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Hotel Accounting

Books that post themselves as the property operates. Room revenue, restaurant bills, banquet functions, purchases, taxes and settlements all flow into receivables, payables, the city ledger and a departmental P&L — without anybody re-typing a day's transactions.

Posts from operationsCity ledger with ageingDepartmental P&LTally add-on available
AutomaticPostings from operations
LiveTrial balance and P&L
By departmentRooms, F&B, banquets
ExportLedgers to your CA

Why this matters

Your books describe a month that ended three weeks ago

The usual arrangement is that the hotel runs on one system and the accounts live in another, joined by somebody who spends the first fortnight of every month typing last month into a package. By the time the P&L exists, the month it describes is over and nothing can be done about it.

Worse, the two never quite agree. The PMS says one revenue figure, the books say another, and the difference is investigated once a year by somebody who was not there.

  • A fortnight of re-keying every single month
  • PMS revenue and book revenue that do not tally
  • Company outstanding nobody is actively chasing
  • No idea whether F&B made money or lost it
Front desk, restaurant, banquet and purchase transactions posting automatically into the hotel's books

Where entries come from

Every posting starts as something that actually happened

Nobody keys a journal for a check-out. The operation creates the entry, which is why the books and the property can never disagree.

Check-out posts revenue

Room rent, taxes and extras land in the right heads as the folio settles.

Restaurant bills post F&B

Every settled bill from the POS, split by outlet, with the correct tax slab.

Functions post banquet income

Menu, inclusions and advances from banquet management, on the same books.

GRNs create payables

A goods receipt in stores becomes the vendor liability and the purchase entry.

Night audit closes the day

Rent and taxes posted for every occupied room, date rolled, day book produced.

Manual journals still exist

For depreciation, provisions and adjustments — the entries that genuinely need judgement.

Receivables

The city ledger is where hotel money quietly goes missing

Companies, travel agents and OTAs are billed rather than paying at checkout. That outstanding is real money, it is often sizeable, and in most properties nobody owns it — until somebody notices a corporate account has not paid since March.

  • Outstanding by account, with proper ageing buckets
  • Credit limits that flag before a booking is confirmed
  • Part-payments and advances adjusted against bills
  • One ledger per company across every property in a group

Across a group →

City ledger · ageing31 Aug
Infotech Solutions Pvt LtdCorporate · 0–30 days · limit ₹3,00,000
₹1,84,200
Skyline TravelsAgent · 31–60 days
₹92,400
Booking.comOTA · 0–30 days · payout cycle
₹2,41,800
Meridian EventsBanquet client · 61–90 days · overdue
₹3,10,000
Total outstanding4 accounts
₹8,28,400

The rest of the ledger

What a hotel's books have to do

Payables & vendor ageing

Built from goods receipts, not invoices typed later. Part-payments and advances adjusted properly.

Cash, card and bank reconciliation

Counted by mode at every shift change, with differences surfacing the same day.

Shift handover

Opening and closing position by user, so a shortfall has a name and a time attached to it.

GST, output and input

Slab-wise on tariff, F&B and functions, input credit from purchases, filing-ready summaries.

Trial balance & balance sheet

From live data, at any moment — not assembled once a quarter from a stack of files.

Departmental P&L

Rooms against F&B against banquets, each with its own revenue and direct cost.

Expense heads & cost centres

Power, salaries, maintenance and supplies attributed to the department that consumed them.

Budget against actual

What you planned to spend on each head this month against what you have already spent.

Tally integration (add-on)

Ledgers, vouchers and summaries sent to Tally for your CA, so nobody re-enters a month by hand. ₹5,000 + 18% GST a year.

Works with your accountant

Tally Prime integration, as an add-on

Ledgers, vouchers and summaries go to your CA in the format they already import — no month of re-keying. Available on every plan for ₹5,000 + 18% GST a year.

  • Tally PrimeAccounting

Run your own numbers

What does re-keying your own data cost you?

Not the accountant's fee — the hours your own people spend copying figures out of one system and into another, every single month, forever.

Cost of keeping two systems in step, a year

₹3,16,800

spent producing figures the system already holds.


Hours a month
44 hours
Cost a month
₹26,400
Hours a year
528 hours
How old your P&L is when you see it
14 days

The money is the smaller half. A P&L you can look at on the first of the month changes what you do in the month that follows; one that arrives on the fifteenth is a history lesson.

For the owner

Six questions that should not take a week to answer

Are we profitable?Departmental P&L to date, not last quarter's.
Who owes us?City ledger with ageing, by account.
What do we owe?Payables by vendor and due date.
Does F&B make money?Revenue against real cost of sales.
Does the cash tally?Shift-wise, by payment mode.
Is GST ready?Output, input and filing summaries.

Worth saying plainly

Three things to be realistic about

This does not replace your CA

Statutory filing, tax planning and audit are professional work and should stay with a professional. What changes is that your CA receives clean, tallied data instead of a shoebox and a WhatsApp thread.

The chart of accounts is yours

We set up a hotel-standard structure, but how you want departments, heads and cost centres arranged is an accounting decision. Spend an hour on it with your CA at the start, not a year later.

Garbage in still applies

If your team settles bills to the wrong payment mode or books everything on a typed special rate, the P&L will faithfully report that. Automatic posting removes typing, not judgement.

Frequently asked questions

Do I still need a separate accounting package?

For most single properties, no — revenue, purchases, taxes and settlements all post from operations, giving you a trial balance, departmental P&L and balance sheet from live data. Complex group structures often keep a statutory package and export to it.

Does my accountant have to make journal entries?

Not for day-to-day operations. A check-out posts revenue and tax, a GRN creates the vendor liability, a settlement clears the receivable. Manual journals remain for depreciation, provisions and adjustments.

What is the city ledger?

What companies, travel agents and OTAs owe you because they are billed rather than paying at checkout — shown by account with ageing, so overdue is visible now rather than at year end.

How is cash reconciled at shift change?

Each shift opens and closes with a counted position by payment mode, and the handover records who passed what to whom. Differences appear the same day.

Does it handle GST properly?

Yes — slab-wise output tax on tariff, F&B and functions, input credit from purchases, SAC codes and the CGST/SGST or IGST split by state of supply, with filing-ready summaries.

Can I see profitability by department?

Yes. Rooms, F&B, banquets and other income each carry their own revenue and direct cost, so you can see which part of the property is actually earning.

Does it work with Tally?

Yes, through the Tally integration add-on, available on every plan for ₹5,000 + 18% GST a year. Ledgers, vouchers and summaries export for your CA to import, so you keep the workflow they are used to without re-entering a month.

How are vendor payments tracked?

Payables build from goods receipts rather than invoices typed later, with ageing by vendor, part-payments recorded and advances adjusted.

What does the night audit contribute?

It closes the day — posting rent and taxes for every occupied room, rolling the date and producing the day book. That is what makes month-end a summary rather than a reconstruction.

Can I see figures across a group?

Yes. Each property keeps its own books and GSTIN where it has one, with consolidated figures across the group. See multi-property.

See your own P&L build itself

Thirty minutes. We check a guest out, settle a restaurant bill, receive a purchase against a vendor and run a night audit — then open the trial balance and the departmental P&L so you can see exactly where each entry landed.