Today, independent hotels have access to more revenue and reporting tools than ever. 

However, a certain amount of know-how is needed to truly leverage revenue opportunities with your reporting suite. It starts with the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) hotels need to monitor. We've selected 9 of them, and are explaining the first four today and the remaining five next week. 

9. General Guest Information

Hotel managers tend to put a lot of effort into knowing and understanding their guests. 

There are several reasons that justify this approach:

• Delighting your guests. Knowing your guests will allow you to anticipate their needs, and surprise them with dedicated attention:
  Helena loves golf. She's staying with you next week-end. You'll have a list of the best golf courses in the area ready in her room when she arrives. 
  Or
  James ordered 3 old fashioned during his last stay with you. You're celebrating his loyalty by welcoming him with his favorite cocktail. 
  Many hotels like to keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, and send customized emails or postcards for the occasion. 
  Use Frontdesk Anywhere's custom fields to save your guests' interests (drinks, sports, activities, etc.)  and have them handy next time they come back. Review previous stays' information easily. Use the housekeeping and maintenance tab to inform your staff about tasks in real time. 

• Boosting revenue. Managers often like to know the average money spent by a guest, as well as their buying habits. Knowing who the big spenders are, and serving them the best way possible will ultimately help collect additional revenue. 
  
  
• Strategizing online distribution and marketing. Where do your guests come from? Who are they? Which channels do they use to book? Picturing who your main guest types are will allow you to market your hotel and your rooms accordingly:
  A significant part of your guests are Asian tourists. Do you sell rooms on Agoda, and the other Asian booking leaders?
  

8. Reservations on the books (OTB)

The reservations OTB for a defined period in the future - the coming week, year, next month, etc. - are an actionable metric that also gives a good idea of a property's future performance:

• Optimizing staffing. Checking reservations OTB day by day for specific periods allows managers to anticipate staffing requirements and make sure they have the optimal number of people working.
  You're fully book most of next week. You've reviewed your reservations OTB and decided you needed to have two temps work Thursday to Sunday. 
  
  
• Adapting rates. Your bookings OTB will show if some dates are selling too fast or too slow. It's recommended to review them weekly. 
  
  
  Use Frontdesk Anywhere's lodging statistics report to access this information. You can look at historical data or forecast future information too, and use filters (on source, market and room type or rate).

7. Pace

Pace report, also called business pick up report, allows managers to compare the performance of their hotel over different periods. Hoteliers want to make sure they keep a stable or growing pace, as it's hard to make up for lost revenue. 

Managers will generally look at a monthly view and monitor the next few months to come compared to the same months the previous year. 

Frontdesk Anywhere provides reliable pace reports. 

6. Tax Breakdown

Hoteliers must be able to know exactly how much they owe the city, state and country they do business in. Keeping track of tax breakdowns from the beginning will save a lot of time and trouble in the future. 

Frontdesk Anywhere's reporting suite allows our clients to declare and pay their taxes easily. The system is easy to use, making sure all your transactions are entered correctly by your staff:

"The best part for me is that my front desk staff took to the new PMS quickly and easily. As a result, I get much better reporting out of it than what I got from my prior PMS. All in all I am very pleased with the software." Bruce, manager at the Summit Resort. 

>> Read Five through One here