Love Letters About Numbers: Swoon-Worthy Reports in ThinkReservations

Maybe the topic of reports isn’t worthy of a Hallmark movie production. But whether you love numbers or not, learning to love ThinkReservations reports and the business-decision data they deliver will help you swoon over your own business acumen.

Read below for a number of perspectives from the industry. Each person revealed their top “report crushes”, why, and how you can make your own love connection with them:

Amy Smith, General Manager at Saratoga Arms Hotel

When Amy writes out her Valentine’s Day cards, two accounting reports always get a note in the mail. As General Manager, she adores how those reports make it easy to do other parts of her job. Why? By using the reports listed below, it saves her a bunch of time making accounting entries. With daily attention, she is responsive to changes in the data, making sound business decisions quickly because she is on top of her financials.

Here are two accounting reports that receive love letters from Amy:

Summary Report

• Set up correctly, she now sees more than a lump sum of gross revenue. At a glance, she knows revenue details from all revenue sources, including ancillary products and services.
• Start by matching your Chart of Accounts in ThinkReservations with your Chart of Accounts in your accounting software
• Exact debit and credit entries are now made in a snap. Which means the entries are made daily, keeping the books up to date quickly and in “real-time”.

Accounts Report

• This report reveals the details supporting the Summary Report numbers
• Does something look wrong? Use this report to investigate anomalies, like Uncategorized Revenue. With hyperlinks to individual bills, you may identify the anomalies quickly. With another few clicks the item can quickly be assigned to a proper account.

Eben Viens, Owner, B&B Team and Inn Partners

“Our work as consultants and brokers in the hospitality industry is made so much more impactful when the Inns we work with have access to historical data and reports that look to the future, which is, of course, where opportunity abounds. We draw on data from these reports in much of our work, from operational consulting with Innkeepers to helping Inn Buyers to understand the ongoing (or increasing) viability and bankability of an Inn heading towards a closing.

We often look to Revenue By Room Report when discussing with owners their plans to renovate or add alternative accommodations to their existing property. In recent days, however, the most meaningful tool we have found in our work has been the all-seeing Booking Pace Report which is a strong tool for measuring the success of marketing and pricing decisions, which have profound impacts on the course of an Innkeepers career. As an example, a recent Inn transfer involved risk averse bankers demanding constant updates on a property’s advance bookings. The success of the transfer was largely tied to the owner’s ability to swiftly access the booking pace report, which showed significant growth year over year which, ultimately, was a reflection of the owner’s ongoing commitment to marketing, dynamic pricing, and, in pandemic times, clearly stated safety protocols.”

“Monthly Income and Occupancy Reports have always been central to our work with Innkeepers. When generated accurately, these reports give a clear accounting of actual income by department and can reflect occupancy on a monthly basis which is critical to understanding the true seasonality of a business (not the sugar plum fairy visions dreamed up by well-meaning but unknowing real estate professionals). Advanced versions of the income and occupancy report may include a 12-month trailing statement which is a powerful tool for analyzing historical business activity on a rolling basis, rather than waiting for annual financial statements to dictate your end of year strategic planning. Every moment is an opportunity to better understand guest motivations and how to market to future guests and provide hospitality that reflects their personal desires and exceeds their expectations. There’s no better tool for gauging success in that ongoing pursuit than a well-wrought income and occupancy report.”

Ray Rosset, Retired owner of a 13-room Select Registry property, Chartered Accountant, and ThinkReservations Account Manager + “Report Guru”

Ray’s list of 4 critical reports every lodging owner should cozy up to:

Reservation by Payment Status + Point of Sales by Payment Status Reports Checking these two reports daily:

• Helps owners stay on top of staff to make sure they are applying payments properly
• Makes sure staff is not making adjustments to reservations completed and paid for
• Ensures payments are collected in a timely manner

Cancelled Reservations + Cancelled Point of Sales Reports Checking these two reports daily:

• Allows you to view cancelled reservations and POS items as they do not show up in the Reservation by Payment Status and Point of Sales reports
• Enables you to see if any balances are due, either in the negative or positive
• For instance, maybe you forgot to refund a customer. Or maybe you refunded in full and forgot to hold back the cancellation fee. The negative or positive balance will alert you to these issues.

Ray’s head innkeeper looked at all of these reports every morning, running for the last 3 months. The head innkeeper’s job was to make sure all balances were $0, keeping the books as squeaky clean as his inn rooms. Bonus points for these reports: if you find open payment statuses often, that’s indicative of wrinkles in your operations to iron out.

Sharon Elswick, Property Owner and ThinkReservations Sales Account Manager

If I were to send chocolate covered strawberries to any report in ThinkReservations, it would be the Tax Summary Report. As someone who has never had a crush on numbers, I’ll tell you why I heart this report.

A simple and powerful function in ThinkReservations makes sure packages are not a nightmare come journal entry time: the ability to assign the correct tax category to each item within a package.

Before using ThinkReservations, I had no choice but to assign one tax to a whole package. I spent hours manipulating item pricing within the package to make the final package price correct. I then spent hours unpacking the numbers when doing journal entries. With ThinkReservations, because each item within the package is taxed correctly, everything automatically flows into the right tax buckets. Determining my tax liability went from hours to literally minutes. All I have to do is run the Tax Summary Report and write some checks.

A Love Story for the Ages

So, there you have it! Whether you're a lover of numbers or not, ThinkReservations reports are designed to help you save time and give you the data you need to make quick proactive decisions about your business. So grab a cup of cocoa, your favorite blanket, and snuggle up to a few of these reports.