The absentee hotel owner's weekly checklist: ten numbers to ask your GM for
You cannot be at the desk at 2 am. You can, once a week, ask for ten numbers. If they are slow to arrive, that is the first finding.
Why numbers, not stories
A GM will always have a story: the guest called, the card declined, the crew rate was agreed months ago. Stories are unfalsifiable. Numbers are not. The list below is designed so that every item comes straight from the night audit pack, and so that each one, over time, shows a trend.
The ten numbers
- Nights read. Of seven, how many packs arrived and balanced? Anything under seven is a question on its own.
- Guaranteed no-shows: listed vs charged. "3 of 5" is a fact. "We charge them" is not.
- Reservations cancelled after their arrival date. Count, and total rate.
- Adjustments on departed folios. Count, total, how many with an approval.
- Adjustments by login. Who posted how many. One name carrying most of them is the pattern.
- Rate overrides below the rate plan. Count, total variance, by login.
- Drawer over/short by shift. Seven values. If all seven are exactly zero, ask how the drawer is counted.
- Refunds. Count, total, and whether any went to a different card than the charge.
- Direct-bill accounts over 60 days. Count and balance — and whether any of them checked in a new guest this week.
- Pack printed-by time. Seven timestamps. Anything after 6 am means the audit is running late.
How to read the answers
Do not react to any single week. Keep the ten numbers in a spreadsheet — one row per week — and look at the trend after a month. The questions that matter are: which number is moving, and which login is behind it. A no-show charge rate that drifts from 90% to 60% over a quarter with the same rule in place is not a rule problem; it is a people problem, and the login column tells you which person.
Two or more hotels
Put the same ten numbers for each property side by side. Same brand, same PMS, same house rules — and one property charges 95% of its no-shows while another charges 60%. The PMS at either property has no idea the other exists. You are the only person who can see that comparison, and it is the most useful page you will ever look at.
What this does not replace
This is not a P&L, a bank reconciliation, or a substitute for your accountant. It is the layer underneath them: the daily proof that the numbers reaching your books came from a desk that followed the rules. Get this right and month-end stops being an investigation.
See what your desk did last night
Forward one night's audit pack to packs@watchmydesk.com. We reply with what we would have told you that morning — no account, no card, no call.
Send one night's pack