Hotel ERP Consultant, USA

What should leave the PMS after the night audit?

The night audit closes the business day in the PMS. What happens next decides how much manual work your controller does. In many US properties the answer is a printed or PDF audit pack that someone types into accounting, line by line. I replace that with a posting specification: a table that names each PMS transaction code, the department it belongs to, the ledger account it maps to and whether it carries tax.

The specification usually produces one summarized journal per day rather than individual folio lines. It covers room revenue by market segment, food and beverage by outlet, parking, resort or amenity fees where the property charges them, each tax by jurisdiction, payments by card type and cash, advance deposits applied, and transfers from the guest ledger to the city ledger. A balancing check confirms that the journal equals the PMS trial balance for the day before it posts.

The details depend on what your PMS can export. Some offer a standard accounting interface, some an API and some only a scheduled file, and brand-mandated systems may restrict what the property can change. I confirm this with the PMS vendor early and write the integration requirements around it. During testing we run real audit days through the interface and compare the result with what the controller would have posted by hand. The wider design of a hotel back office is on my hotel ERP page.

Occupancy taxes, assessments and the monthly tie-out

A US hotel room night can carry several taxes at once. Depending on location, there may be a state sales or lodging tax, a county or city hotel occupancy tax, and a tourism or improvement district assessment, each with its own return and payee. The PMS calculates them at posting; the ERP has to prove they were remitted correctly.

I design one liability account per tax and per authority, never a single taxes payable line. Each day's journal credits those accounts, and each return or payment debits them, so at month-end every balance should equal what is due for the period. Exemptions add a layer: government travelers, extended-stay guests and some nonprofits may qualify under local rules, and the PMS needs the exemption flag and supporting form recorded so the reduced collection can be explained later. Fees the hotel keeps, such as resort or parking fees, are mapped apart from taxes, because they are revenue rather than money held for an authority.

I do not advise on which taxes apply or at what rate; that comes from your tax advisor and the local authorities. What I deliver is a reconciliation that makes their guidance visible in the ledger, with test cases for a standard stay, an exempt stay, an extended stay and a no-show charge. Broader US tax context sits on the US ERP consultant page.

OTA bookings, travel agents and group deposits

Online travel agencies pay a US hotel in more than one way. Under a merchant arrangement the OTA collects from the guest and pays the hotel a net amount, sometimes through a virtual card charged at checkout. Under an agency arrangement the guest pays the hotel, which later receives a commission invoice. Travel agent bookings bring a third flow, often settled through a commission processing service. When all three land in accounting as unexplained card fees or vendor bills, nobody can say what distribution really costs.

I set up the ERP so commissions are recorded against the source and, where the data allows, the reservation, with accruals for commissions not yet invoiced. Virtual card receipts are matched to the expected net amount, and differences go to a review queue rather than a suspense account.

Groups are the other cash-flow story. Weddings, sports teams and corporate meetings pay deposits well before arrival, sign contracts with attrition clauses and are invoiced after departure on a master folio. I define where each deposit sits until the event, when it transfers to the PMS, what triggers an attrition or cancellation invoice and how the balance moves to the city ledger for collection. Credit limits and direct-bill approvals are recorded in the ERP, and aging is reviewed weekly rather than discovered at month-end. Workshops for these flows follow my process mapping method.

Engineering, storerooms and the payroll journal

The chief engineer at a US property usually manages a long list of recurring work: guest room HVAC units, boilers and water heaters, pools and spas, elevators, fire alarm and sprinkler inspections, kitchen hoods and laundry equipment. Some of it is required by local codes or insurers, and a missed inspection can be expensive. Yet the schedule often lives in a binder or a separate app with no link to purchasing or cost.

I design preventive maintenance in the ERP or a connected tool: an asset register by room and plant area, recurring work orders, contractor visits with certificates attached, and parts drawn from the engineering storeroom. Out-of-order rooms are still flagged in the PMS by the front office; the ERP records what was done and what it cost.

Storerooms need the same discipline. Housekeeping amenities and linen, sundry shop items and minibar stock are purchased against par levels, received against purchase orders and issued to departments, with minibar consumption posted from the PMS and replenishment checked against it. Payroll usually stays with a payroll provider or PEO because of tipped wages, overtime rules and benefits administration. The ERP receives a journal by department, so labor cost per occupied room is visible next to revenue. I keep that boundary explicit in the requirements so nobody expects the ERP to run payroll it was never set up for.

Choosing a platform and moving off QuickBooks remotely

Many independent US hotels start with QuickBooks and the reports built into the PMS. That holds up until the property adds a restaurant with its own POS, a meeting space with group business, or an owner who wants a departmental statement each month. At that point the choice is between a stronger accounting setup with a few connected tools and a fuller ERP.

A typical shortlist for a US property includes Odoo, Zoho, ERPNext and Business Central, and I test each one against your scenarios rather than a feature list: a full audit day posted from the PMS, an exempt stay, a merchant OTA payout, a wedding deposit and attrition invoice, a storeroom issue to housekeeping and a preventive maintenance order with a contractor invoice. Each implementer demonstrates the same script, and I score the results with you.

Migration is usually modest for a single property: a chart of accounts redesigned by department, open city ledger invoices, vendor balances, fixed assets with their maintenance history where it exists, and storeroom counts on the cutover date. I plan go-live for a quieter period in your calendar and run parallel audit days before the old process is switched off.

All of this is delivered remotely across US time zones, with recorded walkthroughs for the night auditor and engineering team. Portfolio and ownership topics are on the US hospitality page, and the wider market is covered on the US hub.