Front Office Operations and Auditing Workbook (2nd Edition) - Softcover

Moreo, Patrick J.; Sammons, Gail; Beck, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130324930 ISBN 13: 9780130324931

Publisher: Pearson, 2000

Synopsis

This hands-on workbook with computer tutorial reinforces learning guest accounts receivable management. It lays out all the components of the night audit and provides readers with the basic tools necessary to transfer their understanding to the many computer systems developed. Contains Night Audit Problem Sets, Example Problem Sets. Covers Front Office Operational Auditing, and more. For anyone interested in Front Office Management, Hotel Operations, and Lodging Operations.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The goals of the Front Office Operations and Auditing Workbook, Second Edition have evolved over the years. The workbook begins with exercises to provide the user with a clearer insight into front office and guest accounting and operations. This is accomplished by having the student begin by performing a simple, manual audit of the guest accounts receivable.

In the first section, the student performs an entire day's front office transactions before beginning the audit itself. The preliminary front office guest management part of the exercise should put front office accounting operations into cycled perspective.

The "computer" section of this book is designed to illustrate how front office operations flow from the manual foundation which we have laid in the context of an actual property management system. This section helps students understand that the primary goal is to provide guests with excellent, quick service and the hotel with accurate records.

In order to help provide tools for constant quality management and guest services, this latest edition contains an entirely new section on operational auditing in the front office and for guest services. This new section on front office operational auditing can serve many purposes. Most importantly, it aids the student in getting an overview of how the functions they read about in their textbook are actually applied and evaluated. With the addition of the operational auditing section, the Front Office Operations and Auditing Workbook, Second Edition goes well beyond traditional accounts receivable and income auditing.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Preface

This Front Office Operations and Auditing Workbook is the result of experimentation in front office operations classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, The Pennsylvania State University, New Mexico State University, and Oklahoma State University. The workbook evolved from over fifteen years of providing a technique for students to get a practical understanding of what they are learning in class. The exercises are intended as a reinforcement for the guest/room management as well as the accounting and night audit—"close of day" sections of lectures and textbooks in front office or hotel operations courses.

The Front Office Operations and Auditing Workbook is especially designed to be a companion to Drs. Jerome and Gary Vallen's Check In—Check Out, seventh edition. It is compatible with the corresponding sections of the major front office texts in use and under development and reinforces those sections of the texts with practical exercises.

The concept of using a practice set to reinforce classroom instruction is not new. As students at the then New York City Community College in the mid-1960s, we used similar approaches under the direction of Professor Sam Iseman. I would like to remember the late Sam Iseman for his dedication and inspiration.

This second Prentice Hall edition (fifth historical edition) continues to innovate. We are very happy to welcome Dr. Jeff Beck and his computer exercise and tutorial to the Workbook. Dr. Beck has worked for several years with Marriott Hotels and is currently holds the Charles Lanphere professorship in Hotel Administration at Oklahoma State University. In that capacity he manages the link between the operations of The Hotel at OSU, which the School of Hotel and Restaurant operates as a teaching hotel, and the academic program's classes. He brings his experience in the use of the property management system to the design of the computer tutorial section of the Workbook.

Dr. Gail Sammons has rewritten Problem Sets I and II and has refreshed and updated the Sample Night Audit Exercise. She has also further redesigned the forms used in the problem sets. Gail also continued the responsibility of managing the compilation of the final text.

And last, with great excitement, we have added a new section on Front Office Operational Auditing. The Front Office Operational Audit, which can be used as both a teaching/learning tool and as a practical management tool in hotels, has resulted from over seven years of research.

I received comments and suggestions from other instructors who have used this book and incorporated them into this edition. Please continue to communicate them to any of us.

Patrick J. Moreo, Ed.D., CHA

Notes to Instructors

• Enough forms are included for two problem sets.
• We have found it quite beneficial to change one or two numbers for each class so that some of the final figures will be different from semester to semester. This is relatively simple to do, especially if you change those figures that will not affect the cash totals. If you contact the authors, we can provide you with further details on implementing this system with a minimum of effort.
  
  Also available is an Instructor's Guide that contains both hard copy solution sets and a diskette with these same solution sets stored electronically. The solution sets may also be used to generate differences in the problem sets themselves, helping to make certain that students each semester, and in each section, are challenged with problem sets that are uniquely their own.
  
  
• You may request the Instructor's Guide by contacting your local Prentice-Hall sales representative, or by contacting any of us authors directly, as per below:

Dr. Patrick J. Moreo
School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration
210 HESW
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74074
pmoreo@okstate.edu
Office phone: 405-744-8484

Dr. Gail Sammons
William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4505 Maryland Parkway Box 456021
Las Vegas, NV 89154-6021
sammons@ccmail.nevada.edu
Office phone: 702-895-4462

Dr. Jeff Beck
School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration
210 HESW
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, OK 74074
beckja@okstate.edu
Office phone: 405-744-8483

Notes to Students

This workbook is designed to help you to understand the basics of designing and operating a system of guest accounts receivable and guest status management in the front office of a hotel or other lodging facility. It has been our experience and our belief after teaching hundreds of students and conducting discussions with alumni in the years after they have graduated that an understanding of the "manual" system is crucial to the comprehension of other systems.

Use of this manual system will make it very easy for you to see each component of the front office accounting and guest management system and how each component is interrelated to all of the other parts of the system, because you will actually be manipulating each of these parts yourself.

With this basic understanding, future application of the knowledge gained makes a lot more sense. So, when you begin to learn about the plethora of computer systems, you will know what these systems are supposed to do—because you have done it yourself!

Indeed, you will then to be able to clearly see what it is you would like the computer programs to do and what is no longer necessary compared to the manual or electronic systems. The perfect follow-up to performing these manual exercises is to do the same thing using a computer front office or property management system such as M.S.L, H.LS., Lodgistix, Fidelio, or any of a number of fine software packages available either in your next job position, or in a school computer laboratory. Computer systems will continue to rapidly change over the years. The practice and understanding you will receive from these exercises provides excellent preparation for the development and change which we will continue to see.

In order to help with this understanding and transition, we have included a computerized section in this workbook. The disk and instructions will illustrate for you several things: First, what does the "environment" of a property management system look like? Reservations, registration, "room rack," folios, and guest tracking and communications are greatly automated and simplified. Second, what does computer design mean in operating the hotel? An entry generally needs to be made only one time. Mistakes are much less frequent because we are not manually copying information from one place to another. Posting can be done from the point of sale in the hotel. And finally, the same guest information is available to many critical places on the property simultaneously. So, the front office, housekeeping, sales and catering, reservations, telecommunications, service staff, room service, and restaurants can all have the same live access. Transactions are greatly speeded up and accuracy increased.

But probably one of the most important things that you should realize as you walk through the computerized example set is what it means for management. As guest service agents, supervisors, department heads, and managers, we are no longer bound by availability of equipment and information in one place. A service agent does not have to go to a particular file in the front office. Restaurants no longer have to wait on a phone to check to see if someone is registered and authorized to make a charge. Information is available simultaneously throughout the property. Thus, jobs themselves can be designed in very different ways. Each computer terminal provides everything we need to provide guest service, information, and accounting. Consider this as you are doing the computer exercise.

Please be sure to do the problems in the same order they would be done during the hotel work day. In the manual problems, don't try to do the transcript first, for example. Get the check-ins, the folios, and the voucher posting done first. If you do, you'll have a much better understanding of what's going on and the problems will be more fun and less time-consuming.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0130324930
• ISBN 13: 9780130324931
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 213