Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

Objective 2
Objective 4
Discuss the purpose of
common night audit 
reports, note sources of
report data, and explain
common types of night
audit reports.
572

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guests could be located, and that telephone calls could be manually transferred to their
rooms. Despite design advance in computer hardware and software, the PMS can still
go down (i.e., crash). Data stored on hard drives can become irretrievable, and guest-
or room-related information could be lost. Also, backup batteries or generators used
to operate the PMS during power failures can stop working.
FRONT OFFICE SEMANTICS
Emergency report:
Information and lists that would be critical in the event of a disaster or a PMS
crash. Sometimes referred to as a 
down time report because it is most often used when the PMS is
down (i.e., crashed).
Other reports produced by the night auditor summarize information of use to spe-
cific departments. For example, a report listing the hotel’s top-10 revenue-producing
travel agencies may be of interest to the sales department, and a list of guestrooms
designated as out of order during the past 24 hours will be important to maintenance
department managers. Credit limit reports are important to the controller and
FOM, and daily occupancy statistics may be required by the general manager. The
number of reports created during the night audit and their specific purpose vary
based on the size of hotel, the services it offers, and the desires of the FOM and
other managers.
Sources of Data
For most hotels, the PMS is the major source of information for night audit reports.
Some PMSs can produce literally hundreds of reports, and even the simplest PMS
can produce dozens of distinctive management reports. Not all subsystems may be
interfaced with the PMS in some properties. In these cases, the required data from
noninterfaced POS systems must be manually entered into selected reports. Assume
that the Altoona Hotel operates a small gift shop. The Altoona’s general manager
has determined that the cost of interfacing the small cash register in the gift shop
to the hotel’s PMS is not cost-effective. Before any summary of the day’s total rev-
enue can be prepared by the night auditor, the gift shop revenue must be manually
entered so the total revenue report can be created.