Operations
Night Audit
The night audit is the daily close of a hotel’s books, run overnight, which reconciles the day’s transactions, posts room and tax charges, and rolls the property into the next business day.
The audit exists because a hotel never closes. There is no natural end of trading, so the property picks a moment — typically somewhere between 11pm and 3am — and treats it as the boundary between one business day and the next.
The work itself is reconciliation: verifying that departmental postings match the revenue recorded, checking that every occupied room has been charged, resolving unbalanced folios, processing no-shows, and producing the manager’s report for the morning.
It is among the most automatable processes in a hotel, because it is rule-based, repetitive and performed identically every night. The judgement is almost entirely in the exceptions — the postings that do not reconcile — rather than in the routine passes that surround them.
The routine passes of a night audit are exactly the shape of work an agent handles well: run every night, reconcile, and escalate only the exceptions to a human.
Frequently asked questions
What is a night audit?
The night audit is the daily close of a hotel’s books, run overnight, which reconciles the day’s transactions, posts room and tax charges, and rolls the property into the next business day. It exists because a hotel never closes and has no natural end of trading.
What is night auditing in a hotel?
The work is reconciliation: verifying that departmental postings match recorded revenue, checking that every occupied room has been charged, resolving unbalanced folios, processing no-shows, and producing the manager’s report for the morning. It runs typically between 11pm and 3am.
What is night audit in the hotel industry?
It is among the most automatable processes in a hotel, because it is rule-based, repetitive and performed identically every night. The judgement sits almost entirely in the exceptions — the postings that do not reconcile — rather than in the routine passes around them.
Related terms
- Hotel Folio — A hotel folio is the itemised account held against a guest’s stay, recording every charge and payment — room, tax, food and beverage, and incidentals — from check-in through to final settlement.
- GOPPAR — GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room) measures gross operating profit for every available room, capturing both revenue performance and how efficiently the hotel is run.