House Accounts

  

House Accounts are used to store and organize any revenue your property deems non-guest related postings. Due to this broad relationship, hotels use house accounts for any number of needs such as debt accounts, laundry or gift shop revenue, or anything else the hotel may wish to track outside of a guest's booking.

A checked in folio has an outstanding balance, and they are due to depart today. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the guest lacks the funds to reconcile the balance now and comes to an agreement with the hotel’s manager to provide the remaining balance later. Since the folio itself can’t be checked out with a balance remaining, waiting for this would keep the room unavailable for sale in Chorum even though the guest is no longer occupying it. To fix this, the manager creates a house account associated with the guest’s folio, then transfers the outstanding debits to the house account. With the folio now at a $0.00 balance, the folio can be checked out - but the house account retains the debit balance, until the hotel either writes it off or the guest makes their payment, crediting the account.

In another scenario, a hotel uses the house account to keep track of revenue gained from parking fees - they normally levy a daily $10.00 fee for parking space usage, and do not wish to track the charges within individual guest folios. After creating the house account, whenever a guest parks in the hotel’s lot, they open the desired house account in Chorum, post the Parking Fees department code then collect payment from the guest for parking lot usage.

The limitations of how and when to use a house account are purely at your property's discretion. Whatever you or your hotel feels necessary to keep track of outside guest folios can be built and used in this menu.

To create a new house account, simply click the House Account menu beneath the New folder in the Front Office module. Likewise, if you are searching for a specific house account that already exists, click the House Account menu beneath the Find folder.

When creating a new house account, be mindful that while only a name is required by Chorum, additional information may be needed depending on the house account's usage. When possible, fill out as much of the house account info as needed for the account's usage (an example has been provided in the below section, detailing Account Info).

Once an account is created, you may access its folio menu (located in the upper Show ribbon), which can have transactions, adjustments, and payments posted against it just like any other folio in Chorum (see Manual Postings).

Once a house account is balanced, use the Close Account button in the upper left-hand corner (in the Actions ribbon) to close the account, similar to checking out a guest's booking. Once closed, the house account cannot have any new revenue posted against it, so if your property needs to post any additional transactions, adjustments, or payments under the same account, a new house account will be needed instead (just be sure to balance accordingly).

In the below screenshot, the house account is being used as a debt account for a guest that previously checked out but still had an outstanding balance with the property. After coming to an agreement to pay the remaining balance at a later date, the property created a house account referencing the guest's name and other personal information, then transferred the folio's balance to the house account (see Transferring Revenue).

Field

Description

Account Name

The account’s full name, to be displayed in Chorum and any reporting when used.

Account Number

The numeric code assigned to this house account. It is typically recommended to keep the code between 2 - 6 characters.

Account Information

This accounts for all contact related information. If the house account is being used for a specific guest, group, or other organization, fill in the primary contact’s information as needed.

Payment Type

Displays the available payment options built into your hotel’s department codes. Choosing an option from this list may display additional prompts for more detailed information, like selecting a credit card. This payment option will be set as the house accounts default method of pay when posting credits to the house account.

Comments

Any special notes you or other hotel staff wish to make about this account, be it notes on usage, policies, or anything else you may feel relevant enough to note here.