Hotel owner morning checklist for when you are not on site

Many owners run a hotel from somewhere else: another town, a second business, a government job, or a day spent in traffic. You cannot stand at the front desk every morning. But the hotel still needs your eyes. This hotel owner morning checklist takes about ten minutes, and it is built for a phone.

The idea is simple. You are not looking for everything. You are looking for what is different from normal. A hotel that is run well produces few surprises. When there is one, you want to know the same morning, not at the end of the month.

The checklist

1. Yesterday's money (1 minute)

How much did the hotel take yesterday, and how does it compare with a normal day of the week? Look at rooms, bar, restaurant and other income separately. A bar that normally takes ₦150,000 on a Friday and took ₦90,000 deserves a question.

2. Rooms (1 minute)

How many rooms were occupied? How many are expected today, and how many guests are due to leave? Look for rooms marked occupied that no one is paying for, and rooms empty on a night you expected to be full.

3. Cash (2 minutes)

Did every cashier shift close, and did each cash-up balance? A small shortage once is normal. The same person short three times in a week is a pattern. See a cash-up routine for the end of every shift.

4. Voids and discounts (2 minutes)

How many charges were voided or discounted yesterday, by whom, and for how much? One or two with a reason is normal. A long list from one person is not. Large ones should already be waiting for your approval.

5. Night audit (1 minute)

Did last night's night audit run, and what did it charge? If it did not run, guests who stayed past their check-out date may not have been charged.

6. Stock and the bar (2 minutes)

Is anything running low, or short beyond what was sold? A bottle count that is far off what the sales explain is worth a call. See how to count the bar stock and find what is missing.

7. Anything waiting for you (1 minute)

Approvals, alerts and messages. If there are requests waiting for you, deal with them early, or the front desk will wait on you or find a way around you.

Reading the numbers: three examples

• Money is down, rooms are normal. Guests stayed, but less money came in. Look first at the bar and restaurant, then at discounts and unpaid bills. It may be a quiet bar, or it may be sales not recorded.

• Rooms are down, money is normal. Likely a quiet night with higher-paying guests. Not a worry, unless it repeats.

• A cash-up is short by the same amount twice. That is rarely chance. Check whether a payment is being taken in one way and recorded in another, for example a transfer entered as cash.

None of these proves anything. Each one tells you where to ask a question, and that is the whole job of the morning check.

What to do when something looks wrong

1. Do not accuse. Ask a simple question. "I saw three voids on Tuesday night. Can you tell me about them?" Most of the time there is a reason.

2. Look at the record. The answer should be in the system: who, when, how much, and why.

3. Fix the process, not just the person. If a void was done because the card machine failed, the cure is a rule for when it fails.

4. Write down what you decided. Next time you will remember it.

Make it automatic

You should not have to hunt for these numbers. A daily report that arrives by email each morning, with the money, the rooms and the exceptions in one place, is the easiest way to keep the habit. Xenia sends one, and the owner dashboard shows the same figures on a phone. See what an owner should read every morning for the longer version, and the owner reports page for what the reports contain.

Once a week and once a month

The morning routine catches daily problems. Add two slower habits:

• Weekly: compare the week with the previous one, and read the list of alerts and approvals.

• Monthly: sit with your accountant, look at the figures for the month, and ask about anything that does not make sense.

If you would like to see this on a sample hotel, book a demo.