A Paperless Night Audit is about more than paper, and its importance is understated in today’s hospitality arena. There are substantial savings to be had by not printing the fifty -age night audit pack each evening, and we’ll do some math using a few average statistics to prove it:
- $0.07 – Printing Cost/Page (Toner, Paper, Printer Maintenance, etc.)
- 50 – Pages/Night Audit Pack
- 5 – Number of reports printed (1.0 to account for the full night audit pack, and 0.5 for specific reports that are printed for groups like accounting, sales, corporate, etc.)
- 30 – Days/Month
- $100 – Monthly cost of secure outside storage
- [($0.07 x 50) x 1.5 x 30] + 100 = $257.50
It costs $257.50 per month per property to print and store hotel night audit packs
If you’re printing your night audit packs each night, then you’ve already built a business case to take it paperless…and that savings is just the tip of the iceberg. For a Management Group, the costs of a night audit pack grows exponentially when you consider these intangibles:
- Accessing Reports On Demand: How much productive time is lost waiting for a report to be sent by a property to the corporate office? Making the call to the hotel, getting the report sent over, interrupting your work, etc. Cost – time and money. Multiple properties, add more time and money costs to the picture.
- Performing Internal Audits: How much time could be saved if a portion of the internal audits (that relied on using reports in the night audit pack) could be done without visiting the hotel itself…or having someone sending it over. Think transportation expenses, meals, potential overnight stays, etc. Cost = money.
- Due Diligence: Are your teams at the properties performing the necessary tasks when reviewing the reports in the pack? If they are, find out if the tasks are being done by printing the report, making the comments/signatures, and then scanning/emailing them over. Cost – time and money.
- Document/Report Security: It’s a big deal. Without controls in place, a night audit pack could potentially be accessed by anyone if it’s not stored securely. Cost = security…
- Sustainability and Green initiatives: Reducing impact on the envisornment is crucial to all businesses – in hospitality, property development and beyond. Cost = immeasurable
Hopefully the post gets you thinking about a few areas such as centralizing records, document/report level security and cost savings, among others.
We would love to hear your thoughts and concerns, even if they’re related to similar practices outside of the hospitality industry.
