Was wondering if anyone has a good format for running the accounting ledger report to get a better idea of how long an account has been in an open status from when the guest departed?
Solved
Accounting Ledger Report
Best answer by ClaudiaM.
Accounting Ledger report - one of my favourite topics in 6 years with MEWS.
The idea of the report is great - but the way how it is designed is operationally a nightmare.
What I like about the report is to run the report on a group by “Accounting category” filter, this provides a fantastic overview of what kind of revenue is still sitting open in your guest ledger.
Just a note – we do not use the Accounts Receivable functionality of MEWS. I might have more to speak about If we would use it LOL!
Here are the weak points of the report though. Nearly all hotels have the policy to check out bills max 7 days after departure (Groups etc, Debtors, or City Ledger invoices). If this is not the case the reception team needs to provide a reason why an account remains open in the guest ledger.
Well, we have beyond 200 checkouts a day in all our 21 hotels. This means a lot of invoices which can be overlooked. The front office team needs to work on the accounting ledger report every day to keep the guest ledger clean.
Performing daily checks by Front Office, or monthly by Finance long task to process now.
The issue with the accounting report:
- Invoices are showing up in the to be resolved section for no reason.
In-house guest under “to be resolved”
Departures in “NONE” section or in “to be resolved”
Literally – invoices are all over the place and MEWS has no answer on why that happens, or any logical explanation.
- Missing Note fields per invoice
Imagine, you run through a very long list of “to be resolved” invoices every day. To keep a clean guest ledger, have to tackle open invoices every day. At the moment you have open all invoices daily – unless you remember the guest’s name of the invoice you checked yesterday already.
The front-of-house team needs to provide a list with comments per invoice to the finance team weekly/monthly, this is to provide information on why an invoice remains open after 7 days policy.
The only workaround is to export – add the comments. But the next time you run the report you must start all over again. Need to add the same notes for invoices that are still open. This is an extremely time-consuming process.
- The column names are misleading. The deposit ledger column has nothing to do with the deposit ledger financially. The guest ledger is not what we consider a guest ledger in Hospitality. Actually, the general ledger total of the report is the guest ledger balance.
The deposit ledger (at least in EU, Advance deposit handling hotels) needs to be calculated manually from the accounting report export. It’s not visible in MEWS at all.
All the above points have been reported to MEWS for 6 years. As mentioned by Sam in a previous post – we have been informed that this affects not many hotels. Therefore, I shared this with all of you and hope for support, from whoever faces the same problems.
Related Feature request - Thanks for voting:
https://feedback.mews.com/forums/918232-mews-operations-pms/suggestions/45285124-accounting-ledger-checked-in-guests-to-appear-unde
https://feedback.mews.com/forums/918232-mews-operations-pms/suggestions/36660601-note-field-on-accounting-ledger-from-invoice
https://feedback.mews.com/forums/918232-mews-operations-pms/suggestions/37113232-add-notes-to-accounting-report
Thanks
Claudia
+1- Mews Employee
- 43 replies
Hi Jeff,
I’m looking into your issue, and first I wanted to check if you already use the Detailed mode as it allows you to expand a customer profile and see the transactions creating the ledger balance?
Hi Coline!
Yes, I’ve taken a look at both the grouped and detailed format and they both struggle to meet this particular use case from what I can see.
+1- Mews Employee
- 43 replies
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for getting back to me. Could you precise in what way it struggles? If I understand better what you are trying to do, I will be able to run some tests. So far, my search has not yielded better results than this one but it might be because I do not get the issue fully.
Thanks in advance
Hi everyone,
Does anyone else have the issue with checked-in $0 balance guests appearing under the ‘to be resolved’ section?
I have been informed that it does not affect many properties so is not a priority :( for us this means the ledger check can take hours because guests appear in the wrong sections.
+1- Mews Employee
- 43 replies
Hi everyone,
Does anyone else have the issue with checked-in $0 balance guests appearing under the ‘to be resolved’ section?
I have been informed that it does not affect many properties so is not a priority :( for us this means the ledger check can take hours because guests appear in the wrong sections.
Hi Sam,
The way I see it, if the line is on 0 and there is no past open revenue, the profile should not be checked at all
Where does the customer have amounts that his profile shows in the ledger?
If you’re not comfortable with sharing this information here, feel free to open a Support ticket so I can have a look.
Hi Coline,
Yes our issue is $0 balance checked-in does not appear under the in house section of the ledger but rather under the to be resolved section - we are wondering if other properties have the same problem?
There is already a support ticket 00193234.
Thanks,
+2Accounting Ledger report - one of my favourite topics in 6 years with MEWS.
The idea of the report is great - but the way how it is designed is operationally a nightmare.
What I like about the report is to run the report on a group by “Accounting category” filter, this provides a fantastic overview of what kind of revenue is still sitting open in your guest ledger.
Just a note – we do not use the Accounts Receivable functionality of MEWS. I might have more to speak about If we would use it LOL!
Here are the weak points of the report though. Nearly all hotels have the policy to check out bills max 7 days after departure (Groups etc, Debtors, or City Ledger invoices). If this is not the case the reception team needs to provide a reason why an account remains open in the guest ledger.
Well, we have beyond 200 checkouts a day in all our 21 hotels. This means a lot of invoices which can be overlooked. The front office team needs to work on the accounting ledger report every day to keep the guest ledger clean.
Performing daily checks by Front Office, or monthly by Finance long task to process now.
The issue with the accounting report:
- Invoices are showing up in the to be resolved section for no reason.
In-house guest under “to be resolved”
Departures in “NONE” section or in “to be resolved”
Literally – invoices are all over the place and MEWS has no answer on why that happens, or any logical explanation.
- Missing Note fields per invoice
Imagine, you run through a very long list of “to be resolved” invoices every day. To keep a clean guest ledger, have to tackle open invoices every day. At the moment you have open all invoices daily – unless you remember the guest’s name of the invoice you checked yesterday already.
The front-of-house team needs to provide a list with comments per invoice to the finance team weekly/monthly, this is to provide information on why an invoice remains open after 7 days policy.
The only workaround is to export – add the comments. But the next time you run the report you must start all over again. Need to add the same notes for invoices that are still open. This is an extremely time-consuming process.
- The column names are misleading. The deposit ledger column has nothing to do with the deposit ledger financially. The guest ledger is not what we consider a guest ledger in Hospitality. Actually, the general ledger total of the report is the guest ledger balance.
The deposit ledger (at least in EU, Advance deposit handling hotels) needs to be calculated manually from the accounting report export. It’s not visible in MEWS at all.
All the above points have been reported to MEWS for 6 years. As mentioned by Sam in a previous post – we have been informed that this affects not many hotels. Therefore, I shared this with all of you and hope for support, from whoever faces the same problems.
Related Feature request - Thanks for voting:
https://feedback.mews.com/forums/918232-mews-operations-pms/suggestions/45285124-accounting-ledger-checked-in-guests-to-appear-unde
https://feedback.mews.com/forums/918232-mews-operations-pms/suggestions/36660601-note-field-on-accounting-ledger-from-invoice
https://feedback.mews.com/forums/918232-mews-operations-pms/suggestions/37113232-add-notes-to-accounting-report
Thanks
Claudia
Hi Coline,
Where I’m trying to get more clarity is for the “departed” and “to be resolved” flagged items to have the actual departure date listed alongside it. I think it would even assist with Sam’s concern in that they would at least be able to easily identify that the guest is still in house even if it had the wrong status assigned.
+1- Mews Employee
- 43 replies
Hi Jeff,
Can I ask if you use the “Highlight open prepayment” option?
If yes, could you check if deactivating it helps?
Doesn’t seem to make a difference. Either replacing the “Consumed” column or adding a column that was the departure date on the reservation I think would be the ideal format.
It’s really an internal control feature that I think is currently lacking. I could have an associate post a transaction or adjustment on an account that should have theoretically been closed a week ago based on when the guest departed but it is only going to show me the last item consumed so a late revenue posting or adjustment covers up the fact the account should have been settled a week ago.
+1- Mews Employee
- 43 replies
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for this information, From it I gather you are working with the exported version, which I will have to look more into.
I do love your idea of adding the customer departure date, however that wouldn’t work for repeat customers, or customers with more than one reservation, though I would still suggest you put that suggestion on our feedback page
Below is a picture which is my attempt to sum up how the tags work,
Please let me know if you find any example contradicting this or if you have anymore doubts. If a practical case needs to be shared, I would however advise doing that through our support team to avoid sharing sensitive data
Hi Coline,
As per you description of the categories, checked-in are not just appearing under in house as you said is the normal behaviour, they also appear under to be resolved.
If the normal behaviour of the report is without the highlight open payments option, can we remove this from coming up as default?
+1- Mews Employee
- 43 replies
Hi Sam,
I believe that removing the default option selected is a feature request.
I understand what you mean and I believe it would make sense to add it to our feedback page.
I have reached out to you via email for examples of profiles in house still tagged as “to be resolved”
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