How to stop revenue leakage at your hotel

Eight common leaks, and how to close them

1. Rooms sold but never recorded

A short stay paid in cash, a room given to a friend of staff, a late checkout nobody charged for. If the room board lives on paper or in someone’s head, an occupied room and an empty one look the same in the books.

How to close it: Keep one live room board that every check-in must go through, and compare it with housekeeping’s list of rooms cleaned. In OTTO the front desk works from a shared live board, and the owner can open it from a phone at any hour.

2. Payments recorded as the wrong method

Cash written down as a transfer, a transfer that never actually arrived, card payments spread across terminals nobody reconciles. The total looks right at the end of the day, but the money is not where the books say it is.

How to close it: Record every payment with its method and, for cards, the terminal it went through — then reconcile each method separately every night. OTTO tags every payment this way, so the cash-up shows cash, transfer and each POS terminal on its own line.

3. Payments deleted or edited after the fact

If a payment can be changed or removed, a day can be quietly rewritten after the money has gone.

How to close it: Never delete money records. A refund should be a new, negative entry — not an eraser. In OTTO payments are never deleted: a refund is recorded against the original payment, so the books always show what came in and what went back.

4. Guest debts that are never chased

“I’ll pay when I check out.” “Put it on my tab.” Without a ledger, promises quietly become write-offs.

How to close it: Record every balance the moment it is created, and go through the list of who owes what every week. OTTO keeps every guest debt and outlet tab on record until it is paid, with the full history behind it.

5. Rates and discounts nobody approved

A room let at a lower price for a friend, a discount given without a reason. Each one is small; together they add up.

How to close it: Let only management change room prices, and keep a record of every change. In OTTO every room edit — with any price change spelled out — is written to a staff activity log that cannot be edited or erased.

6. Outlet sales that are never rung up

A drink handed over and paid for in cash, with no sale recorded. The takings look fine; the shelf is short.

How to close it: Count the shelf against the system at every handover. OTTO starts each till shift with a count and records any over or short against that shift and that name.

7. Supplies that walk out of the store

Soap, towels, detergent and food issued with no record of who took them.

How to close it: Record every issue with the name of the person who collected it. OTTO’s stock control does this, and keeps a history that corrections cannot erase.

8. A shared login that hides who did what

When the whole front desk uses one password, nobody is responsible for anything.

How to close it: Give each person their own login, or at the very least record who is on duty. OTTO gives every staff member their own login, and on a shared front-desk login an on-duty picker attributes each payment to whoever is actually on shift.

A ten-minute daily routine that catches most leaks

1. Compare the occupied rooms on the board with the rooms housekeeping cleaned.
2. Reconcile each payment method on its own: cash in the drawer, transfers in the bank app, and each POS terminal’s own report.
3. Look at every new debt and every tab still open.
4. Check each outlet’s stock count for anything over or short.
5. Skim the staff activity log for price changes and changes to staff.

None of this strictly needs software — it needs the records to exist, and to be honest. That is what OTTO is built for: every room, payment, debt and stock movement in one live system, with a history nobody can rewrite, and the whole hotel visible from the owner’s phone.