The hotel night audit checklist

The night audit is the most important hour in a hotel that nobody sees. Done well, the GM walks in to clean figures and the morning shift starts with an accurate house list. Done badly, mistakes from today become arguments next month.

Here’s the checklist we give night auditors when we set up a hotel. It works with any system, though some steps take seconds in good software and an hour in a bad one.

Before you start

Make sure every outlet has closed its shift. Bars and restaurants should have closed their shifts and handed over their cash. An open shift means sales that haven’t landed yet.

Check for unsettled outlet bills. Any bill still open at the bar or restaurant needs to be settled, charged to a room or carried over deliberately. Don’t leave it floating.

1. Arrivals

• Compare expected arrivals with who actually checked in.
• Guests who didn’t show and didn’t cancel are no-shows. Apply your no-show policy to any deposit and mark the reservation, so the room is released.
• Make sure every walk-in has a complete profile and ID on file.

2. Departures

• Every guest due out today should have checked out, or had their stay extended.
• Anyone still in house past their departure date shows on the overdue list. Find out why before the morning.
• Check that departed guests have no open balance, or that it has gone to the right company in the city ledger.

3. Room status

• Compare the front desk’s occupied rooms with housekeeping’s board.
• A room marked vacant that housekeeping says is occupied (or the other way round) needs checking tonight, not at 10 a.m. when a guest is waiting.
• Rooms out of order should have a reason and an expected return date.

4. Post room charges

This is the heart of the audit.

• Post the night’s room charge to every in-house guest, once.
• Skip frozen accounts deliberately, not by accident.
• Check that complimentary rooms, house use and long-stay rates are charged correctly.

In Biodux PMS this is one command that runs after your billing time. It won’t charge any guest twice for the same night, and it skips frozen accounts.

5. Check the money

• Total cash, transfers and card payments by cashier and by department.
• Compare with what each cashier handed over at shift close.
• Look at the deleted transactions, deposits, refunds and discounts for the day. Anything unusual gets a note for the morning.

6. Housekeeping reset

• Occupied rooms should be marked dirty for the morning, so housekeeping starts from the right list. Biodux does this as part of the night audit.

7. Reports for the morning

Print or export:

• Night Auditor’s Report: rooms available and occupied by room type, revenue, average rate and RevPAR.
• Manager’s Flash Report: occupancy, ADR, RevPAR and revenue by department for today, month to date and year to date.
• House list and expected arrivals for the morning shift.
• Cash log by cashier and department.

If you don’t know what ADR and RevPAR mean, our guide to ADR, RevPAR and occupancy explains them with examples.

8. Hand over

Leave a short note for the duty manager: anything unusual, any guest still overdue, any cash difference and what you did about it. A two-line note saves a 20-minute investigation.

Printable version

Step	Done
All outlet shifts closed	☐
Open outlet bills settled or charged to rooms	☐
No-shows marked, deposits handled	☐
Departures checked, balances cleared or moved to city ledger	☐
Room status agrees with housekeeping	☐
Room charges posted once to every in-house guest	☐
Cash by cashier and department agreed	☐
Deleted transactions and discounts reviewed	☐
Reports printed or exported	☐
Handover note written	☐

Want to see how quick this can be? Book a demo and ask us to run a night audit on screen.