LEDGER

•          A guest ledger contains the details of all the financial transactions between a resident guest and the hotel, including charge purchases and the payments received from the guest. It has two parts—debit and credit.

•          In a manual system, the financial transactions are recorded in a tabular ledger, or tab ledger, which is of two types:

•          Horizontal tabular ledger

•          Vertical tabular ledger

•          In a horizontal tabular ledger, all the credit expenses of the guest are recorded in one horizontal row, and at the end of the row, the guests’ credit or debit balance is shown.

•          The vertical row of the table contains the room numbers. At the end of vertical column, the daily sales balance can be seen.

•          A vertical tabular ledger is a variation of the horizontal tabular ledger.

•          It is also called visitors tabular ledger.

•          The rows depict the room numbers, and in the columns, the details of the guests and their credit expenses as well as payments are recorded.

•          At the end of every column, one can find the account balance of individual guests staying in a particular room.

•          It is a loose sheet and is prepared on a daily basis by the front desk cashier.

•          A city ledger contains the collective accounts of all the non-resident individuals/agencies to whom the hotel extends credit facility. It is also called  non-guest account.

•          City ledgers also contain the accounts of resident guests who have left the hotel without settling their accounts, which would be settled at a later date by a third party (may be a credit card company, an airline, a travel agency, or a corporate house).

•          This account would be closed at the time of receiving the complete payment.

•          The account of skippers is also maintained in the city ledger for a specific period (as per the hotel policy); at the expiry of this period the same is written off as bad debt and the account is closed.

•          This ledger also includes bad cheque accounts (cheques that have bounced), disputed bills account (bills that are in dispute), late charges accounts (bills that could not be posted in the guest bill at the time of check-out), and retention charges accounts (reservation was guaranteed but the same was cancelled or guest did not show up).

•         VISITORS TABULAR LEDGER:

     V.T.L is one of the important ledger maintained by front office cashier in order to keep the record of all the transaction of the guest during his/her stay in the hotel. V.T.L is generally made for each guest who check-in to the hotel and use the hotel facilities. This sheet is prepared daily basis by front office cashier. After the completion of billing procedure, each day transaction is carried out by a night auditors. The account of guest is calculated and carried down in a new ledger for the next date which is usually close when the guest checkout from the hotel.

 

•         ü Also called the VTL or tab or tab sheet, it is more popular in smaller hotels.

•         ü In larger hotels, the work is too time-consuming and labour-intensive.

•         ü It is a ledger in tabular form.

•         ü It is a loose-leaf sheet recording daily transactions of hotel guests.

•         ü Checks, bills or vouchers from different Points of Sale (POS) are delivered to the FO

•         cashier, preferably as they occur, through pneumatic tubes or chutes or personally by the

•         POS cashier. These bills are entered, as they are received, in the appropriate columns.

•         ü These may be sorted according to departments and room numbers and entered.

•         ü The VTL has various columns for different charges and contains details of the guest and

•         room number, number of guests, room rate, accommodation charges, breakfast, lunch,

•         beverages, alcohol, phone-local and trunk, VPOs (visitor paid outs), credit (advance

•         payments, allowances, discounts), totals carried forward and brought forward for the

•         next day.

•         ü The common form is to have vertical columns for room numbers and guest names and

•         horizontal rows for the various charge heads or expense heads. The vertical totals give

•         the amount to be received from the guest. The vouchers should be posted as they come

•         to the FO cashier and the posted vouchers should be cancelled to avoid duplication or

•         overcharging.

•         ü When a guest checks in or arrives, a new column is started, so room numbers may not be

•         in serial order. You also might have two columns with the same room number if a

•         recently vacated room is let again. The room charges are entered as the account is

•         opened and the other charges are entered as they occur.

•         ü When a guest checks out, he settles the bill. The cash row records any receipts from the

•         guest- cash, credit card, cheque, and travellers’ cheque, etc. The city ledger row will

•         indicate the amounts to be collected not from the guest but another source- travel agent,

•         tour operator, credit card company, etc.

•         ü After the bill is settled a line should be drawn through the relevant room number column

•         to avoid any further accidental entries in the wrong room number accounts.

•         ü If a guest continues to stay over to the next day, the total charges for today will be

•         carried forward to the VTL for tomorrow. This amount should be the same as the balance

•         brought forward for the following day. In the next day’s VTL the room numbers are

•         arranged serially.

•         ü The VTL of each day should be “balanced’, i.e. add all the vertical columns and horizontal

•         rows. These totals should be the same. This is normally done in quiet periods and should

•         ideally be done after 12 pm noon ( check in- check out time) but is usually done in the

•         night shift.

•         ü The guest bill prepared for presenting to the guest should contain the same charge

•         columns as the VTL. For correct transfer of the VTL entries to the guest bill, the latter is

•         placed alongside the VTL and the amounts transferred, totalled and presented to the

•         guest for payment.

•          

IMPORTANCE & POSTING PROCEDURE OF V.T.L

Importance and purpose of V.T.L :

It shows the total sales of each outlet in a hotel.

It shows the over all sales of hotel in a particular day.

It shows the types of service used by the guest.

It shows the cash deposit made by the guest and also the credit balance.

It shows the cash paid by the guest during their stay and also the discount offered to them.

It shows the total balance of the guest transferred to a city ledger.

It shows the total transaction of a particular guest in a particular day.

Posting procedure of V.T.L :-

1. Always use capital or block letter and use ink or ball pen for writing the name of the guest.

2. Details about the guest information should be written legible after the registration of the guest such as pax, plan , tariff, etc.

3. Use dashes where there is no transaction or figure.

4. All the transactions should be entered as per the bills or voucher sent by the outlets.

5. Enter total amount in the respective debit and credit column.

6. Guest charges for different service are written in the respective columns as per the heading.

7. Cash advance or deposit made by the guest is written in the guest account under cash deposit column.

8. Guest amount or charges are written under the column "city ledger", if the guest do not settle bills during check-out. Generally these types of guests are from company or travel agency.

9. If the guests amount is paid by other party or guest, the amount is written under transfer column, which includes debit and credit.

10. Calculate the sub-total from all the charges under individual after adding the tax and vat.

11. Grand total is carried out after adding or reducing from balance brought forward in the daily total.

12. In allowance column, amount are written for those guest who are provided amount from the hotel.

13. Last balance column in the V.T.L under the column balance b/d or c/d and respective debit and credit column.

 

•         Ii. GUEST BILL / WEEKLY BILL (GWB): In the conventional system a weekly bill is prepared

•         from the

•         ü VTL for 7 days and is called the 3-day bill or 7- day bill, always used for long stay

•         guests.

•         ü This is prepared if the guest stays for more than 7 days and a continuation bill may

•         be prepared for the remaining days.

•         ü It is presented at the end of the 7th day, payable on presentation or after 3 days of

•         guest stay.

•         ü It is folded and addressed to the guest by the reception and kept in the mail and

•         key rack to deliver to the guest.

•         B) SEMI-AUTOMATED RECORDKEEPING SYSTEM: guest transactions appear sequentially on a

•         machine-posted folio. For each transaction, data recorded includes the date, department, amount of

•         transaction, and new balance of account. The folio’s outstanding balance is the amount the guest owes

•         the hotel, or the amount the hotel owes the guest in the event of a credit balance at settlement. The

•         column labelled previous balance pick-up provides an audit trail within the posting machine framework.

•         ELECTRONIC BILLING MACHINES (EBMs):

•         Larger hotels offering a variety of services find the VTL very cumbersome and time consuming

•         and now depend on the EBM or NCR ( National Cash Register) or of late, the computers.

•         The electronic billing machines (EBM) handle the same data as the VTL but it stores the various

•         charges in ‘registers’ (memories) and prints out the totals as required and maintains a daily

•         summary total. Therefore, the guest bill remains much the same, only showing the totals for

•         various charges or allowances. Details may be checked in the audit roll being processed

•         simultaneously. This method eliminates duplication of work as is seen in the VTL; the entries

•         have to be recorded twice - once on the VTL and once again on the guest bill.

•         ADVANTAGES:

•         1. All bill entries are entered in the memory, so the bill and ledger totals agree.

•         2. All entries or calculations are automatic so bills are totalled correctly.

•         3. Bills are printed and so are legible.

•         4. Charge vouchers are automatically cancelled upon entering so no mistaken duplication.

•         5. Control is easier as machine is “in balance’, simplifying accounting and control.

•         Features:

•         a. An EBM creates a guest bill called the guest folio.

•         b. This is the bill in which all cash and credit transactions of the guest are recorded.

•         c. It is opened as soon as a guest registers in the hotel and submits a completed and signed

•         GRC- guest registration card.

•         d. A copy of this is passed to the FO cashier who opens a new guest folio and clips the GRC

•         to it. Details of the GRC - room number, guest name, rate, date of arrival, date of

•         departure, number of guests, billing instructions, are noted on the top of the folio for

•         ease of finding and filling in the folio bucket.

•         e. The opening telephone meter reading is also noted.

•         f. Once the formalities are completed, the folio is placed in room number-wise arranged

•         pigeonholes at the cashier’s counter or folio buckets.

•         g. All signed guest bills from various POS are sorted by the FO cashier and entered into this

•         bill

•         h. These folios are normally in duplicate- one for the guest and one for hotel records.

•         The NCR used nowadays has the following visible parts:

•         1. Amount keys 2. Room number keys

•         3. Control keys for printing department names or heads of revenue

•         4. Identification keys- room, bar, restaurant, laundry, local calls, trunk calls, etc.

•         5. Debit balance key 6. Credit balance key

•         7. Debit pick up key 8. Credits pick up key

•         9. Plus-minus keys 10. Allowance key

•         11. Credit transfer key 12. Debit transfer key

•         13. Paid in full key 14. Paid key

•         15. Total key 16. Sub total and miscellaneous key

•         17. Date change key 18. Audit roll key

•         19. Left printer 20. Right printer

•         PROCEDURE:

•         1. When a guest checks in, the FO cashier takes a new folio and types the details from the GRC

•         on to it.

•         2. The folio is placed on the machine’s platform at the correct line where room charges have to

•         be printed, by sliding the carriage. The opening balance has to be printed which is zero unless an

•         advance deposit has been made.

•         3. Take out the folio and place in the appropriate pigeonhole.

•         POSTING of CHARGES:

•         4. Collect bills, checks, and vouchers from POS cashiers.

•         5. Arrange according to departments- room service, laundry, etc.

•         6. Arrange these according to room numbers in terms of floors- 101,102, 202, 202, etc.

•         7. Take all bills for a particular floor and room number on that floor.

•         8. Compare guest signature on vouchers with that on GRC.

•         9. Set line-finding carriage to the line where charge is to be posted.

•         10. Insert voucher on the upper print with front page facing downwards.

•         1. Insert folio into printing table- face up.

•         12. Set up room number on room keys by pressing them.

•         13. Press particular department keys- coffee shop, etc.

•         14. Record amount of guest charge on amount key by pressing the correct keys.

•         15. Press control total key.

•         16. Take out folio, move control key to clear.

•         17. Attach voucher to folio and return to pigeonhole

•         C) FULLY AUTOMATED RECORDKEEPING SYSTEM: transactions may be automatically posted to

•         an electronic folio. When a printed copy of the folio is needed, debits and credits may appear in single

•          column, with payments distinguished by a minus sign, or in the traditional multiple column formats.