hotel financial coach
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Managing F&B Expenses and How to Record Them on Your P&L
David Lund | September 30, 2024
As I have said in many of my earlier posts, Food and Beverage is special. And I mean that with all sincerity because it's an integral part of our business especially with a full service offering. However, there are challenges that we need to overcome and one big one is how to report the profit and loss activity so that it is as meaningful as possible. I say “possible” because there are no absolute methods to get 100% of the picture that really work. Many try to get and stay on top of their costs and payroll and that’s the right thing to do. The reality is that it’s never going to be perfect. It’s not going to be perfect because w...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Early Arrival Program
David Lund | July 29, 2024
With my workshops and speaking, I often do an exercise where I challenge each leader to find a minimum of $250 in next month's forecast. That can be savings in the form of reduced payroll or expenses. It can also be a source of new revenue. The participants come up with some amazing ideas that really work. The great thing about these ideas is that we almost always get to repeat and compound. An idea that works next month just works EVERY month. Read more about creating asset value here. In this piece, I am going to share one of the best revenue-generating and guest-pleasing ideas that my clients have come up with. It’s something that ju...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Top 10 Accounts Receivable Controls
David Lund | July 2, 2024
“AR” as we commonly refer to the sub department of the accounting function is a mainstay in any larger group-based hotel. In these juggernauts the importance of efficiently collecting your money is mission critical. Not only do we take the chance that the group will come and stay after we hold all those rooms, but we also roll the dice and give them credit. In today’s business world it would shock many to realize that credit is a common element in these group hotels. It’s common because we need to be competitive; that other hotel around the corner offers a master account and we need to as well. But be warned. Offering credit comes wi...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: Putting a Dollar Value on a Hotel
DAVID LUND | May 20, 2024
By David Lund Determining the current selling or asking price for a hotel is a bit tricky. Compared to estimating the present value of a house it’s more like a detailed math exercise rather than a google search on Redfin. That’s what this piece is all about, how you can estimate the value, AKA sales price. Commercial real estate firms specializing in hotel valuations are what your bank is going to require that you use if you’re asking them for financing to buy a hotel. That makes sense because the bank will want to protect their interest. If you own a hotel and want to sell it you can go that route as well but it’s not like two ...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: $600,000 Trash Can
David Lund | May 6, 2024
David Lund is the Hotel Financial Coach, a thought leader and trainer on using financial data to drive your business decisions and your career. A 30-year hotel vet, David has seen everything, a lot of which he shares in his book, The Prosperous Hotelier. Susan and David talk about railroads, scams, and Russians. What you'll learn about in this episode: Why it is so important to ask questions How to get better at understanding the P&L What railroads have to do with luxury hotels How much time to spend on your expense checkbook What GMs and owners who don't share numbers are up to [00:00:00] Susan Barry: This is ...
Hospitality Financial Leadership: The Top 10 Cash Controls
David Lund | April 15, 2024
By David Lund Cash is King. That’s an old expression but it’s also one that still rings true today. Everyone likes cash even if we don’t carry so much with us personally anymore. It’s important to recognize that some people will help themselves to your cash if you let them. That might sound extremely clinical and you’re right it is, but it’s also a fact. The only way to minimize your risk is to have a set of controls in place to keep honest people honest and the less than trusty, on their back foot. That’s what this piece is all about – keeping more of what’s yours and making sure it’s properly controlled. Cash contr...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – Material and Immaterial Expenses
David Lund | February 5, 2024
By David Lund There is a critical understanding that all hospitality financial leaders need to clearly understand and communicate when it comes to expenses. It is a simple distinction that is many times missed or not clearly understood. That is what this piece is all about: Clearing up the mystery and setting the expense record straight. Here’s the scoop! That was quite a mouthful, and I do not want to downplay the importance of the need to understand the difference and impact of material and immaterial expenses on the monthly profit and loss statement. The materiality refers to the significance of the expense item in the context of t...
Hospitality Financial Leadership – How to Properly Record Packages in Your Hotel
David Lund | January 15, 2024
By David Lund Packages are, on the one hand, straightforward. They are a well-established offering in most hotels, customers love them, and they are not going away. On the other hand, most hoteliers are at a loss to properly set up and manage the transactions so that they do not end up with a mess in their books and systems. That is what this piece is about: How to properly administer these seemingly complicated and unruly devices. First: Pricing aspect Packages are a combination of a room and at least one other component, like a bed and breakfast package. They can also combine many items like we see in a romance package: room, meals, ro...
