Three reconciliations have to clear at every monthly close. If any of them fails to clear, the close is not finished — even if the controller has already posted it. Most chronic close-quality problems trace back to one of these three quietly being skipped.
Reconciliation 1: PMS revenue to GL revenue
The PMS reports rooms revenue of €1,247,500 for the month. The general ledger should show the same number on the rooms revenue line, with any adjustments documented. The reconciliation: pull both reports, line them up, identify any gaps.
Common breaks: (a) a refund posted in the GL but not yet credited in the PMS, (b) a group billing that hit the GL via a different posting account than the PMS expected, (c) a foreign currency exchange difference between when the booking was confirmed and when payment cleared. Each break has a documented owner and a journal entry to clear.
Reconciliation 2: F&B sales to inventory consumption
F&B is the department most likely to have variance fraud or unintentional shrinkage. The reconciliation: revenue from POS (the front-of-house sales report) vs. inventory consumption from the kitchen (the back-of-house consumption report). If the kitchen consumed €18,400 of food cost but the POS shows revenue at a 28% food cost ratio (implying €17,200 of food consumed), the €1,200 gap is either shrinkage (theft, waste, miscounted inventory) or a comping that wasn't logged.
Properties that don't run this reconciliation monthly end up with F&B departmental profit that drifts by 2-4 points without anyone noticing until the annual audit.
Reconciliation 3: payroll allocation to department
A 240-key resort with 180 employees has 12-18 employees who split time across departments — the engineering tech who does work for both rooms and F&B, the GM who is allocated 100% to A&G but spends 30% of time on F&B negotiations, the executive housekeeper who supervises both rooms and laundry. Each split is governed by an allocation policy that the payroll system applies automatically.
The reconciliation: confirm that the policy was applied correctly for the month, that any role changes (a tech promoted to a different department mid-month) were reflected, and that the resulting departmental payroll matches the management view of who worked where. Three of every five properties get this wrong by 1-3 points of departmental margin somewhere — small per department, but it compounds across the year into wrong incentive payouts and incorrect ROI on department investments.