ERP Consultant for Hospitality

How a hospitality group's back office fits together

At group level, the process map is less about a single guest or a single table and more about how money, supplies and information move between business units. The flows I usually map are:

• Revenue: PMS, POS, event and booking systems -> daily revenue summaries by unit and outlet -> ERP ledgers per entity -> consolidated revenue by segment.
• Procurement: group supplier agreements -> unit requisitions -> purchase orders under group terms -> receipt at unit or central warehouse -> invoice matching.
• Internal supply: commissary or central warehouse -> internal orders from units -> transfer at agreed price -> cost recognized in the receiving unit.
• Shared services: central finance, HR, marketing and IT costs -> allocation or recharge to units -> intercompany settlement.
• People: staff across units, sometimes shared -> payroll per entity -> labor cost by unit and department.
• Reporting: unit P&L -> brand and segment view -> owner, lender and board reporting.

Once this map exists, many of the group's frustrations become easy to locate: a unit that posts revenue differently, a recharge that nobody agreed, a supplier who invoices units directly at different prices. The map is the starting point of my business process consulting work with hospitality groups.

Common pain points across hospitality portfolios

Hospitality groups that grew through openings or acquisitions often share these problems:

• Different systems in every unit: each hotel or restaurant chose its own PMS, POS and accounting tool, so data arrives in different formats.
• Slow consolidation: month-end depends on collecting spreadsheets, mapping accounts by hand and reconciling intercompany balances that never match.
• Weak procurement leverage: units buy the same items from different suppliers at different prices, and the group cannot see total spend.
• Commissary cost confusion: the central kitchen or bakery supplies units without consistent transfer prices, so neither its own result nor the units' food cost is reliable.
• Owner reporting is manual: owners and management companies need different views, and each report is rebuilt by hand.
• New openings take too long to set up: there is no template for systems, accounts and processes.

These issues are about structure and standards more than features. A new ERP without a group template simply reproduces the inconsistency in a new system. That is why I usually begin with the structure and integration design, then select a platform through an independent ERP evaluation.

Recommended ERP modules for a hospitality group

At group level the ERP is mostly a finance, procurement and supply chain platform. The modules that matter most are:

Unit-level detail lives elsewhere: room revenue, rates and guest data in the PMS, covers and checks in the POS. I cover how a hotel connects its PMS in ERP for hotels, and outlet-level food cost and central kitchen detail in ERP for restaurants.

Integration strategy: standardize, connect or replace

The hardest decision in a hospitality group ERP project is not the ERP itself but the systems around it. For each operational system I recommend one of three paths:

• Standardize: the group adopts one PMS or one POS across similar units. Integration is built once and reused, and reporting becomes consistent. This usually pays off for brands with several similar units.
• Connect: a unit keeps its system because it fits a different business model, such as a venue or catering arm. The integration maps its data to the group standard.
• Replace with ERP functions: occasionally a small system, for example a standalone purchasing tool, is simpler to retire than to integrate.

For every connected system I define the summary level posted to the ERP (daily revenue by unit, outlet and segment is often enough), the master data owner, the mapping to the group chart of accounts and the exception process. An integration middleware or scheduled import may be the right choice where many systems are involved. This design forms the core of the ERP integration scope and prevents the common outcome where finance still rekeys data from five systems after go-live.

Hospitality group ERP implementation checklist

Before rolling the ERP across a portfolio, I confirm that the group has:

1. An agreed entity, brand, property and outlet structure in the chart of accounts and analytics.
2. A systems landscape decision for every unit: standardize, connect or replace.
3. Integration specifications for each PMS, POS and booking or event system.
4. Group procurement rules, approved suppliers and price agreements loaded centrally.
5. Transfer pricing and recharge rules for commissary supply and shared services.
6. Intercompany processes that settle and eliminate cleanly at month-end.
7. Opening balances, fixed asset registers and open purchase orders per entity.
8. A pilot business unit and a rollout sequence based on readiness, not just size.
9. Group and owner reporting designed and tested with real data before the last unit goes live.

A phased rollout lets the group learn from the first units and refine the template. It also keeps new openings simple: the next hotel or restaurant gets the same accounts, integrations and processes on day one. Where the group lacks internal ERP leadership during this phase, a fractional ERP lead can provide continuity across the rollout.