Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

NIGHT AUDIT AND REPORT MANAGEMENT
584

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data) and past reservations (historical data) as well as other financial information is
massive. Most of this information is held in electronic (not paper) form, and data
archiving is an important concern for FOMs.
Consider, for example, the PMS information of a 1,000-room conference cen-
ter that allows room bookings 12 months into the future. Literally tens of thousands
of reservations are held at any time in the PMS memory, with virtually no hard copy
backup. In addition, the hotel maintains records of previous guests, because they
might contact the hotel to request duplicate copies of their room payment receipts
or to initiate chargeback requests that would require information about their stay.
The FOM wants guest histories to record each guest’s frequency of stay and stay
preferences.
A night auditor is typically instructed to back up (duplicate) daily the data held
in the hotel’s PMS. This is usually done by copying the data onto a tape drive, com-
pact disc, or other data storage device. Hotels want to minimize any data loss
resulting from a complete crash or disintegration of existing records. By archiving
data daily and by holding the storage device in a separate location and format,
hotels protect themselves against the possibility of complete loss of data. Therefore,
archiving is a critical part of the night auditor’s job. FOMs, working with the con-
troller and general manager, must determine which data files to be maintain and
when (or if ) these files should eventually be purged from the system to clear stor-
age space.