Hospitalitech

Why Excel? Isn't the future in Cloud Computing?

For analytical processes such as Hotel Budgeting and Forecasting, Microsoft Excel is quite simply, the best tool available, offering significant performance advantages over database systems.​ Excel was designed to analyze and manipulate data; databases are designed to safely store and retrieve data.  So unlike Internet systems, which rely on databases, Excel-based models maintain living relationships between moving parts. This means that if you increase your Occupied Rooms Budget :

• Housekeeping Payroll automatically increases,

• thereby also increasing your Payroll Taxes and Benefits correspondingly.

• Franchise Fees and Travel Agent commissions also increase, as do

• Restaurant Covers, Room Service Revenues and Laundry expenses.

All of these changes happen automatically and instantly. You won't have to re-think every trickle-down relationship, and re-calculate and re-enter new monthly amounts like you do with database systems.

How often do I need to update financial information in the Future Inn Focus model?

The Future Inn Focus model uses four types of financial infomation:

• Last Year

• Current Year

• Trailing 12 Months

• Other

The Last Year information should contain the full year's worth of data for the last financial year that has ended, and should be updated / reimported once each year.

The Current Year data should contain data for all months that have closed for the Current (in progress) year. Generally, this is updated monthly.

The Trailing 12 sheet automatically updates itself from data contained in the Prior and Current sheets, and requires no updating on your part.

Update policies for the Other sheet depend on what data is in there and how up-to-date it is.  Most often, the Other sheet contains Estimated Year End (Current + Forecast) and is used only during the Budgeting process. In these cases, seek guidance from your corporate office about how often they want the data refreshed.

How often do I need to update financial / STR data in the Strategic Revenue Plan?

The Strategic Revenue Plan shows Last Year and Current Year financial infomation.

The Last Year information should contain the full year's worth of data for the last financial year that has ended, and should be updated / reimported once each year.

The Current Year data should contain data for all months that have closed for the Current (in progress) year, and manually-entered Forecasts for the remainder of the year.  Because you have the ability to enter Forecasts manually, you do not need to import Current Year data monthly if you'd rather update your Forecast.

STR data is preloaded at the beginning of each year and should be updated periodically as the year progresses. Because STR data has 'trickle-down' impacts, ask for guidance from Corporate during Budget season.

The percent Occupancies and Average Rates on my Strategic Revenue Plan and Future Inn Focus model don't match - Why?

The short answer is that it's because of accounting differences.

The Strategic Revenue Plan (SRP) includes Comp Rooms in the Occupied Rooms total and the Future Inn Focus (FIF) model calculates Occupancies and ADRs using Sold Rooms only.  Also, the FIF model includes Other Room Revenue, such as Gtd No Show income.

In short, these differences are intentional and part of the ‘accounting technicalities’ that make hotel life so interesting. When checking to see that imported data comes through correctly, hotels should look not at the top of the page (apple vs. orange) but in the Rooms Department section at total Occupied Rooms and the Occupied Room Revenue totals before 'Other Room Revenue'.  These will match.