Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The hotel industry is the only business where the guest enjoy the benefit of
credit facility right from the time he comes to the hotel and where the
business man whose primary objective is to collect revenue when the
transaction is over is deprived of that and gets benefit only on or after the
departure of the guest and that too sometimes after a period of 30-40 days in
normal course. This results in the blocking of money and hence creates a
situation of greater risk and this demands higher investment and hence it is
important that the hotel takes some definite and concrete steps to ensure that
the guest accounts will be settled in full at the agreed time therefore
protecting the hotel from bankruptcy due to bad debts. The hotel should
control the credit of its guest to also insure a healthy cash flow. Cash flow
means the money which moves in and out of the business. The term credit
control refers to the various measures taken by the hotel to ensure that the
guest settle their account in full either themselves or someone else on their
behalf {which may be a credit card company, airline company, corporate
office, a travel agent or person}within a specified period of time.
Various steps are to be taken by different front office personnel at different
stages of the guest cycle that will help in credit control.
Credit control procedures used for different guests at the front desk during
check-in:
- These are then tallied with the record copy the travel agent has sent the
hotel in advance at the time of reservation
- The receptionist will then attach this voucher to the guest registration card
and then sends it to the cashier who will open the folio and mark the
instruction as required on the folio
Hotels must ensure that the guests who are given credit facility from the
hotel are able to pay their bill in full within the scheduled period of time and
only then the hotel should fix a house limit. Usually the hotel’s credit policy
allows credit to:
1) Guaranteed payment reservation guests
2) Company guarantee payment guests
3) Credit card guarantee guests
4) Deposit/advance payment reservation guests
CASH CONTROL:
- All cash must be kept under lock and key and under the supervision of
the cashier.
- The cash bank/float given to the cashier is also controlled and a check
is kept on the same
- The cashier should take proper precautions when dealing with foreign
currency
- Whenever the guest pays in cash the cashier has to make a cash receipt
and hand it over to the guest.
- The cash collected everyday should be sent to the bank for deposit.
Cash control is important from the point of view of hotel as credit sales are
usually discouraged.