night audit is one of the principal processes in hotel operations. It marks the start of a new day. 

This process summarises the performance of a hotel on a day-to-day basis. The data is shared in the form of various reports.

Let’s take a look at different types of night audit reports.

a. Manager report

The manager report is the most critical one for any hotel. It provides details of the revenue realised by every department along with the forecasted figures.

These figures are on MTD (Month to date) and YTD (Year to date) basis. It helps in evaluating hotels performance.

Some of the key factors in the report are:

• ADR (Average daily rate)
• ARR (Average room revenue)
• Average occupancy
• RevPAR (Revenue per available room)

Here’s a hotel night audit report sample for your reference.

b. Daily forecast report 

Every hotel works on a pre-planning basis and the daily forecast report helps to achieve this. 

It encompasses various decision-making aspects such as the upcoming arrivals, departures, ARR and so on. This data is vital for forecasting hotels revenue and room sales. 

Moreover, factors such as events, holidays, competitors performance and others, are considered while forecasting revenue figures.

This hotel report assists the sales and front office department in planning their day accordingly.

You can try a simpler version of this report. Here’s how it looks.

c. Daily sales recapitulation report

Every department submits its sales report to the night auditor for reconciliation with bills and total revenue. However, for any hotel’s manager, it won’t be possible to look at all of them every day.

So, a daily sales recapitulation report is generated to ease this task. It is a summarised data of revenue from every department individually.

This assists in focusing on lower revenue-generating areas and taking corrective steps to improve them.

You can use the given format and start recording sales figures of every department in your hotel.

d. Cashier report

The cashier report is prepared for all the transactions in the front office department involving cash inflow and outflow.

If the hotel has a facility of foreign currency exchange, then it’s details are also logged into this report.

It’s mandatory for staff to handover the report during shift change. It is tallied at the end of the day and submitted to the accounts department. 

You can refer to the below-mentioned cashier’s report format for maintaining the records.

e. POS (Point of sales) terminal report

Once the night audit process begins, the transactions in the POS terminals are settled. It is cross-checked with the bills generated and merchant copy of transaction receipts.

The POS has an option for settlement. All you need to do is, initiate the process and it will automatically generate the report for you. 

3. F&B reports

The F&B department is a part of the revenue-generating division in hotels. Any outlet serving food or beverage falls under the F&B department. 

Most hotels have 3 basic outlets: Restaurant, bar and banquet. But, it all depends on the hotel’s classification. 

For example, a 5-star categorised hotel may have multiple restaurants and speciality bars. Meanwhile, a budget segment may have only one. 

The F&B supervisor shares a consolidated report with the night auditor for making relevant updates.

a. Restaurant sales report

The restaurant sales report comprises revenue generated from the food and beverage sales in a hotel.

Sales data of every shift is considered separately. This revenue is divided into different segments such as liquor, food and so on. 

Some hotels don’t serve alcohol. In such cases, the report consists only the food sales from all outlets.

Before generating the report, KOTs (Kitchen order tickets) are rechecked for any missing entries. Many restaurant POS software even provides an analysis of budgeted and actual revenue.

Here is a basic version of the restaurant report which you can customise as per your convenience.

4. Kitchen reports

The kitchen department is one of the main pillars of F&B service, as the hotel’s restaurant is entirely dependent on it. 

They also play a crucial role in revenue management. Here’s a report that every hotel should have to reduce their costs.

a. Wastage report

Everyday hotels have a certain amount of food wastage, and it is essential to keep a track of it before dumping. 

A basic comparison of wastage with the previous day would give you an evaluation of the loss incurred.

You need to take stern action if the amount is increasing daily or you may have a catastrophe in your hand. 

Here’s the format to record and analyse the wastage of your hotel’s kitchen. 

5. Housekeeping reports

The housekeeping department is also known as the backbone of the hotels. It falls under the cost-generating division, yet it is of equal importance.

As I mentioned previously, I did my internship in the hospitality industry. I can still recollect pulling all-nighters to clean the dirty rooms for the upcoming arrivals. 

Cleaning the lobby, preparing beds, cross-checking all rooms and much more to ensure that guests have a comfortable stay.

We had to complete every task as per the checklist, and create a report based on the same.

Here are two cardinal hotel reports in the housekeeping department to look into.

a. Room occupancy report

Sometimes guests have visitors in their rooms. As per the hotel’s policy, visitors are not allowed to stay overnight. 

The housekeeping department fills room occupancy report during the morning and turndown service.

It helps the receptionist and security to inform guests about hotels visitor policies. Also, it is important from security aspects.

Like other hotel reports, this one also has different formats. But, here’s a basic one for you to start with.

b. Minibar sales report 

Housekeeping has its share of contribution to hotels revenue with minibar sales. Any item placed in the minibar is on a chargeable basis.

The housekeeping personnel checks the minibar while cleaning any room or before guests’ check-out. The guests have to pay for any item they have consumed.  

The housekeeping supervisor shares the minibar bills and sales report with the front office department to update in guests’ folio.

Here’s how a minibar sales report looks.