personal project - research

 Accounting department

The accounting departmant combines staff functions

and line functions, or those functions directly responsible for servicing

guests. The accounting department’s traditional role is recording

financial transactions, preparing and interpreting financial statements

and providing the managers of other departments with timely reports

of operating results (line functions). Other responsibilities, carried out

by the assistant controller for finance, include payroll preparation, accounts

receivable, and accounts payable (staff functions).

Another dimension of the accounting department’s responsibilities

deals with various aspects of hotel operations, cost accounting, and

cost control throughout the hotel. The two areas of central concern

to the accounting department are rooms and food and beverage. The

accounting department’s front office cashier is responsible for tracking

all charges to guest accounts. At the close of each business day,

which varies by hotel but typically occurs at midnight or after the bulk

of guests’ transactions have been completed (i.e., check-in, restaurant

charges, retail charges, etc.), the night auditor is responsible for reconciling

all guest bills with the charges from the various hotel departments.

Although the front office cashier and the night auditor

physically work at the front desk and, in the case of the cashier, have

direct contact with guests, they are members of the accounting department

and report to the assistant controller of operations.

The food and beverage department may be responsible for food

preparation and service, but the accounting department is responsible

for collecting revenues. The food and beverage controller and the

food and beverage cashiers keep track of both the revenues and expenses

of the food and beverage department. The food and beverage

controller’s job is to verify the accuracy and reasonableness of all food

and beverage revenues.

In addition to tracking and preparing daily reports on the costs of

the food and beverages used in the hotel, in many cases the accounting

department is also responsible for purchasing and storeroom operations.

Finally, the director of systems is responsible for designing

the accounting and control systems used throughout the hotel. As you

can see, the accounting department is anything but a passive staff unit

contending with routine recordkeeping. The accounting department

is also responsible for collecting and reporting most of a hotel’s operational

and financial statistics, which provide important data for decision

making and budget preparation purposes. The head of the accounting

department may report not only to the hotel’s general

manager but also to the hotel chain’s financial vice president or to the

hotel’s owner. The reason for this dual responsibility and reporting relationship

is to afford the hotel corporation an independent verification

of the financial and operating results of the hotel