Once the Night Audit functionality is enabled on your ThinkReservations account, you will be able to run Night Audit by following these steps:
Navigate to Reports > Night Audit (in the "Accounting" section).
Enter the date range you want to include in the Night Audit.
The date range must start the date following the last Night Audit. No gaps in the sequence of dates are permitted.
The date range can end any day before the current date.
You may perform a Night Audit for one day, a week, a month, or for any other period that you wish if the period conforms with the requirements in a. and b. above.
Click on Generate to update the reports in Steps 1 through 4.
Step 1: Reservations That Should Be Checked Out. A report of reservations where the guest was scheduled (per check-out date) to check out during the date range that is being audited.
Gives the Night Auditor a chance to verify that the guests departed on their scheduled departure date.
If the Night Auditor finds a problem, stop the audit. Fix the reservation to extend it to the proper check-out date. Re-load the Night Audit report.
Risk: If a guest extends their stay and the system is not updated to reflect their extended stay before the Night Audit is finalized, you will not be able to add the extended night to the system.
Example: The date being audited is July 12. Per the system, Guest A is scheduled to check out on July 12. Instead of checking out, Guest A extends their stay to check out on July 13. The front desk person forgets to update the system. After the audit is done, July 12 will be "frozen" to any additions, changes, and deletions. The night of July 12 will not be able to be added as a booked night in ThinkReservations.
Step: 2: Reservations That Should Be Paid In Full. A report of reservations where the guest was scheduled to check out during the date range that is being audited, AND the reservations have an outstanding balance.
Gives the Night Auditor a chance to review departed reservations with outstanding balances.
The property should have clear procedures for the Night Auditor to follow in cases where there is an outstanding balance on a reservation that has departed.
The Night Auditor has the chance to pause the Night Audit and process payment on any departed reservations with balances due from the guest IF there is a form of payment retained for doing so.
There may be other instances arise where there is no form of payment retained, or the balance may be owed by the property to the guest.
In any case, the Night Audit can proceed without causing a problem. Payment can be processed on any date following to satisfy the balance outstanding. Outstanding balances on departed reservations will be included in the Guest Ledger report.
Step 3: Reconcile Payments. A report of the payments received for the date range being audited, listed in total by Payment Type.
Gives the Night Auditor a chance to review and reconcile the payments received for the audited period.
Typical procedures for the Night Auditor may include reconciling credit card payments to the credit card processor's batch report(s), reconciling cash and check payments to the related logs or records of cash and check receipts, etc.
Red Flag: If there is a non-zero total for "Transfer" payments, stop the audit and fix the problem. Transfer payments between reservations should always balance to zero for any day or period.
The Night audit process can be paused to fix a problem. Then the Night Audit report can be reloaded.
If there is a critical issue that cannot be resolved, the Night Audit can be stopped for as long as it takes to fix the problem. If it is not critical, the Night Audit can continue, and the payment can be fixed on a date after the audited period.
Step 4: Review The Accounting Summary Report. A link is provided to the Accounting Summary report for the date range being audited. The Accounting Summary displays the activity by account for the audited period in the form of a balanced journal entry.
Gives the Night Auditor a chance to review the audited period's activity in total by account.
Red Flag: The Night Auditor sees reported as Uncategorized Revenue, Uncategorized Taxes, or Uncategorized Payments. This means that some transactions were recorded under a new Item, a new Tax Type, or a new Payment Type where an account was not assigned to the Item, Tax Type, or Payment Type. Uncategorized Payments may also mean that Transfer payments between reservations did not net to zero.
Risk: If the Night Audit is completed without resolving the Uncategorized transactions, those transactions will forever be reported as Uncategorized in all ThinkReservations Accounting reports and other reports reporting activity by account that include the dates the items were Uncategorized.
Stop the Night Audit and resolve the problem before continuing.
Step 5: Finalize The Audit.
The Night Auditor is required to check a box indicating that they have completed the Night Audit and that by finalizing the Night Audit, they will be "freezing" the audited dates, preventing any changes to those dates.
Click on Finalize Audit (a single click is all that is needed).
It may take 1 minute for a single day. A longer audit period will take a little longer. To determine if the Night Audit is finished, navigate to Reports>>Guest Ledger. Change the date to the last date that was just audited and click on Generate. The report should run successfully if the audit has been completed. If it says there was an error in running the report, the Night Audit has not finished.
If you have any issues or questions when running a Night Audit, please contact ThinkReservations Support at (877) 736 - 4195, Ext 2, or email Support at support@thinkreservations.com.