Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

THE NIGHT AUDIT PROCESS 265Assembling Guest Charges and PaymentsThe various modules in a PMS (food and beverage, call accounting, gift shop, etc.)allow for ease in assembling guest charges and payments. The following is a typical listof point-of-sale departments for which income will be reported:• Restaurant 1 (breakfast)• Restaurant 2 (lunch)• Restaurant 3 (dinner)• Room service 1 (breakfast)• Room service 2 (lunch)• Room service 3 (dinner)• Lounge 1 (lunch)• Lounge 2 (happy hour)• Lounge 3 (dinner)• Lounge 4 (entertainment)• Valet• Telephone• Gift shop• Spa and pool• Parking• MiscellaneousNote how the restaurant, room service, and lounge paperwork is further classified bymeal or function, to facilitate recordkeeping. General managers can review the incomegenerationactivity of each of these departments when they are reported separately.The guest charges option of the night audit module in a property management systemcan sort and total all departmental charges and payments that have been posted to theelectronic folios from the point-of-sale systems that interface with the PMS. These dataare accurate as long as the person entering the charges at the point-of-sale terminal keysthem in accurately.Reconciling Departmental Financial ActivitiesThe departmental totals option of the night audit module in the PMS will report thetotals of sales by department, as shown in Figure 10-2. These totals are compared toposting information received from the point-of-sale system.Another departmental total that must be verified is the cash tendered by guests at thefront office. Hotels vary in their cash-processing policies. Some front offices process restaurantguest checks from cash customers or other departments in the hotel, becausemanagement wants to centralize the cash transactions. In other hotels, this policy wouldbe a great inconvenience because of the distance of the various restaurants, lounges, andTLFeBOOK