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Billing software is important for the hotel. It can helps the hotel account for telephone charges, Internet usage, equipment fees, surcharges and taxes in real time. With the declining of the telecom revenue the new call accounting modules should adapt to new market competition. Some of the hotel adjusting room rate to balance the telecom revenue lost. Even though the use of the telecom is declining, proper use hotel call accounting system can still bring profit. The accounting system can provide traffic reports identify grade of service, peak calling hours, and the number of trunks the hotel should have to run telecom smoothly. The calling accounting report can show where guests are calling. It is easy for hotel find its target market and negotiate better tariff plans. The call accounting system can make fewer mistakes than the night auditor. All calls are being record with the help of calling accounting system. Hotel should update the critical information in calling accounting system monthly and all the properties use the same tariff table and follow the same guidelines. In this way hotel can avoid inaccurate billing and lost revenue.

Hotel call accounting software or hotel accounting software in short is a system records telephonic activity, translates it into relevant data and arranges it in reports, graphs, charts etc for analysis. In the hospitality industry, the call accounting software plays an important role as an interface between the hotel management/staff and the customers. Call accounting products allow hotels/motels to bill guests for all phone calls that the property will have to pay for, recovering costs.Managers can also detect phone misuse or abuse, optimize phone system performance, allocate telecom costs by department or extension, set special rates for VIP guests, and decrease billing errors.

Using accounting system to generate revenue for hotel is a great way. Today, revenue management is strong relay on those more accounting system. Properly use accounting system can support hotel generate more profits. Also, proactive hotel properties use call accounting reports to determine calling patterns that show where guests are calling. All these data help the hotel target marketing and negotiate better tariff plans.

Jan 22, 2010 TravelCLICK has unveiled Hotelligence 360, a suite of interactive business intelligence applications that enable hotels to identify new growth opportunities and improve financial performance. The program provides hoteliers with frequently updated booking data backed by 100 percent of the global distribution system (GDS) channel, allowing hotels to compare revenue performances with their competitors, source new customers, and maximize profit.

Hotelligence 360 reporting is a great example of HRIS in the hospitality industry. The reports generated pull market information for the competitve you set for your area (usually approximately 5 competitor properties plus yours, additional ones can be added for additional fees). To gain access to the reporting, some of your marketing budget would need to be spent on it, but this helps gain some critical information for your market area and competitors in terms of agencies utilizing GDS systems to book hotel rooms. It displays data such as top 150 agencies, ADR, lead time, market share, average LOS, and more. It shows which of the 4 GDS tools are being used for the agency (Galileo, Sabre, Apollo, Amadeus) and where the business is coming from. There are great details in trying to capture business from the area. I find it to be most beneficial to a new hotelier trying to secure new business and deter them from the competition, it gains knowledge of good startingplaces for cold calls and attempting the relationship building to capture their market. In decifering these reports, you can get a good feel for what the agencies are valueing in ther selection, be it location, amenities, or price prior to speaking with them. It helps to gain an advantage when securing the proper contact and having the conversation in capturing their business. There are plenty more advantages to reading these reports, this was just my version of the most important tools provided.

Nowadays, we can say each hotel must have the accounting department. Every successful goal needs a perfect financial management to consolidate it. In the hotel, accounting need to budget preparation, need to do the business planning, creating financial statements and payroll. Hotel needs to pay the salaries for employees and reporting sales and analyzing the profits. This is a huge process. A hotel must manage it efficiently. And owners can make decisions and improve their company. When you report the financial activities, you need to do the real report. A report can give you a chance to take the best decisions and make more profit. As a staff, you need to track cash flows and record transactions. If you have some trouble, you can let the expert help you to solve problems. They can help you to control your cash flows and maximize earnings.

For all businesses, including hospitality businesses, it is essential to have a properly organized accounting system. Every business needs solid financial management to achieve growth without which every business withers and dies. Proper accounting is at the heart of solid financial management. Hospitality accounting includes: preparing a precise collection of month end accounts, a trial balance, budget preparation, business planning, creating financial statements and balance sheets, and payroll. Not only does it enable you to track cash flows and record transactions, but it provides deep insights into the financial status of the business enabling owners to make proactive decisions and improve profits. So to excel in the dynamic hospitality industry seek professional help from expert accounting companies to set up proper accounting to have solid financial management. In my opinion, I believe that to have a successful business you need to have an up to date, accurate way to record your accounting transactions so getting professional help from experts would be wise.

Doing more research on the topic of this week HRIS, I stumbled upon this very helpful article. It goes into detail about Human Resource Information Systems their use, and pros and cons. The article lists eight advantages that come from having one of these systems. It only has to be uploaded once, it integrates reporting and evaluations, it removes human error therefore improving accuracy, time saving because of self service, reminders, paper saving, administrative tools, and recruitment tools such as those we discussed in our class discussion. Where as there are only three disadvantages mentioned; security concerns just as there are with any online system, cost which is predicted to decrease rapidly in the upcoming years, and staffing because systems like these often require IT team. These three disadvantages are synonymous with that of the disadvantages we have seen on all of the softwares or systems we've learned about this semester. There will always be a concern with security when a business has data online and when a company reaches a certain size it will be inevitable to have an IT team so I believe that these few disadvantages do not outweigh the benefits of HRIS. The statistics provided by the article are very helpful in noting that these systems are most effective for businesses with approximately 100 employees but can be used with those with as few as 50.

The article provide an overview of basic hotel accounting procedures. Most of the concepts explained are the responsibility of the accounting department but the article did mention there was some crossover. The hotel manager must implement the guidelines for the hotel, this means that the manager must understand at least the basic concepts of accounting. The accounting department must also prepare reports that outline the hotels finances. These reports are especially important when the hotel is a publicly traded company and must meet SEC guidelines.

"IT solutions can be used to help a hotel to manage its environmental impact (CO2 emissions, energy consumption). Siemens analyses the customer requirements and then implements best-in-class solutions. In addition we provide the required process consulting to establish sustainability reporting within an organization. Here are a few highlights of our "Sustainable Impact" offering: Benchmark customer's own position in sustainability issues vs. competitors and improve own sustainability processes to become best-in-class. Integrate sustainability / energy management into company strategy, organizational framework and corporate behavior Target setting for company-wide KPIs (e.g. CO2) and creation of transparency by setup of IT supported controlling process Support fulfillment of regulatory requirements, voluntary reporting (e.g. GRI, DJSI, CDP) and company positioning (e.g. sustainability report) Manage environmental and other sustainability projects"

in order to keep the green hotel the manger should use the IT solutions. especially in the environment impact, we cannot control the hotel environment sustainability development only by the manual. using the IT solution is fast and convenient. we can use it to analysis and conclude the best solution or advice for the sustainability development of the hotel. we put the data, operation statement and expenses into the system and then the computer can help the hotel to establish the frame for building the green hotel. also we can use the Siemens technology to assign the employees everyday so as to avoid the situation that is over-staff or under staff. moreover we can use the Siemens system to decline the waste of paper, water, energy and so on. This way can save the money and protect the environment.

Nowadays, all hotels are trying to improve their IT with their sustainability efforts. In this article, Siemens has introduced a new system "IT for Sustainability". The new system will help hotels improve energy, resource-efficiency, and save costs in two ways: greening the hotel IT environment and using IT as enabler to lower carbon footprint.

This is an interesting article that describes some of the new technology being implemented to improve how employees are getting paid based on the current workforce's spending habits. These include the ability to be paid by debit cards, ability to be paid daily and have the flexibility to move the money around, AI intelligence to keep track of the employees' work hours on their own devices, and integration of many payroll functions into one platform. With so much technological advancement, it seems that payroll management is one that is still behind with many companies still working with the old clock in and out method which is time consuming.

This article makes some key assertions regarding points of consideration when choosing a PMS software. Getting the right PMS software is absolutely critical for any property, as it is at the core of the operation. According to this author, the necessary considerations involve asking six questions: -Does the solution offer flexibility in functionality, including data access and performance reporting? -How easily and seamlessly does the PMS integrate with third-party technologies and data? -How long will it take for problems to be resolved? -What is the total cost of ownership? Are there "hidden" costs? -What return on investment (ROI) can be expected? -What is the PMS solution provider's track record of success? The inception of cloud computing and faster data processing has led to a number of choices in PMS software. Obviously these questions are not a fool-proof path to picking the perfect PMS software out of the multitude of options, but obviously being able to answer these with a level of confidence is a step in the right direction.

Travel Agents are using GDS more and more as the technology progresses. They are using GDS more often than they did two years ago.

The articles talks about the many advantages of using POS systems over traditional cash registers.

This article sums up the ways in which POS is currently changing. These ways include by using shared commerce POS systems, mobile POS systems such as Square and PayPal, integrated real-time transactions with CRM solutions, and POS security. 

This article sums up the ways in which POS is currently changing. These ways include by using shared commerce POS systems, mobile POS systems such as Square and PayPal, integrated real-time transactions with CRM solutions, and POS security. 

Employee theft is a frequent issue in restaurants nowadays. Ways to deal with this kind of issue include identifying the kinds of theft, identify employee theft prevention strategies, and invest in modern reporting technologies. The first step was to identify the kinds of theft and to know what has actually happened, including voiding cash checks, excessive loyalty card use, bogus dine-and-dash, etc. Next is to identify prevention strategies like telling employees in advance that theft is not acceptable. Finally, business owners need an advanced reporting system that can generate reports routinely and identify the possible employee thefts.

(1 of 2) "The hospitality sector has always been a popular target for cyberattacks." This is the first line of this Recorded Future article published in January. The article discusses breaches that happened for both Marriott and British Airways and how this is a regular occurrence in the industry as it is such a big target with so many possible points that can be attacked. While the statistics for the hospitality industry have improved greatly in the last decade, in 2019, they were still accounting for 10% of all breaches. Not only does a breach affect the way an organization operates, but also it also severely effects their bottom-line and takes quite a but of time for them to recover. "According to Ponemon's 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average hospitality data breach costs $1.99 million to contain, at a cost per record of $123. These high costs are due in part to the time needed to adequately respond to a breach. On average, it takes 200 days to identify a hospitality data breach and a further 75 days to contain it." The article continues by stating that hackers are typically seeking payment card data when compromising the hospitality industry.

(2 of 2) The article then discusses the many reasons why it is so difficult for hospitality-oriented companies to secure their assets versus other organizations of similar stature. Some of these reasons include the large, complex networks which are typically publicly accessible and contain many customers in the databases, the fact that customers are always onsite and so are attackers, the high turnover leading to inconsistent training and sharing of credentials, franchisers owning the responsibility of security yet not knowing much about it, and the risk associated with all of the various third parties the hotels do business with. While intelligence has come a very long, "security professionals in the industry are tasked with defending highly complex networks with many endpoints against a constant barrage of attacks and a constantly churning workforce… [AND] they have limited security resources to work with." Comprehensive security intelligence systems are now capable of protecting many aspects of the organization. Some of these updated features include responding rapidly to security incidents, blocking online brand abuse and impersonation, managing third-party risk, reducing breach containment times, and better allocating security resources. Property data security is so important to the hospitality industry. If a business does not take the proper precautions to protect their systems and their customers, then it could lead to a devastating event for the business. While security intelligence has progressed within the last decade, a business needs to make sure that they have chosen a reliable agent to partner with who will produce consistent service. If the business keeps up with their system updates and protections, they should not have to worry about their security system failing.

This article discusses the controversial self-checkout model in major chain stores such as Target and Walmart and the cause and effect of labor issues and how other scenarios appear to be encouraging a time when this model replaces human checkout entirely. It was reported that Walmart loses 3 billion every year to customer and employee theft. For the most part, retailers have been thinking about self-checkout through a financial-savings and customer-experience perspective. But inherently, that means there's going to be less eyes on a transaction, less human interaction and more opportunity for shrink.

Research estimates that AI can save £26,000/$32,000 per year. The article specifically mentions chatbots and automated financial reporting as AI areas, but it also mentions that hospitality leaders lack confidence in implementing new tech and also fear job losses. The study also asked consumers - 1 in 10 would like more personalization which can be driven by AI tech.

This new report is forecasting cloud-based wellness software to be a good financial investment. It is predicted to grow at a solid pace thru 2030. This research is based on the diverse market and detailed analysis from 2017-2021. Some of the top companies covered in this report offer services from in-home massage to health beauty services on-demand. Cloud-based services such as these offer digital technology access at a low start-up cost.

PMS is common in hotel operation since its powerful fuction which can be streamed into two parts involving reservation and revenue management. As we all know, reservation is the beginning of hotel operation and it is the first expression the hotel leave to any customers. Thus, it is important for us to pay enough attention to the performance of this system no matter what size of properties we operate. A competent PMS can provide efficient experience for both guests and operators in that it can help them finish some jobs always frastruated them before. Another contribution of PMS is the ability of revenue management which has been treated as the most important job for seniors in hospitality industry. Based on powerful PMS, managers can easily get any information related to current operation and budgeting issues. For these reason, PMS is an necessary installation for each hotel with specific features.

This article is describing the power of having a property management system in a business industry. The PMS can offer many advantages to its customers. Customers can access the system wherever they are and whenever they want. This article offers many software ideas that can help hotels running smoothly. For example, there is the InnQuest roomMaster 2000, which has the right features (reservations, reservations, guest services, etc) and offer the right tools to help run a hotel. Hotel staff can learn it quick as well. This system is secure which is very important in a business industry. It also talks about the Reservation Master. In hotels, reservations are important especially when it offers its guest the choice to do its own reservations on the internet. It is good for smaller hotel businesses like motels. Another one is the Maestro, which is a powerful PMS system that helps companies have full control of their files. Last but not least, there is the RoomKey, which is a system that can help a company to have the right to use and activate it wherever they are.

This article describes the forward motion of technology to be used in conference center.  The new technology will allow immense technology improvements in the conference centers like using your smartphone to share photos on TVs screens.  This technology is the first step in working towards integration in conventions.

A new set of standards is coming up for credit card transactions. EMV or Europay, Mastercard, Visa, standards include a chip-and-pin device on the card that requires the card to be inserted into the card processing terminal. While this does not prevent all fraud, it's important that this standard is mandatory by 2015 and business operators should be preparing for changes.

This article report that sensitive data such as credit card information can be easily received through hotel wireless networks by cybercriminals due to the poor protection network. With the information, cybercriminals can make clone credit cards, which are indistinguishable from the real one and difficult to be traced. What worse is it takes months for hotels, customer and credit card companies to find out this criminal activity. Although hotels have began to step up security, this article notice that customers, especially those travel a lot, need to pay attention to their bank statement since the trend of hacker attacks didn't go down.