The dreaded credit card reconciliation need not be such a big deal if we bite-size it. That is what this piece is all about: How and why you should balance your hotel credit cards daily. That is right – every day – and I mean you need to know the cards are balanced to three separate and connected points.
This is not the case for all GMs, but it is definitely the case for many. The reason is simple: the GM has not been given any formal accounting training and they are intimidated by the numbers and their lack of knowledge. Because of this they tend to stay out of the way, so to speak, when it comes to digging into what is really going on with the numbers and the accounting department.
The word 'expenses' needs to be defined and refined for this article. Expense broadly refers to any cost a business has including payroll, goods and services and cost of goods, 'the cost required for something; the money spent on something.' That is its definition according to Oxford Dictionaries.
In this piece, I am going to explain a strategy you can use to get your team to produce a great monthly commentary. Not only will you have the information you need to explain to the owner and brand what is going on, you will have a process to follow each month for continuous improvement in your hotel. That is the name of the game with commentaries and it is what this piece is all about.
Preparing a five-year financial plan for your hotel might sound daunting, but it is all in your head. Let’s lay it out. You are either dreaming about a business that does not exist yet and you need a plan, or you are up and running and you want to look into the future and pave a path forward. Either way you need to same tools.
In this piece I am going to share one of the best revenue-generating and guest-pleasing ideas that my clients have come up with. It’s something that just about any hotel can do and it costs nothing to create. I talk about this idea and several others in my live work, but it was a client who experienced the opposite that prompts me to write this. More on that at the end.
If you do not have all three of these metrics on your radar screen at the same time, you are flying the profit picture in your food operation with at least one eye closed. All three metrics must work together at the same time to get the best view of the potential profitability of your food sales. Let’s explore these three different measurements and see what we find.
Here’s the scenario. You have finally got a full-blown accounting policy manual in place. It has taken several months and a lot of work, but it’s done. Something to be proud of indeed! But wait a minute, it seems like no one knows about these policies and whenever you speak about such and such internal control not being followed, you get the deer in the headlights look.
What brands don’t know is, they can create great financial bench strength in their hotels and their owners will pay 100% of the cost. Brands also don’t know that they can create this bench strength with resources that are readily available. Lastly, brands don’t know that their non-financial managers are literally dying to get these financial skills and abilities now and they want to apply them.
Having a financial system that produces regularly scheduled information about your hotel and the direction it is going is paramount to your survival. Without this regular reporting, you are really flying by the seat of your pants. But what exactly do you need to be looking at and who produces it and when?