Home > Execu/Suite Hotel PMS > Procedures Execu/Suite PMS > Night Audit > Night Audit Procedures
Night Audit is a crucial function of any hotel's business day. A good night auditor can find and correct errors, spot trends, and make recommendations.
NIght Audit Setup/Configuration Preliminary Night Audit Tasks Print Arrivals and Departures Print Room Inventory Post Room and Tax Transfer Room Charges to Condo™ Print Charge and Payment Journal Print and Settle Credit Card Batch Making Corrections (Not on the menu but included in your tasks) Print Guest Trial Balance Print Night Audit Recap Reorganize Files Update Advance Deposit Folio Create Gen Ledger/ Direct Bill Postings Print Automated Morning (AM)™ Report Print Daily Report Other Tasks
Parameter Record Settings
This is the night audit section of the Parameter Record setup. These are global settings and once they are set, they should not be changed unless your policy changes. You should not change the settings day to day to accommodate a night auditor's schedule. Interfaces active? (X-yes, Z-no): This should be set to X at all times. During night audit Reorganize Files the systems shuts out certain activity so that files are not open during Reorganize. This setting automatically sets to Z and then resets to X upon completion of Reorganize Files. If Reorganize Files does not complete for some reason, you may see a message, "Night audit reorganize is in progress or has improperly terminated." When you see that message, you will find that the setting has not changed back from Z to X. If you change this setting back to X you will be able to continue. Under no circumstances should you change this setting for any other reason. General ledger/ A/R Update terminal (1-8): This determines the terminal to which general ledger and/or city ledger (direct bill) transactions are sent. This field should contain a single digit, 1 through 8. See the General Ledger/ A/R Update terminal (1-8) section of the Parameter Record instructions to determine which number to insert. Days to keep reservation history: This determines how long cancellations and no-shows are saved in Reservation History. The default is 180 days, but it is up to you. Note that these are not records of guests who have checked in nor for future reservation. Reservation history contains only cancellations and no-shows prior to current date. NOTE: If you "view guest stays" using People/Profile, the cancellations and no-shows will not appear after the number of days you set. Night audit cut-off time (0000:2400): This determines the time by which you should complete night audit for the previous business day and the time after which you should begin night audit for the current business date. See Night Audit FAQ for more information. Exclude comps from room occupancy in stats?: This determines whether or not to exclude comps from occupancy statistics when the statistics files are created during Reorganize Files. For example, if you have ten rooms occupied and one of them is a comp room (having a rate code 6 or 7), do you wish your occupancy to print as 100% or 90%?" Answer Y to exclude comps; answer N not to exclude them.
NOTE: The system considers a folio with rate code 6 or rate code 7 to be a "comp" room, regardless of actual room rate entered for the guest.
NOTE: This setting does not affect financial statistics; this setting is included in the "Print AM Report" options. Days to keep no-show reservations: This determines how long to keep no-show reservations active before sending them into Reservation History where they are no longer active. You may enter 0 (zero) or 1 (one) in this field. Allowing the reservation to remain an extra day is convenient in situations where guests may arrive very late, after "Reorganize Files" has been run or even the next day. For any reservation needing to be kept longer you should change the arrival date within the reservation. This is similar to "Days to hold room for no-shows". Default answer to 'Final room and tax?': This determines the default yes or no answer to the prompt, "Post final room and tax now?" This prompt displays when "Post room and tax" is selected from the night audit menu. Answering Yes to the prompt will post room and tax (plus package or Autopost charges) to all applicable guests and print a report. Answering No to the prompt will print the report without posting. This allows you to make corrections and changes, and then go back in and run "Post room and tax", answering Yes the second time. This field in the parameter record sets the default answer, although the auditor can select the answer preferred. We recommend answering N in this Parameter Record field. That way, if the auditor gets in a hurry or gets distracted and presses Enter too quickly, the room and tax report will print but the charges won't be posted. This is particularly important when the property has a new or inattentive night auditor. Print FINAL Charge and Payment Journal?: If this is set to Y, a FINAL charge and payment journal will print automatically when Reorganize Files has run. This is recommended, particularly if the auditor posts transactions after printing a charge and payment journal but does not reprint the report, making it difficult for accounting to find specific transactions. Days to hold room for no-shows: This is similar to "Days to keep no-show reservations" but in addition to saving the reservation, it will also hold the room. Note that this may cause overbooking if the room has been reserved for another guest. You may enter 0 (zero) or (1). Allowing the room to be held a day is convenient in situations where guests may arrive very late, after Reorganize Files has been run or even the next day. In situations where you need the room held longer, you should change the arrival date for the guest.
Other Settings: Additional features that can be enabled by Execu/Tech include:
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Preliminary Night Audit Tasks
The following tasks are not on the Night Audit menu but are typical of tasks performed by night auditors:
Print Arrivals and Departures
Use this report to verify that expected arrivals have been checked in, and expected departures have been checked out. You should see no names on these reports, meaning arrivals have been checked in and departures have been checked out. The sample below shows both Arrivals and Departures. The report was printed at 1:40 am on 11/17 and printed for arrivals and departures for 11/16 (the previous date) since it is now past midnight. At the date prompt, enter the date you are auditing. Expected Arrivals who have not been checked in will go into Reservation History as no-show reservations during Reorganize Files and will no longer be accessible to check in. You will have to check in the guests as walk-ins or recreate the reservations. Expected Departures not checked out will remain in-house and room and tax charges will continue to post.
Here are the correct procedures to address arrivals and departures showing up on these reports. These are general procedures used by most hotels. If management has provided different procedures then you should use your property's policies.
Arrivals
At night audit you should address expected arrivals in one of the following ways:
Departures
At night audit you address scheduled departures in one of the following ways:
Print Room Inventory
Select Print All Rooms. At the date prompt, enter the date you are auditing.
You will see several additional print options. When the report prints:
This report should go into your audit packet. After you finish the audit, you may print additional room inventory reports if you wish, such as:
If these are for the following day, enter the correct date at the date prompt. Back to top
Post Room and Tax
You will see this prompt:
Preliminary Run
The first time you run this step, you should answer No so that you can verify that the rates, rate codes, taxes, and other charges (package and auto-post charges) are correct. If you answer Yes, and need to make changes, you will have to void the transactions and post them manually.
If you answer No, the report will read "PRELIMINARY RUN" at the top.
Final Run
When you have verified that the information is correct, run this program again, answering Yes to "Post final room and tax now?"
If you answer Yes, this report will read "FINAL RUN" at the top. Make sure the final POST ROOM & TAX report reads "FINAL RUN".
Final Room and Tax already posted Newer versions of Execu/Suite will display the following message if you try to run Post Room and Tax a second time for the business day. Older versions of Execu/Suite might not display the above message. If you are not sure if you already posted room and tax charges, you could (a) look at the top of the report to make sure it reads "FINAL RUN," (b) print a charge journal, or (c) display a folio. The folio below shows room and tax charges for 11/16/14.
Note: Whether you run the program before or after midnight, it will post for 11:55pm for the date you are auditing.
This report should go into your audit packet.
Guests arriving after Night Audit
If a guest checks in after you've done the audit, you'll need to post their room and tax manually.
Go to Post Folio (Post Charges/ Payments). You will see a prompt, "Post room and tax again tonight for this guest?" The two screen shots below show the difference in answering "Yes" and "No". First, understand that room and tax charges should post only once per day. When you manually post room and tax charges, the system needs to know whether or not to post them again at the next audit. The first example below shows what happens when you answer Yes to "Post room and tax again tonight for this guest?"
The circumstance when you would want to answer Yes is if the guest arrived after the audit and will stay another night. You need to post for the current night (that was already posted to the other guests), but you want room and tax to post again for the upcoming night during audit.
Note the *A* next to the description in the comment field. The ref is ADJ. These charges are posting as an adjustment for 11/17/14. When "Post Room and Tax" is run at night audit, room and tax charges will post again for 11/17/14. The following example shows what happens when you answer No to "Post room and tax again tonight for this guest?" The transaction does not post as an adjustment. When "Post room and tax" is run at the next night audit, the report will read "ROOM CHARGE ALREADY POSTED TODAY." Room and tax charges will not post to this guest at night audit. Back to top
Transfer Room Charges to Condo™
This program is only for customers with Execu/Condo. This program will transfer room charges to the Condo module for condominium owner income processing. This program should be run only once per day. If you run this program a second time, the transactions will post a second time! By default, this program is run PRIOR to Reorganize Files but can be reset by Execu/Tech to be run AFTER Reorganize Files. This is sometimes done with the accounting person responsible for condo processing wishes to do this task rather than allow the night auditor to do it. Either way, it should be done only once per day. At the "Continue?" prompt, answer Yes. Answer Yes or No as per your policy. Next you may or may not be prompted to update the condo batch. If you do not update the condo batch at this time, someone will have to update it at a later time. If this is not done, the owner revenue will not post. NOTE: This report will not print right away. It will print after you select "Print Night Audit Recap (Preliminary)". This report should go into your audit packet. See the Condo guide for further instructions on Condo processing. Back to top
Print Charge and Payment Journal
This is one of your most important reports. We will go over it in detail so that you will understand what to look for. Check the boxes for all transactions (adjustments, charges, and payments.)
Employees to print - leave blank to print all.
Check to Print detail
Check "Print credit card batch invoice and acct #'s." You do not need to select any other options at the bottom for this report for audit purposes.
Click OK. Adjustments: Any charge or payment may print on the Adjustment Journal. Adjustments appearing here are created only when the "Adjustment" option is selected in the Post Folio (or Post Charges/Payments) screen. Note that TOTAL CHARGES is the sum of charges plus or minus adjustments. For example, the total amount of RC will be the RC sum on the charge journal plus or minus the sum of RC on the adjustment journal. TOTAL PAYMENTS is the sum of payments plus or minus adjustments. For example, the total amount of VS will be the VS sum on the payment journal plus or minus the VS sum on the adjustment journal.
Cash/Checks: The cash sum on your reports should equal the actual cash on hand less your bank. Note that cash includes all cash receipts including point of sale. You may not have access to the cash received from the restaurant, bar, or shop. If not, check with your manager to find out policy on balancing cash received. This applies to checks, traveler checks, money orders, etc. Credit Cards: The credit card sums on your reports should equal the credit card sums on your credit card batch report (you will print that in the next step). For example, if the payment journal shows $1,400 in Visa transactions, then the batch report should show $1,400 in Visa transactions. If these two reports do not match, then you need to look at the details of each report to determine why they do not match. Then take the appropriate action to fix the problem. If credit card transactions on the batch report do not match the payment journal, then look for OCC or OC* transactions on the payment journal. See below. If a transaction was posted into Execu/Tech (either through credit card processing or by using the OC* code) but is not in the batch, then you can enter the transaction manually into Shift4 or WorldPay. Shift4 or WorldPay can advise you on procedure. Off-Line Credit Cards: A code such as OCC represents a credit card transaction that was posted without actually processing the credit card through Execu/Tech. Someone might use this code when your internet is down and you are unable to process credit cards, and posted the transaction directly on Dollars on the Net (Shift4) at a later time. Also, someone might use this code if a credit card was processed but a network hiccup caused the transaction not to post into Execu/Tech although it is in your credit card batch. If credit card transactions on the batch report do not match the payment journal, then look for OCC or OC* transactions on the payment journal. DB: A Direct Bill payment posts as DB and is used for billable charges. Each DB payment will post to the customer's account in City Ledger (Direct Bill) when "Create City Ledger Postings" is run from the Night Audit menu. DEPU: DEPU should always have a net of zero on the payment journal. This is an internal code that should not be posted manually. If DEPU is not zero you need to look at the transactions to find out why. You should see matching debit and credit transactions. DEPU posts when a guest with an advance deposit is checked in. The system automatically posts a DEPU debit to the Advance Deposit Master Folio and a credit to the guest's folio. (NOTE: You should not post to the Advance Deposit Master folio unless advised by Execu/Tech. You also should not use the DEPU to post at any time unless advised by Execu/Tech. If you do either of those things your records will be out of whack.)
Charges: Room Charges: Room Charges (lodging or room rentals) are coded RC*, with the * representing any character. Room Charge may be simply RC or it may be three or four characters such as RCC or RCNS. All room charges posted during "Post Room and Tax" will post to an RC* code. Those will print N/A in the "EMPL" column. Any RC* postings with an employee ID in the "EMPL" column were posted manually by that person. RC* codes are designated in the Rooms setup . For example, your default may be RC for hotel rooms but your cabin room charges will post as RCC if they are designated to do so in the Rooms setup. All taxable RC* postings will use RT* for their corresponding taxes. For guests with split folios, RC* will post to the primary folio. RCTE is the default code for tax-exempt room charge, and RCNI is the default code for non-inventory rooms rented. Room Taxes: Room taxes must begin with RT such as RT1 or RTM. The tax codes must be assigned in the RC* Charge Codes setup and also in the Tax Codes setup. RT* taxes will automatically apply to RC* charges if so designated in the RC* charge code setup unless the guest is tax exempt or the taxation limit (such as 90 days or six months as determined by your tax authorities) has been reached. For guests with split folios, RT* will post to the primary folio. Note that package taxes may post differently as per the individual package setup. ST* will never post to an RC* charge. Incidental Charges: Any charge that is not RC* or RT* is an incidental charge. ST* will post to taxable incidental charges. RT* will never post to an incidental charge. For guests with split folios, incidental charges and ST* will post to the secondary folio. For guests whose room and room tax charges post to a master folio, incidental charges and taxes will post to the guest folio. Charges can be transferred from one folio to another. Some incidental charges are posted automatically from POS, including food, beverages, retail items, sales taxes, and tips. These will show POS in the "EMPL" column on the charge journal. Others may post automatically from call accounting or movie posting interfaces. Other incidental charges are posted manually. All of these charges should be double-checked against the control records such as POS cashier reports, laundry tickets, etc. Clearing Charges: If you use Execu/Touch POS you will have clearing charges. These are charges posted to the POS master folio when a POS check is closed to a guest room folio or a master folio, with an offsetting entry posted to the guest or master folio. Example: If a POS check totals $100 and is closed to ROOM CHARGE or ACCOUNT CHARGE, a charge code such as REST (Restaurant) will post a credit to the POS master folio and a debit to the guest or master folio. The debit in the guest or master folio is a charge yet to be paid, since the guest did not pay in the restaurant. The charge journal will print both the debit and credit. The sum of each clearing charge must be zero. If it is not, you must investigate and correct the discrepancy. See Making Corrections. Voids: You should not allow prior-day voids, as you cannot "go back in time". A prior-day void will put you out of balance. For each debit void entry you should see a credit void entry and vice versa.
Additional Notes:
Print and Settle Credit Card Batch
Credit card transactions on the payment journal should match those in the credit card batch. If they do not, you should not settle your credit card batch until you make the appropriate corrections. If you must settle your credit card batch anyway, you should flag the discrepancies for management to investigate the following day. NOTE: Some properties have their credit card batches to settle automatically at a designated time. In those instances, the payment journal not match daily the batch report depending on when the batch was settled and when the payment journal was printed and the audit completed. Either way, you should print the batch report. If something is missing from one day's report, make sure to look on the previous or prior day's report. This report should go into your audit packet. Back to top
If any transactions are incorrect, you should correct them before continuing with the audit.
If the credit card transactions on the payment journal do not match your credit card batch report you should find the discrepancy and fix it. Note that if your credit card batch close automatically rather than "on demand" some transactions might be on another day's batch report.
If any transactions are to be voided, you should void them prior to running Reorganize Files. After Reorganize, the postings will be considered "prior day" transactions and cannot be voided. They will have to be adjusted instead.
If the clearing codes such as REST or GIFT do not have zero balances, you should make the appropriate postings. Note that these codes should NEVER be used for posting manually other than to make corrections. For example, if REST is the clearing code for POS, no one should use that code for anything else, even restaurant sales. The appropriate code should be used.
If the payment code DEPU does not have a zero balance you should investigate. One of three things happened:
Make sure that the clearing folios have a zero balance. The easiest way is to print a guest trial balance summary for master folios. Clearing folios include the POS master folios. See also Master Folios.
Reasons a clearing folio would not have a zero balance include:
Note that a "clearing folio" is not the same thing as a "clearing code". The first describes the master folios to which POS items post. The second describes charge or payment codes that should always have a matching credit and debit entry for each transaction. The Gift Card master folio should have a zero balance if you are using Execu/Gift. No one should ever post directly to this folio. Back to top
Print Guest Trial Balance
You will print at least two reports, Detail and Summary. The Detail Trial Balance shows each transaction in each folio for the day. There will be a balance forward and ending balance. This is your printed backup should the computer or server fail during Reorganize files or a file corruption occurs. Should there be a question about transactions within a folio you can find the transaction in this report. If you want to save paper, you can select File > Select Printer > Preview/Print to screen, and then save it as a PDF or TXT file. However, if you do this, remember to change the printer back by going again to File > Select printer >Select Printer. Detail Guest Trial Balance As shown below, click "Print Detail". Enter the date you are auditing. Click "Include zero balance accounts". Select other options such as "Print guest comment in last column" if applicable. Don't select "Print prior day's business" for current date audit. Below is a portion of a Detail Guest Trial Balance report. The bottom of the Guest Trial Balance shows the Ledger Balance as shown below. This is the sum of all folios. This is the figure that should be on your Preliminary Recap. After Reorganize Files is run, this should be the figure on the Final Recap. This should be tomorrow's "previous" or "prior" ledger balance.
Summary Guest Trial Balance You will print the summary guest trial balance to check the following:
Print Night Audit Recap (Preliminary)
There are no prompts or options for this report. The preliminary recap is your last opportunity to make sure the financial figures are correct. The figures you see on this report will print on the Final Recap after Reorganize Files has been run. For Condo properties, the Condo update and batch reports will print at this time. This report should go into your audit packet. Back to top
If you are not sure if everyone has logged out, go to Help > About.
You should see Logged-in workstations: 01. If it does not read 01 (as shown above), then click View Users to see which computers/users are still logged into Execu/Tech. You should be the only user logged in. If you see additional users logged in, you need to log those computers out, contact the users if you do not have access to the computers, or contact your IT manager. Do not contact Execu/Tech. Note: There is a setting in System Maintenance that will automatically log workstations out of Execu/Tech at specified times each day such as 11pm, 1am, etc. If you run Reorganize Files with active Execu/Tech workstations, file corruption or data loss may occur!
If you see an I-O File Status 99 error when you try to run Reorganize, it is because: (a) the program is open on another computer, or (b) it is open in another window on your computer, in which case you will see the duplicate tabs on the menu.
You will not be able to proceed until the additional open window is closed.
Running Reorganize Files
Below is the first screen you will see: Print cancellations and no shows: This report will show all reservations moved into Guest History that were cancellations or no-shows. Print 'GROUP BLOCKS ADJUSTED BY CUT-OFF DATE' report: This report will print the number of rooms blocked, picked up by reservations, and returned to inventory based on the group's current cut-off date. For example, if group ABC blocked 10 DD rooms and 8 were picked up by reservations, the remaining 2 rooms will be released from the group block and will return to available inventory when "Reorganize Files" is run on the group's cut-off date. Print FINAL Charge and Payment Journal: This report will print a final charge and payment journal automatically. This is recommended in the event anything was posted between the time the charge and payment journals were printed from the night audit menu and Reorganize Files was run. This would include items not posted by the auditor, such as phone calls from a call accounting interface, movie charges from an interface, payments received via WebRes, etc. Once you start Reorganize Files, do not access any program in Execu/Tech from any terminal (including the one you are doing the audit on.) No other workstation should be logged in when you start, and none should log in while the program is running. You should run this program only once per day. It should be run in the same time frame each day. All of your auditing should be done prior to running Reorganize Files. If it is your responsibility to back up the Execu/Tech folder on the server, make sure you have done so. Otherwise, answer "No" to the prompt shown below, run the backup, and then start over. If your system has an automatic backup and/or it is not your responsibility to back up the files, then you can answer "Yes". Answering "No" will cause you to exit out of Reorganize Files so that you can back up the files. One more reminder to make sure other workstations are NOT logged in: This is your final opportunity not to continue. Once you answer OK to the prompt shown below, Reorganize Files will begin and you may not exit out of the software or kill the process through the task manager. Since you should not run this program more than once, make sure that your printer is working properly or select a different default printer. If you answer "No" or "Cancel" at any point, Reorganize Files will not continue. You should take care of whatever needs to be done and then start over. As Reorganize Files runs, the screen will display the various steps during the progress. A message will display with the program has finished. Several reports will print. You should review them for accuracy. These reports should go into your audit packet. Back to top
Update Advance Deposit Folio
This program cleans up the Advance Deposit master folio. It matches debits and credits for each reservation. After the reservation has checked in, been cancelled, or was a no-show, the transactions will clear from the advance deposit master folio, so that only deposits for active reservations remain. A report prints when this program is run. There should be no names on this report, as shown below. If there is, see Clearing Adv. Deposits Remaining
The Advance Deposits Remaining for Cancellations & No-Shows report prints automatically when Update Advance Deposit Folio is run.
Note: Remember that this is a program that performs a function, not a simple print command. You should never run this program to see a list of deposits. You can print Guest Deposit Reports or Reservation Status Reports (Deposits required but not received) for that information. Do not run this program at any time other than at night audit, subsequent to Reorganize Files.
This program will:
Nothing will print.
The batches are sent to the terminal assigned in the Parameter Record. Remember to update the General Ledger and Direct Bill (City Ledger) batches daily, or as often as possible.
Error Message
GAGLTRAN.FIL is empty. No General Ledger postings to process.
This error message can appear if: (a) Create General Ledger/ Direct Bill Postings has already been run for the day, or (b) Reorganize Files was not run, and therefore did not create the GAGLTRAN.FIL file.
GAGLTRAN.FIL is the temporary file holding the GL postings after Reorganize Files has been run, and will clear after Create General Ledger/Direct Bill Postings has been run.
Print Automated Morning (AM)™ Report
The Automated Morning Report (AM Report) prints statistics created during Reorganize Files.
The statistics include:
Print Daily Report
The Daily Report is similar to the AM Report. Most managers prefer this report, as it is shorter. The Daily Report includes:
At the date prompt, enter the date you are auditing. A popup will ask you, "Enter deposit amounts now?" At most hotels, the auditor answers "no" since the auditor typically does not know the deposit amount. See the two sample reports below. The first shows the receipts without "Actual deposit" amounts entered. The second shows deposit amounts entered. When you answer "Yes" to "Enter deposit amounts now?" you will be prompted to enter each payment type such as VS. Then you will be prompted for the amount, as shown below. There are two ways to show monies received into city ledger (direct bill) as open item payments: For "cash" received into city ledger, enter A/R as shown. At the prompt, enter the amount: For other types, enter "A/R" followed by the payment type such as VS, as shown below. The Daily Report 'ACTUAL-DEPOSIT' column shows the amount you entered as the deposit amount. The 'CALCULATED' column shows the amounts entered into the system as payment transactions in folios. The Daily Report should go into your audit packet. You may print additional copies for accounting, management, etc. Back to top
Other Tasks
After you have completed the audit, you may do additional tasks such as:
Night Audit FAQ Night Audit Reports Summary Night Audit Procedures User Guide