Exam 15: Understanding Billing and Financial Operations in the Hospitality Industry

Commercial hotels cater chiefly to business travelers on the move and that's one reason why the term "transient hotel"is also used for this designation.

Management reporting is the emphasis of night audits done by property management systems; correcting errors was the thrust of the pencil-and-paper night audit.

In setting room rates, the Rule of Thumb focuses on the need to recover costs.

Chargebacks, charges returned to the merchant by the credit-card company, are often never collected simply because no one is assigned the task.

Hotels do not enforce either time very stringently, but when they do, it is the check-out time, not the check-in time, that receives the most attention.

Out-of-order rooms may be sold under limited circumstances provided the guest is forewarned about the condition; usually a reduced rate is given.

Which of the following group members pays the hotel directly for his or her room accommodations? (The others are paid for by the entity)

Bills are presented to guests by:

Economist speak about the "multiplier,"the rate with which tourist dollars spread across a community providing benefits to residents not directly servicing the guests.

Guests who arrive late to claim their reservations (each hotel sets its own definition, but usually after 6:00 PM) are called late charges.

SMERF is the abbreviation used to indicate pet-friendly hotels.

A rule of thumb:

RS (Refused Service) is the floor attendants method of recording a room that was not serviced at the guest's request.

Breakage on IT packages offered by the hotel accrues to the benefit of the guest who bought the package.

Canadian Pacific Railroad holds 67% of a new resort development, and two other entities, a partnership and a corporation, own the balance of this:

Angry guests can be mollified if the employee who caused the problem is disciplined or, in serious enough situations even discharged, in front of the complainer.

Every line on every folio represents an event that always impacts accounts receivable because folios are accounts receivable.

Unlike the economy as a whole, the hotel industry does not go through cycles, which is what keeps it economically vibrant and profitable.

Most city-ledger accounts are not actual, living persons.

How best to balance the price-occupancy mix is a management call because the same total room revenue can be achieved by either higher rates and lower occupancy or lower rates and higher occupancy.