How useful are Night Audit Reports for a Hotel?

The Night Audit is mandatory in a hotel as it completely controls the transactions for a day. It checks all reservation discrepancies, posts charges and generates folios, updates housekeeping status and closes cash counters.

Date rollover happens, that is, the active date of working changes over to the next day while the current days account gets locked. The Night Audit process ends with the reports for the day (called Night Audit Reports), that summarizes the transactions and the resulting collections for the day.

The Hotelogix Night Audit Reports are generated daily. They reconcile the hotel’s daily activities and transactions and are sent to the management for review.   These reports are extremely effective for maximizing the efficiency of the hotel. With these reports, the manager has daily figures of room occupancy and other financial figures that can provide a daily opportunity to react and respond to slow sales period.

1. Night Audit Room Details report: gives a snapshot of the days occupied rooms, available rooms, check ins, check outs, no shows and cancellations. This report can be further drilled down by clicking on any of the above items.
2. Night Audit Counter Report: gives details on the Cash and Credit Card receipts and withdrawals.
3. Night Audit Revenue Report: gives information on Room revenue, cancellation and no show revenue and other POS revenue. Revenue generated through various inclusions and business sources like Travel Agents, Corporates, Web etc. is also shown in this report
4. Night Audit Tax Report: contains all the tax information on reservation revenue and other POS revenue like VTA, Luxury Tax, Service tax etc.

Hospitality business is challenging and in this ever increasing competition; Night audit reports can play a very important role in achieving the goals. Viewing night audit reports daily is recommended because night audit reports give a daily feedback on performances on room occupancy and finances. Viewing reports daily and reacting in a timely manner will allow for greater control in meeting the goals set for the management. Many hotels that have a credit line extended to Corporates and Travel agents have the opportunity to send out mails requesting for partial or full payment. Also, the Counter report that is generated needs to be reconciled with the actual cash collections and credit card receipts by the accounts department from the counters. These reports are also used to reconcile financial data and ensure accuracy of all revenue posted for the day.

With automated Night Audit Reports, the task of the Night Auditor has reduced manifold. With the accuracy of information achieved through automation with property management systems, reconciling and date rollover happens at a click of a button. It therefore gives more time and information at hand to the high level management to review and make use of feedback received from these reports in a timely and intelligent way to achieve increased efficiency and sales.