As a hotel owner heading single or multiple properties with portfolios, you may have to procure various materials to run your restaurants, bars, hotels, motels, and inns. With multiple vendors supplying durables and perishable materials to run your business, you need to maintain a detailed book of accounts, explaining the products in terms of quantity and bill amount. Having taken a complete assessment of your inventory, hoteliers raise the purchase orders to buy raw materials or manufactured products like ceiling fans, refrigerators, and air conditioners from suppliers. Based on the quotation and the mutual agreement on pricing and other terms and conditions such as delivery date, credit policy, discounts, and bill repayment practices, hotel owners take the crucial purchasing decisions.
Credit the hoteliers enjoy is crucial for effective fund management as it provides breathing space quite essential to run the show. When hoteliers must manage overhead costs like rent, salaries, bank loan repayments, and miscellaneous costs, attractive vendor credit policies relieve them because they often chase payment deadlines.
Accountants play a critical role in capturing, processing, storing, and distributing financial information. Auditors, approvers, and middle and higher managerial staff act decisively in the scrutiny, approval, and payment or recovery of dues and liabilities.
Traditional Credit Management in the Hospitality Sector
Traditional credit management practices involve manual entry of stock available and checking them often to see whether hoteliers place a purchasing order for items required for running the hotel business. Accountants maintain books and ledgers, where the accountants must not fail to enter details, including the bill date, purchase order details, bill amount, and the credit the hoteliers enjoy. The hotel accounting team should constantly monitor the bill payment due dates, by checking for discounts, if any.
Disadvantages of Manual Vendor Credit Management Practices
Manual credit entry process results in the below-mentioned challenges.
- Difficult to handle manually many entries.
- Forgetfulness or negligence to enter details.
- Human errors while entering bill numbers, bill amounts, and money received.
- Funds mismanagement
- Financial Scams and Manipulations
- Enormous time spent maintaining manual books/ledgers.
- Delays in the manual processing of cheques.
- Loopholes in the manual credit management
delay or lethargy in the manual entry of details related to credit would result in erroneous books/journal entries. Auditing manually managed credit details often results in confusion if the team fails to enter the details with precision.
How Does Nimble Accounting Software Assist Hoteliers in Managing Vendor Credits Effectively?
Hoteliers can automate the entire bill entry and payment process with the help of Nimble Accounting Software, known for its Hotel Accounting, and Bookkeeping Services. Hoteliers or accountants can attach the purchasing order also while making a payment. Let us see how an accountant can record Credits in Nimble.
Login with the credentials you own for the Nimble accounting software’s Bookkeeping Services for Hotels and click on the “Payable” tab displayed on the toolbar, available on the left side of the screen. This page displays all invoices whose payments are either awaiting payment or completed. Click on the “Debit Memo” tab available at the top of the page to navigate to a page where you can record the vendor credits.
Select the hotel name and the vendor’s name from whom you received the credits. You have the option to select the date of receiving the credit, invoice number, and the amount received as credits.
Select the chart of accounts under which you want to record the credits. You might have purchased certain beverages, or raw materials to run your restaurant and hence would have created a “chart of accounts” for Food & beverages”. If you have received the credits for buying these things, you have the option to record the credits under this category. Hit on the “Save & New” or “Save and Close” button to record the credits you received. When you are about to pay your vendor bill, the credit amount gets deducted automatically, showing you the amount payable.
How do Hoteliers Manage Credits on the Nimble Accounting Software?
Go to the “Bill Entry” screen to find the list of unpaid invoices. While entering invoices-click on save & pay, or if it is already entered and saved, it appears among the uncleared invoices. you can click on the “Pay” button.
- Find all open invoices of a specific vendor.
- You can select all invoices or specific invoices for payment.
- Find the option adjustments/discounts.
- Click on it to see a pop-up.
- It displays the amount of credit/discount you secured. It is the place where you can apply.
The screen that displays Vendor Invoices with Credits
Click on the check mark placed next to the specific invoice for which you want to clear the invoice after deducting the credit amount.
A pop-up appears, displaying the credit details you are entitled to.
You can select the preferred credit amount you want to consider out of the total credit available. For example, if a vendor offers you $50 as credit out of $100, you can select $20 as a credit and skip the rest of the credit, as credits are also your liabilities, and you can choose the amount of liability/risk you want to bear.
The Pop-up Window Displays Credit Deductions
Select the chart of accounts (where a code appears representing that chart of accounts) for which the credit is applicable from the drop-down.
Click on the “Set” tab to continue.
If you are eligible to avail $20 out of $100 as credit, the software automatically deducts the credit amount and updates $80 as the amount to be paid. You can print the bill payment cheque with that information.
Does the software reflect the credit information in the “Bill payment cheque”?
Yes. If a vendor has sent you ten invoices with a credit facility for two or three invoices, the software captures those details for you. Let us examine how it happens.
A Debit Memo Window that Displays Adjustments
Go to the “Memo” section where you can see the debit memo that displays the number of invoices that enjoys credit and the bill adjustments you made in the past.
Conclusion
Nimble Accounting Software is a Top Hotel Accounting Software USA, and it offers comprehensive vendor management and vendor credit management services to hoteliers by capturing minute details like the name of the vendor, the invoice date, the invoice amount, and the credit, or the bill adjustments made. Automating bill entry helps hoteliers to manage multiple properties seamlessly, without any errors in the bill transaction. Healthy vendor relations rely on smooth and conflict-free bill settlements. Nimble accounting software is totally equipped to handle multiple vendor bills with precision in a span of a few minutes and provides foolproof evidence while paying the vendor bills. Hotel owners can save time, money, and effort with bill entry automation for effective vendor credits management.