1. Cloudbeds
  2. Cloudbeds Insights & Reports
  3. Classic Reports
  4. Financial Reports

Payment Ledger Report

Gabriela Garcia
Updated

The Payment Ledger is an accounting report that allows you to view all of the payments collected today, and see the list of transactions associated with those payments to check whether the reservation was paid in full, what was paid for, or make sure your payments match your revenue.

Payment Ledger report can show, at a glance, whether the property has received all the payments that it was supposed to, for a specific day or month.

  This report uses the service date for all financial statistics, which is the date the product or service is delivered. With proper permission, the service date can be backdated to recognize revenue and expenses in the correct period. To learn the difference between the Service Date and the Transaction Date, click here.

How to access the Payment Ledger report

  Property owner has access to Financial Reports by default. Other users must be granted permission inside Roles. Learn more: Roles and Permissions.

  1. From the Main menu Main menu icon.png, go to Classic reports Classic reports.png
  2. Click on Financial Reports
  3. Select Payment Ledger

Filters

  1. Payment Type: You can select the various payment types that will be used for determining which reservations will appear on the report.
  2. Payment Date: Select a single or a date range to filter for the date on which the payment was made.
  3. Associated Transactions: Select which other reservation transactions you would like to display on the report. Only the selected types of transactions will appear for reservations matching the other filters.
  4. Posted/Pending Transactions: Select whether to show only the transactions that have already posted, the ones that are still pending, or both. A posted transaction is a transaction that has already happened, such as a payment that was added five minutes ago. A pending transaction is one that is due for a future date, such as the room revenue for a reservation that begins tomorrow.
  5. Filter by Reservation Number, Room Number or Guest Name, you can also leave this section blank.
  6. Check-in and Check-out Date
  7. User: This filter can be modified to only show 1 or all users. It defaults to ALL users.
  8. Group by: Group the data by User, Date, Room, Guest Name, Reservation Number or Description.
  9. Sub-group: Sub-group the data by  by User, Date, Room, Guest Name, Reservation Number or Description.
  10. Status: Use this section to select the reservation status for which you want to generate the report. It defaults to ALL status.
  11. Type: Use this filter to sort out different transaction types. Those transaction types are as follows:
    • Reservations: Transactions in a reservation.
    • House Accounts: Transactions in a house account.
    • Group Profile: Transactions in a group profile (only if you have the Groups feature enabled).
  12. Click Apply to generate the report.

How to generate a report with different criteria

Show all cash transactions made for a specific time frame

Apply the following filters:

  1. Payment Type: Select Cash.
  2. Payment Date: Enter the date range or specific date you require.
  3. Associated Transactions: Select the box Credits.
  4. Posted / Pending Transactions: Click the drop-down arrow to unselect all and select Posted.
  5. Group By: If you are using a date range, this section should be grouped by Date/Time. If you use a specific date, group by User, Room, Full Name, or Reservation ID.
  6. Sub-Group By: If you use a date range, you will want to sub-group by Room. If you are using a specific date, this is optional.
  7. Click Apply

Show all the payments posted

Apply the following filters:

  1. Payment Type: Select all.
  2. Payment Date: Enter the date range or specific date you require.
  3. Associated Transactions: Click the drop-down arrow and select Credit.
  4. Posted / Pending Transactions: Click the drop-down arrow and select Posted.
  5. Click Apply.

The Description column displays the payment method as listed in the folio.

Show a list of advanced payments posted at any point in time

Many hoteliers charge deposits. So they may need to generate a list of advanced payments charged at any point in time to verify their reporting. Keep in mind that advanced payments would cause the difference between Revenue and Payments in the Daily Revenue Report (which can result in big Grand Total and Ledger numbers).

This section explains how to generate a list of advanced payments posted on a particular day or during a particular period of time (for both future and past reservations):

  1. If you need to check the amount of deposits held on a particular day, you need to generate a list of payments posted on that day for the guests arriving the following day or later.
  2. If you need to check it for a period of time, you'll also need to do the same but then extract the report and remove the payment transactions which were not advanced in the spreadsheet.
1. Generating a list of advanced payments posted on a particular day

Apply the following filters:

  1. Payment Type: Select all.
  2. Payment Date: Select the desired date (e.g. the 1st of March).
  3. Associated Transactions: No Associated Transactions should be selected under the drop-down menu.
  4. Select Check-in Date range: It should be from the second day from the first payment date till any day far in the future (e.g. it should be from the 2nd of March until some date 2 years).
  5. Type: Select reservations only.
  6. Click Apply.

You will have a list of payment transactions posted on the selected day (the 1st of March) for the reservations that are checking in in the future. The report is ready and you can look up the final number.

2. Generating a list of advanced payments posted over a period of time

If you are interested in a payment date range (e.g. the whole month of January), you need to generate the report, export the file and continue working on the spreadsheet.

Apply the following filters:

  1. Payment Type: Select all
  2. Select the desired Payment Date range (e.g. the whole month of January).
  3. No Associated Transactions should be selected under the drop-down menu.
  4. Select Check-in Date range: It should be from the second day from the first payment date until any day far in the future (e.g. it should be from the 2nd of January until somewhere in 2 years).
  5. Type: Select reservations only.
  6. Click Apply.

  You will have the list of both "advanced" and "not advanced" payment transactions. Some of them were posted during the guest's stay. Unfortunately, you cannot remove them in the system, so in this case, you will need to export the generated report and delete the payments which were not advanced. 

The instructions below describe the best way to do it in a Google Spreadsheet.

In the extracted report, you need to delete payment transactions posted on the day of the check-in or later. You can use the "IF formula" to mark those transactions. Then, you need to delete them and to recalculate the total.

The following instructions explain how to do it in detail.

Open the Excel file in the Google Spreadsheet:

  1. For your convenience, freeze the 1st row.
    How: Click View > Freeze > 1 row.
  2. Change the format for the following columns: B (Date/Time), I (check-in date) and J (check-out date). Switch from 'Plain Text' to 'Date'.
    How: Select the 3 columns > Click Format > Number >  Date.
  3. Add an additional column at the end of the sheet (column P).
  4. On the new column, go ahead and apply an 'IF formula' to mark the non-advanced transactions.
    How: Add the following formula: =ARRAYFORMULA(IF(I:I<=B:B,"N/A","ADVANCED")) to P1.

 The formula says the following:

If the check-in date is less or equal to the payment date, it will be called "n/a", if not, it will be called "Advanced".

ARRAYFORMULA = Use this array formula in order to have the 'IF formula' applied to the whole column.

I:I<=B:B means: check-in date is less or equal to payment date/time.

"N/A","ADVANCED" =Excel will generate the results based on the 'IF formula' applied and they will be displayed as "N/A" (not applicable) and "Advanced". These are just the terms and you can use any other words.

Note that Both "N/A and "Advanced" should be added into parentheses, otherwise excel will not accept it.

  1. Apply a filter to the column that you've just created.
           How: Select the column that you've just created > click Create a Filter icon.

Step 5.png

  1. By using the filter that you've just created, go ahead and remove the "Advanced" transactions from the filter to have a list of only "non-advanced" transactions (N/A).
            How: Click the filter icon > remove "Advanced" from the drop-down > Click OK to apply.

Step 6.png

  1. Select all the N/A rows and delete them.

Untitled spreadsheet - Google Sheets - Google Chrome

  1. Remove the filter.
           How: Click the filter icon > turn off the filter.

Step 8.png

Now, you have only "Advanced" payment transactions on the list.

  1. Recalculate the total.
    How: Apply the sum formula on the last row.
  • Click on the current total > Click the Functions icon  > select SUM > select the 1st and the last column:row
  • Example: =SUM(O2:O279)

See the example below, and note that the row numbers depend on the number of transactions/rows in your sheet. 

Example:

Step 9.png

Now, you will see the total of "Advanced" payments.

Export to option

Click the button to download the report as a PDF or Excel file.

Was this article helpful?
3 out of 7 found this helpful

Comments

0 comments

Please sign in to leave a comment.