Front office management I

Rapid/speedy/Express Checkout

Many hotels have introduced this facility as on extra service for those clients who want to make quick getaway on departure.
The client may be invited to fill out a card giving permission for the hotel to charge the entire accounts to the guest credit card. The card has space for guest signature name, room number and credit card number, or alternative the cashier may take an imprint of an acceptable credit card. Since the cashier has plenty of time, the normal checks regarding floor limit or lost stolen cards can be carried out without the degree of urgency associated with the early morning rush.
When the client leave, they need only to deposit the card in a special box or in key drop and the account is finalized in their absence. The cashier may key in the guests’ credit card nos with the expiry date, mark the transaction guest not present where the signature should be, & send it through the credit card company. The hotel will undertake to send a copy of the bill and the credit voucher to the client.
This facility is even more useful to the guest if the hotel property management system has the ability to display an up to date copy of the guest bill through their computer terminal, broken down into department so that queries can be made instantly. Some systems also allow the guest to request their bags by keying in their room number and the required collection time. This is when logged at the porters desk and stored until the appropriate time. The same facilities can be extended to allow the guest to check out by swiping their own card once they have viewed and agreed the bill. As above, the hotel would undertake to send a copy of bill to the client after departure.

Why Night Audit?

Module IV Night Auditing

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  The front office must regularly review and verify the accuracy and completeness of the guest and the non-guest accounting records.
  
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  The front office audit is a daily review of guest account transactions recorded at the front desk against revenue centre transactions.
  
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  The routine front office audit helps to guarantee the accuracy, reliability, and the thoroughness of front office accounting.
  
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  The front office audit is usually called the night audit because hotels generally perform the same during the late evening hours.