A hotel night auditor has one of the most important roles within a modern hotel, handling many of the critical end-of-day tasks, including both front desk and accounting duties. In this article, you can examine the role technology is playing in assisting night auditors, while also learning about some of the future opportunities and challenges.
Table of Contents:
- What is the Hotel Industry?
- What is a Hotel Night Auditor?
- Hotel Night Auditor as Part of the Hotel Front Office
- Hotel Night Auditor Working Process
- Significance of Technology in the Hotel Industry
- Hotel Technology Impacting the Role of Hotel Night Auditor
- 3 Benefits of Technology for Hotel Night Auditors
- Future Technological Challenges & Opportunities for Hotel Night Auditors
- Understanding Hotel Technology
- Essential Hotel Management Software
- The Most Important Hotel Departments
What is the Hotel Industry?
The hotel industry forms a part of the wider hospitality industry and can be described as a service industry focused on the provision of guest accommodation. However, specifically, the hotel industry refers to the provision of overnight stays and related services to paying customers on a short-term basis.
This means that the hotel industry does not include any type of accommodation that provides more permanent stays. However, it does include types of accommodation that are not necessarily hotels, with examples including motels, B&Bs, and hostels. Therefore, a hotel night auditor could technically work in one of these businesses.
In the “Hotel Industry: Everything You Need to Know About Hotels!” article, you can take a much closer look at what the industry is, how hotel meaning is defined, the different types of property in the industry, and more.
What is a Hotel Night Auditor?
A hotel night auditor is employed to work night shifts at a hotel and will take on some of the key responsibilities that the hotel front desk and the accounting department would typically handle. The presence of a night auditor in a hotel business helps to avoid situations where the front desk has to be closed overnight.
While a key part of the role involves attending to guest needs during the night, a night auditor is also responsible for carrying out an audit of the guest ledger. This can include reconciling all accounts, processing guest payments, gathering relevant paperwork, and ensuring that all financial information is accurate and up-to-date.
In the “Night Auditor Duties & Responsibilities in Hotel: Everything to Know” article, you will be able to learn more about these accounting and front desk responsibilities and dive deeper into the concept of a night audit.
Video: Hotel Night Auditor Job Description
Hotel Night Auditor as Part of the Hotel Front Office
As previously mentioned, one of the major responsibilities of a hotel night auditor is to take on the core front desk duties during the overnight period. This ensures that guests still have access to front desk assistance and support if they need it during times when the more familiar front office employees are off duty.
In this sense, a hotel night auditor can be regarded as part of the hotel front office. This is a crucial department within modern hotels, serving as the face of the business. It will often include reception staff, concierge staff, revenue managers, some of those with housekeeping duties, and some employees tasked with providing other guest services.
In the “Hotel Front Office: Learn About Tasks, Responsibilities, Roles & More” article, you can read much more about the hotel front office, how it is defined, the main job roles, and the major tasks being performed.
Hotel Night Auditor Working Process
The hotel night auditor role originated from a time before the use of modern hotel technology, meaning it was essential to manually carry out an audit of the guest ledger and ensure the accuracy of all financial information. This was typically done during the night because it made sense to audit at the end of the working day.
On top of this, auditing at night was a way to reduce the chances of interruptions. Today, the role remains crucial, but technological innovations, such as POS systems, or finance and hotel budget software have greatly aided parts of it. Although much of a hotel’s financial data is subject to automation, audits are still valuable.
In particular, it is important for a hotel night auditor to compare the financial transactions that the front desk has recorded over the course of a day with the actual transactions that have occurred. It is also important to check and confirm the accuracy of hotel financing reports and account statements.
Significance of Technology in the Hotel Industry
Over recent years, the hotel industry has been completely transformed by the emergence of some key technology. Examples of hotel technology that has had a transformational impact on the industry at large include online booking platforms, mobile apps, contactless payments, the Internet of Things, cloud technology, and automation tools.
For a hotel night auditor, that final category may be the most significant of all. Modern software solutions allow many accounting tasks to be carried out automatically, rather than through manual calculations. Not only does this help to save time and effort, but it can also reduce problems associated with human error.
Ultimately, this technology has helped to streamline the role of the typical hotel night auditor. It has made it easier to access the most up-to-date information and has allowed digital records to be used in place of paper-based methods.
Hotel Technology Impacting the Role of Hotel Night Auditor
In the sections that follow, you can learn about two important examples of hotel technology. In both cases, these tools are helping to shape the modern role of a hotel night auditor.
Property Management System (PMS)
A property management system, or PMS for short, is an application that can be used for a wide range of hotel management tasks. Among these are managing reservations, handling guest check-ins and check-outs, assigning rooms to guests, checking current occupancy, billing customers, and creating reports.
Given the fact that a hotel night auditor will be responsible for dealing with guests during a typical night shift, all of these features are potentially valuable. Using a PMS, a night auditor can quickly and easily access the information they need, carry out key administrative tasks, and respond to guests’ needs.
Video: Property Management Software Explanation (PMS) Video | SAVE Your Hotel!
Accounting & Financial Software
While hotel night auditors must respond to the needs of guests, a major part of the role still involves carrying out a nightly audit. Accounting and financial software can, therefore, be a useful tool, helping to automate much of the collection of data, as well as some of the calculations and data analysis.
In particular, using accounting and financial software solutions will allow a hotel night auditor to keep tabs on revenue and expenditure. It will also allow the auditor to break down revenue so that the transactions that have occurred on any given day are all accounted for. Many of these solutions also assist with financial reporting.
3 Benefits of Technology for Hotel Night Auditors
Next, it is worth taking some time to explore the key benefits associated with investing in technology for hotel night auditors to use. In particular, there are three major benefits that any hotel owner should be aware of.
1. Automation & Streamlining of Tasks
It is impossible to explore the benefits of modern technology for a hotel night auditor without touching upon automation. A hotel PMS and relevant financial software will allow an auditor to automatically gather relevant data, perform complex calculations quickly, and create professional reports that can be used to verify financial information.
The software also allows auditors to streamline many of the tasks that could otherwise take up a lot of time. This includes everything from checking the accuracy of financial reports, to allocating rooms to guests that arrive late. Saving time can be especially important in busy hotels, where auditors may be rushed off their feet.
2. Enhanced Efficiency & Accuracy
Tools like accounting software, financial software, or a property management system can greatly improve the efficiency with which a hotel night auditor can carry out their core tasks. This then frees up more time to focus on other tasks, including contending with the varying needs of the hotel guests.
It is also important to stress that software can deliver greater accuracy than would be possible when relying on the hotel night auditor alone. This is because calculations, financial reports, and various front desk activities are prone to human error. The software can reduce these errors and improve the overall quality of various hotel operations.
3. Improvements to the Guest Experience
The introduction of modern software and other technological innovations can also help to improve the guest experience. For example, modern tools allow for much more seamless check-in and check-out experiences. A hotel night auditor can now allocate a room, provide a working key card, and process payment information quickly.
Hotel apps and communication tools provide new ways for guests to reach a hotel night auditor and make requests, ask questions, or alert them to a situation. The improved accuracy and efficiency associated with modern software also provide a knock-on effect on the guest experience, reducing frustrating errors or delays.
Future Technological Challenges & Opportunities for Hotel Night Auditors
The use of technology is changing the role of the hotel night auditor, and this provides both opportunities and challenges. In the sections below, you can dive deeper into two major opportunities and two key challenges.
Opportunity – Data Analysis
Modern hotels can collect a lot of customer data, and this data collection begins before the guest arrives at the hotel. Much of this data is used for hotel marketing, but it also provides scope for the hotel night auditor role to take on a data analytics component, and auditors can also put any findings to good use.
For instance, a night auditor could use customer data to respond more intelligently to overnight guest requests or to personalize guest check-ins or check-outs. Data analysis techniques can also be used to identify financial trends, learn valuable lessons, and make recommendations about how to improve aspects of the hotel.
Challenge – Cyber Security
While technological innovations have unquestionably made life easier across almost all hotel departments, including for hotel night auditors, this technology does present a challenge when it comes to maintaining security. This is especially important when dealing with customer data and financial data, which are obvious targets.
At times, responsibility for maintaining cyber security may fall to the hotel night auditor. For hotel managers, this means anyone tasked with night auditing will need to go through some level of cyber security training. It also requires investment in areas like data storage, cyber security software, and optimizing wider hotel security protocols.
Opportunity – Upskilling
The inclusion of new technology within a hotel provides opportunities for a hotel to upskill hotel night auditors. In addition to the aforementioned cyber security training, this may include things like teaching auditors how to use a hotel PMS, or teaching them some more advanced data analytics techniques.
There is a strong customer service component to the hotel night auditor role, while it may also be possible to upskill auditors with skills related to housekeeping or hotel maintenance. This is beneficial for both the employee and the hotel as a whole, providing possible new career branches, while adding to the value an auditor provides.
Challenge – Job Security
Finally, although the numerous benefits technology can offer a hotel night auditor, it is important to understand that it also potentially poses a threat to job security. Many of the tasks that a hotel night auditor has traditionally been responsible for are now able to be carried out quicker, more accurately, and automatically via software.
The best night auditors are rising to this challenge, acquiring new skills to show their value and learning to work alongside automation tools. However, hotels may need to take steps to reassure hotel night auditors about job security, or to provide the kind of training that will help them to provide added value for the hotel.
Understanding Hotel Technology
The role of the hotel night auditor is far from the only job within hotels that is being altered by new technology. Hotels must constantly keep pace with new tools, new software, new ideas, and new approaches. This can include everything from understanding the ways artificial intelligence can be deployed, to keeping up with the latest Wi-Fi technology.
In the “Hotel Technology Trends: 16 Upcoming Innovations You Must Know” article, you will be able to read about 16 of the most important technology trends, from virtual reality to hotel robotics and everything in between.
Essential Hotel Management Software
At times, a hotel night auditor may need to use hotel management software, like a property management system. With that being said, hotel management solutions extend much further and include revenue management systems, distribution channel managers and reputation management solutions.
In the “Hotel Management Software Solutions Every Hotel Needs” article, you can fully explore the different hotel management software options available and gain an appreciation for why they are so valuable.
The Most Important Hotel Departments
In some ways, the role of hotel night auditor can be seen to straddle different hotel departments, including the finance department and the front office. Regardless of how it is categorized, all of the different departments within a hotel need to have a clear understanding of their responsibilities and need to be aligned in their goals.
In the “Hotel Departments: Learn About All the Sections of a Hotel” article, you can explore the main departments within a hotel and understand where different job roles fit into the bigger picture in your property.
Hotel Night Auditor FAQs
The role of a hotel night auditor has unquestionably changed with the emergence of new technology, like PMS systems and automation tools. While these innovations do provide some challenges, they also offer great opportunities to boost productivity and accuracy, while making the life of an auditor much easier.
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Revfine.com is a knowledge platform for the hospitality & travel industry. Professionals use our insights, strategies and actionable tips to get inspired, optimise revenue, innovate processes and improve customer experience. You can find all hotel & hospitality tips in the categories Revenue Management, Marketing & Distribution, Hotel Operations, Staffing & Career, Technology and Software.This article is written by:
Hi, I am Martijn Barten, founder of Revfine.com. With 20 years of experience in the hospitality industry, I specialize in optimizing revenue by combining revenue management with marketing strategies. I have successfully developed, implemented, and managed revenue management and marketing strategies for individual properties and multi-property portfolios.
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