Night audit: room-night charges and closing the business day

Every night the system posts the stay to each guest's bill on its own. In the morning the night auditor checks yesterday, sorts out whatever prevents closing it, and closes the day. A closed day gets an unchangeable report for the accountant: from then on its money is corrected only by reversals and postings in the current day.

Who: the hotel owner, the night auditor, the shift manager, the accountant.

Where: Rooms → the 📊 Reports tab → Night audit.

Permissions: the owner and roles with the "Night audit", "Front desk" or "Hotel finance" rights can open the tab and see the checklist. Only the owner or a role with the "Night audit" right can close the day — for example, the built-in "Night auditor" position. Who may reopen a closed day is decided by the audit policy. More in Front desk, housekeeping and accountant permissions.

How room nights are posted#

You do not have to start the posting yourself.

• The server checks the hotels every hour and, after 03:00 hotel time, posts the past night to the bill of every occupied room.
• The arrival day is not a night: a guest who stayed N nights gets exactly N "Room nights" lines. If a run was missed (an outage, a late start), the next run posts all missing nights — it never writes the same night twice.
• A night is charged at the price the booking was sold at. If you changed the rate plan or season after the sale, nights already sold are charged at the old price. More in Hotel rates.
• Check-out posts the last night itself. You do not need to wait for the nightly run to check a guest out.
• The same nightly run saves a night snapshot: how many rooms were occupied and how many were available at 03:00 the next morning. Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR in the reports are built from these snapshots.

Check the charges in the morning#

Before closing the day it helps to look at 📊 Reports → KPI and reconciliation, the Daily reconciliation block:

1. Pick Service date — yesterday.
2. Look at Rows to review: "Missing room-night charge", "Multiple room-night charges", "Stay without folio", "Checkout is not settled", "Settled folio has a balance" and others.
3. Use Export CSV if needed.

The reconciliation only shows discrepancies: it does not close the day and does not change money. The POS receipt checks ("Receipt absent from registry", "Receipt pending upload") exist only in the reconciliation — they do not prevent closing the day.

The blocker checklist#

1. Open Night audit. At the top is the status: "Closed through …" and "Next day to close: …", the closing mode ("Closed manually" or "Auto-close at …") and whether closed days are locked. On the right is the hotel time zone.
2. The Business day field already holds the next day to close. Today cannot be picked.
3. Below is the Checklist with "To resolve: N". An empty checklist reads "No blockers — the day can be closed."

Each row shows what happened, the room, the guest, the bill balance and a hint on what to do. The Open booking or Open rooms board button takes you straight to the object.

A room sold for a few hours has no night: if such a guest is not checked out by the audit, it shows as "Departure not checked out", not "The night is not charged".

An allowed exception: override a blocker with a reason#

Sometimes a blocker cannot be cleared before morning: the guest agreed to pay later, the no-show will be confirmed during the day. Then the day can be closed with an exception.

1. On the blocker row, tick Override with a reason.
2. In Reason, write why the day is closed this way — 3 to 500 characters.
3. Repeat for every unresolved blocker.

The reason, author and time are kept in the close record and in the day report, in the "Overridden blockers" block. A blocker marked Cannot be overridden ("The night is not charged") has to be waited out.

Close the days in order#

1. Resolve or override every checklist row.
2. Press Close day {date}. "Day … is closed." appears.
3. If several days in a row are open, press Next day to close and repeat.

Rules the server checks:

• Days are closed strictly one by one, in order. A skipped day cannot be bypassed: "Days are closed in order: close … first."
• Today cannot be closed. A day is over after midnight hotel time. But if guests stayed in the rooms, "The night is not charged" still blocks the close until the nightly run after 03:00.
• While you were working through the blockers, the front desk may have changed something. Then the close is refused and the screen says "The checklist has changed since it was loaded — it has been refreshed." Look at the new list and try again.
• Pressing again on a day that is already closed changes nothing: "Day … was already closed."

What changes after the close#

If Lock postings dated in a closed day is on in the policy (the default):

• a charge that a staff member dated in the closed day is refused. Fix the mistake with a reversal or a posting in the current day;
• a payment taken with a past date lands in the current open day. The date of the payment itself is kept;
• a night that the nightly run posted late also lands in the current day, marked "↻ date" in the line description;
• a night of a closed day cannot be removed from the stay — the booking dates cannot be moved so that such a night drops out: "This night belongs to a business day that is already closed…".

The day report and the export for the accountant#

Pick a closed day — in the Business day field or in the Closed days strip. Instead of the checklist you see a "Day … is closed" banner with the author, the time and the number of overridden blockers, and below it the Day report:

• Movements — arrivals, departures, no-shows, how many rooms were in house;
• Night KPI — occupancy ("… of … rooms · out of order …"), ADR, RevPAR. No night snapshot — "No night snapshot — KPI are not available";
• Revenue by type — room nights, orders, service fees, taxes, discounts, penalties and others;
• Payments by method — cash, card, bank transfer, online, company account;
• Open bills at close;
• Overridden blockers — with reasons.

The report is exported with Export CSV and Export XLSX.

Several days at once — the Export for the accountant block below: set From and To (at most 62 days). Only closed days go into the file, each with its current report revision. CSV — one row per day and currency; XLSX — plus revenue and payments sheets.

Report revisions#

A day report never changes. If a day was reopened and closed again, a new revision appears ("Revision 2" and so on), and the previous one stays as a record. Such a day is marked "reopened" in the Closed days strip.

Reopen a day with a reason#

Only the last closed day can be reopened. To fix an earlier one, reopen the days from the end, one by one.

1. Pick the last closed day.
2. In the Reopen the day block, fill in Reason for reopening — 3 to 500 characters.
3. Press Reopen day. "Day … is reopened." appears.

The day's money can be edited again. The previous report stays, and the next close writes a new revision.

Who can reopen — by the location policy:

• Owner and shift managers (the default) — the owner or a staff member whose role has "Shift manager rights" turned on and either the "Night audit" right or access to the rooms section. The built-in "Night auditor" cannot reopen;
• Owner only.

Any other role is told: "Reopening a day is allowed to … (location policy)."

Night audit policy#

The Night audit policy block at the bottom of the tab is a setting of this location. Only the owner can save it.

Press Save policy.

How auto-close works. After the set time the server itself tries to close all open days in order (up to seven days per run). A day without blockers is closed, with "auto-close" as the author. If there are blockers, the day stays open, and the top of the tab shows: "Auto-close did not close …: N blocker(s) — …". Then work through the checklist and close the day manually. Auto-close cannot override blockers.

Not available yet#

• Matching POS receipts against the day is only in the Daily reconciliation; it does not block the close.
• "The night is not charged" cannot be overridden: a day with guests in house closes only after the nightly run.
• Several days cannot be closed with one button — only one by one.

Related sections#

• Front desk, housekeeping and accountant permissions — who sees the audit, who closes and reopens
• Front desk lists and the manager summary — reports by date, occupancy, ADR and RevPAR
• Check a guest in and out at the front desk — how to clear "Arrival not checked in" and "Departure not checked out"
• Guest and company bills: charges and printing — reversals and balance transfers
• Hotel rates — why a night is charged at the sale price
• Hotel: why an action does not go through

Frequently asked questions#

Do I need to start the posting manually every night?#

No. The server posts nights after 03:00 hotel time. The night audit is checking and closing the day, not starting the postings.

Why does "The night is not charged" still show at 02:30?#

Nights are posted after 03:00 hotel time. Until then a day with guests in house cannot be closed — wait for the next run.

A charge in a closed day is wrong — what do I do?#

Reverse the line or post the correction in the current day. If the closed day itself must be edited, reopen it (only the last closed one) with a reason, fix it and close it again — a new report revision appears.

Can I close the day if the guest promised to pay tomorrow?#

Yes: override the "Guest left, bill open" blocker with a reason. The bill stays open and the reason goes into the day report.

Who sees the day report?#

The owner and roles with the "Night audit" or "Hotel finance" rights, as well as the full front desk with access to the rooms section. For an accountant to open the tab, the role needs access to the rooms section — see Front desk, housekeeping and accountant permissions.