Imagine the day of an accountant and an accounts manager that work for a portfolio with multiple properties. While an accountant enters the vendor information, including the material the vendor supplied, the cost of the material, names, and addresses of the vendors, etc., the accounts manager verifies them carefully against the purchase order and the delivery receipt before moving ahead to the next level for generating the bill and approval.
Manual entry of vendor bills involves several hours spent on filling Excel” sheets and spreadsheets”, cross-verifying them with actuals, and finally the scrutiny of the approver to go ahead with the payment. This process will also involve the writing of bank cheques and signing. If a chain of hotels is managing multiple properties with several departments, including rooms for rent, bars & restaurants, gift shops, and banquet halls, how do they track income and expenditure without wasting time and how should they meet payment deadlines?
Before discussing bill automation any further, it is essential to understand the pain points the hotel accounts manager and hoteliers face in detail. When hotel management is processing vendor bills manually, the accountant should write tens and thousands of bank cheques, filling in the vendor or company names, bank account numbers, and the amount, which is due. The account manager should sign a bunch of cheques after confirming or getting the approval of the property owner, who may accept all of them or reject a few of them, with remarks. There are several other intricacies involved in hotel accounts management, which we discuss further and observe how bill automation addresses these challenges.
Freedom from Manual Entry of Invoices
On hearing the phrase “No Manual Invoice Entry”, no doubt, an accountant who is so far engaged in massive manual data entry will jump with joy. Nimble Property offers Cloud-based hospitality accounts management software to hoteliers in the USA and Canada. By integrating the hotel PMS with Nimble accounting software, the property owners can automate bill entry, which reduces the number of hours spent filling the data, printing, and signing the bank cheques manually, and human errors.
When the property owners choose to automate Hotel Accounting and Bookkeeping Services, the software tracks receivables, or the income the hotelier receives from each department, and segregates them as per the mode of payment of the customer (Cash/Debit or Credit Card/ online transfer, etc.). The software also tracks payables when an accountant uploads invoices to generate vendor bills for scrutiny and approval.
Configure your One or Multiple Corporations on Hotel Accounting Software
Hoteliers can configure one or multiple properties they own and manage as “corporations” by entering minute details about the property and various departments, including the sub-divisions within each department, vendor lists, bank account details of vendors, and more. On configuring a corporation and generating a bunch of invoices awaiting payment, the accountant can scan and upload all of them to the bill automation email the software (A unique email ID for each corporation the hotelier owns) provides. The software provides an email address for bill entries and one for approval to make payments. This would generate vendor bills for payment and display them on the screen showing their status such as pending/approved, including the due date for the bill payment. The accounts manager can mark/select the bills awaiting payment to proceed further to forward them to the bill approver/s after scrutiny. On getting confirmation, the account manager signs and prints the cheque online.
Advantages
The accounts manager can select only those bills that are approaching due dates for payment and postpone others (hoteliers enjoy credit facility for certain inventory) so that such payments can be delayed.
How does Nimble Accounting Software Facilitate Smooth Bill Payments?
Nimble accounting software helps hoteliers in several ways to smoothen vendor bill payments.
Create Vendor List
Hoteliers can configure and include several hundreds of vendors they transact with by entering their names, addresses, Federal IDs, Social Security Numbers, and bank account numbers. If the hotelier operates from more than one country or region, the accountant can configure the names and addresses of those banks as well. While making a payment, the accountant should pick the right one to proceed toward payment.
Print Bundles (Batches) of Cheques in One Go
When the account manager is expected to pay invoices awaiting payment in thousands, all he can do is click on the select box and pick the bill payment date to hit the “Save and Pay” button. An account manager can print as many cheques as possible in one go by selecting those bills due for payment. The screen navigates to the “Bill Payment” page. The accountant should now select the vendor and the bank account number for which the cheque configuration has been made. If the hotelier configured two bank accounts, one based in the USA and the other in Canada, the accountant must be careful in selecting a cheque that is appropriate to pay the vendor. If the cheque is already printed, the software populates its number automatically, by picking the sequence. If the previous bank cheque number was ‘2001” for example, the system will automatically pick the next series“2002”. The accountant should now hit the “Bill Payment” button.
Preview the Cheque Before you Make a Payment.
Nimble Hotel accounting software displays the preview of the cheque, and the bill payment details, which an accounts manager can check before hitting the “Confirmation” button.
Can an Accountant Make Instant Payments in Emergency Cases?
Yes. When the hoteliers need to pay instant advances without waiting for the bill automation process, they can do it by clicking the “Payable” tab/menu on the left side of the screen, which opens the vendors’ list. By hitting on the “Bill Entry” tab, accountants can search for the vendor by typing the name on the place provided. If the vendor is already registered in the software, his address pops up to get filled out automatically. After entering the bill number and the due amount, the accountant should go to select the chart of account to specify the expenditure for which he is making the payment. He can also attach the scanned copy of the invoice for easy verification. This helps clear emergency accounts, of which there may be very few days.
Three Ways of Searching/Figuring Out the Vendor Among Many
When a multi-property owner manages a portfolio with several properties, the vendor’s list would be lengthy, and it is difficult to search vendor details manually. An accountant that enters the bill can press “Control + F” to find the name to begin with. Nimble Hotel accounting software preserves vendor names in alphabetical order. The accountant can also search alphabetically.
Conclusion
Nimble Hotel Accounting Software offers comprehensive bill automation services for hoteliers, who can rely on it completely for generating invoices, vendor bills, and payments without any hassles. For more details on “Bill Automation”, please book a free demo right away.
