Best Hotel Accounting Software: What to Check

Short answer

The best hotel accounting software gets revenue from the PMS and tills, purchases from procurement and stock from the stores without anyone re-typing them; reports profit and loss by department (rooms, food, beverage, other); handles VAT and local levies; values stock and posts food and beverage cost; and matches bank and mobile money statements. If your hotel software and your accounting are separate products, check exactly what crosses between them, how and how often.

Why hotels need more than general accounting

A shop sells a product and books a sale. A hotel sells a night that is posted one day, billed another day, maybe to a company that pays in 60 days, with the guest's bar bill on the same folio paid by M-Pesa, while the kitchen consumed stock bought last week. General accounting software can record all of this, but only if someone types it in. Hotel accounting should receive it.

What to check

Area	Look for
Guest ledger	Folio balances for in-house guests, posted nightly from the PMS.
City ledger	Company and agent invoices with terms, statements and ageing.
Departments	Revenue and cost by rooms, food, beverage and other departments.
Cost of sales	Food and beverage cost from stores issues, not just purchases.
Stock	Stock value by store, and count variances in their own account.
Payables	Bills matched to purchase orders and deliveries before payment.
Tax	VAT per room type, meal plan and item; levies shown separately.
Bank and mobile money	Statement import and matching, with fees posted separately.
Reports	P&L, balance sheet, ledger, trial balance, VAT, aged balances.
Audit trail	Locked periods, invoiced lines that can't be edited, logs of who did what.

A word on USALI

The Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI) is the standard layout for hotel financial statements: operated departments (rooms, food and beverage, other), undistributed operating expenses (administration, sales and marketing, maintenance, utilities) and fixed charges. You don't need to adopt it in full, but laying out your chart of accounts and departments along its lines makes your numbers comparable with other hotels and easier for lenders and buyers to read.

If accounting is a separate product

What exactly is sent: totals, or every folio, invoice and payment?
How: an automatic link, a file export or a person typing?
When: live, nightly or monthly?
What happens to corrections made after the export?
Are stock movements and food cost sent, or only sales?

Every manual step is time and a chance for error. That is the case for one hotel back office; read the full comparison in one system vs separate systems.

Test it with one week

Post a week of staysCheck revenue by day and the guest ledger at the end of the week.
Bill a companyRaise the invoice at check-out and see it age.
Buy and use foodReceive a delivery, issue to the kitchen and read food cost.
ReconcileImport a bank or M-Pesa statement and match it.
CloseRun the P&L by department and the VAT report.

How Tivuzo does it

In Tivuzo the PMS, POS, procurement and stores share the accounting database, so every step above posts on its own. Departments are analytic accounts; financial reports include the general ledger, trial balance, aged balances, VAT, profit and loss and balance sheet; bank and M-Pesa statements are imported and matched. Payroll and live bank feeds are not included. See hotel accounting and the month-end checklist.

Hotel accounting software questions

What accounting software do hotels use?

Hotels use either the accounting module of their hotel system or general accounting software linked to their PMS. The more that posts automatically from the PMS, tills and stores, the less month-end work.

Can hotels use general accounting software?

Yes, if someone enters or imports hotel revenue, folios, purchases and stock movements. That is workable for very small properties and costly in time for larger ones.

What is a departmental P&L in a hotel?

A profit and loss split by department (rooms, food, beverage, other), each with its own revenue and direct costs, before overheads.

How should a hotel account for food cost?

Count stores issues to the kitchen as cost of sales, not purchases. See food cost percentage.