One of the common questions for hoteliers is how to run an end of day report to ensure that all of the day's activities have been logged in the system under the correct day.
This article will discuss
- when myfrontdesk users can run night audit reports
- which myfrontdesk reports may be useful for night audit
When to Run Night Audit Reports?
Most of reports show only posted transactions: these are transactions which appear in the reservation folio as posted, not pending, meaning that they belong to the past or current date of stay (*once the reservation is put in status "In-House" or the guest is checked-in).
For the reports to correctly populate information from your reservations, we recommend that you routinely check-in and checkout your reservations
- The transactions added by the system automatically will be posted to the reports with the timestamp "current day, 11:59 pm"
But such transactions will appear in reports only at 2:00 am the following day. That's why the best time to run night audit reports is after 2:00 am the following day.
Transactions examples: room rates added when creating the reservation (not added manually), taxes/fees applied to the reservation automatically, items added to the booking at the time of creating the reservation.
- The transactions added by the user manually will be posted to the reports with the timestamp set by the user.
Transactions example: room rate added manually, payments added manually or scheduled for the specific date, taxes added manually, cash drop.
Useful Reports for Night Audit
Once the previous day's business has been processed (after 2:00 am you will be able to run all of your financial reports to see that previous day's activities.
Some reports you may want to run are below:
This report is similar to a Posting Journal. It records all postings and payments made in your reservations, folios, and house accounts. All adjustments, voids, and refunds are also recorded in this report.
You can use the filters available to view transactions posted by date, user, and description (transaction type) (only the past dates).
Please note that you can select all transactions under description and then have system group the transaction types (Group by Description). If you operate a large property with several users that make multiple postings daily, we’d recommend that you filter to view a few transaction types at a time. Your Night Auditor or Night Manager will find this report very useful in cross-checking all of your user’s postings for the day.
This report is similar to a Manager Report. You can find the daily statistics for any reporting date. The report has a focus on your property’s performance with regards to room revenue generated on the reporting date, reservations on the books, and a production forecast for the next 14-days.
Please note that myfrontdesk will automatically generate this report for the current report date after the system’s night audit process (around 2:00 am, after the room rates, taxes, and fees have been posted).
This report can be useful when viewing all adjustments or rebates made for the day.
It is important for your Night Auditor or Night Manager to scrutinize each adjustment because each adjustment is removing already posted revenue from your system. Please make sure to use the filters available - you can filter by date, user, and description (transaction).
This report is similar to a Deposit Receivables Report. You are able to filter reservations by payment type, payment date, transactions associated with the payment, and the reservation stay dates.
This report summarizes all of your taxes and fees posted for the current reporting date, month to date, and year to date.
Please note that this report only shows taxes and fees that were automatically posted by the system and by the user to a folio or house account. The taxes and fees for reservations that have their status changed from Confirmed to Cancelled or No Show will not appear in this report.
For this report to correctly populate information from your reservations, we recommend that you routinely check-in and checkout your reservations. Taxes and fees are normally based on a service that has been rendered.
This report is similar to a Guest Ledger Balance Report. A user or manager is able to filter reservations by arrival or departure date and can see all reservations with an open or outstanding balance due.
This means that the manager can easily check to see which guests have already paid and which guests have a large outstanding balance. Some properties might approach a guest who has a large outstanding balance and requests that they clear their current balance or provide additional collateral (usually increasing a credit card block or cash deposit).
A common use for this report is to monitor guest spending and to prevent a guest from accumulating a balance that is too high and that they might not be able to make payment for on departure.
This report is generated when you close the Cash Drawer. You are able to check all cash transactions (payments and refunds) made to the drawer.
Some properties have a Safe Drop or Cash Drop - you can use this report to reconcile the cash amount that was removed from the drawer and deposited into the safe or bank.
Some properties might use our Notes function to notify other users of a reservation’s details or payment instructions. You can use the report to filter for reservation or guest notes and you can filter by arrival or departure date and reservation status.
This report is useful for alerting other users of important information or instructions for a particular guest or reservation.
- An example of a reservation note could be: COA 2RB SUP@1000.-/RM/NT which translates to Cash on Arrival 2 PAX room+breakfast superior room at 1000.- per room per night.
- Some hotels would use this report as a Rate Check Report. It would open all In-House reservations and crosscheck the rate with the reservation notes. This can be done by a night auditor or manager before night audit (so that staff would not have to adjust any room rates).
This is a useful and handy report that can quickly show you all payments made by a user.
Please note that you are able to filter by user as well.
This report can be printed out and attached to a user’s Cashier Report at the end of their shift. The report shows a summary of all transactions and payments posted by a user.
This report is similar to a Manager Report or a Trial Balance Report (has aspects of both reports).
You can see the revenue generated for a specific date, month to date, and year to date. The report shows the source of all of your revenue.
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