Cash Floats at the Reception Desk

- Resolve guest complaints related to room check-out and payment, foreign currency exchange, etc. in case the receptionist does not know how to resolve the guest complaint or resolving the complaint is beyond the authority of the receptionist.

- Responsible for ensuring that employees under his/her management comply with hotel regulations and current legal documents related to reception work, foreign currency exchange, etc.

- Update and adjust cashier procedures and job descriptions of front desk cashiers periodically to better suit hotel standards.

- Monitor cash transactions, cash reconciliation, account payments, accounts receivable and other accounting duties according to hotel policy

- Oversee the delivery of coupons, discounts, and other promotions offered at the front desk

- Perform other tasks assigned by superiors

1.4.2.2. Receptionist

Figure 21: Receptionist cashier

The main duties of a front desk cashier include:

- Prepare payment documents for customers in advance.

- Serve guests to check out and pay according to hotel standards

Figure 22: Receive cash payment from customer

- Currency exchange for guests staying

- Track and update customer expenses into the accounting ledger, into the correct customer account in the PMS system

- Responsible for managing and using cash float at the cashier department to conduct transactions with customers during the working shift.

Figure 23: Cash fund at the reception desk – Cash floats

- Keep, inventory, classify and deposit the money collected by the front desk cashier during the day (via credit cards, cash, traveler's checks, etc.) to the hotel's finance and accounting department periodically. Depending on the regulations of each hotel, the time for depositing money varies, but the most common is before 12:00 (end of shift 1) or before 17:00 every day (before the end of administrative working hours of the hotel's finance and accounting department).

Figure 24: Sample daily cash receipt and expenditure report at the reception cashier department

- Coordinate and support the hotel's finance and accounting department, sales & marketing department to collect overdue debts from companies or travel agents, etc.

- Balance the guest's account at the end of the shift (if the amount of money temporarily owed by the guest exceeds the hotel's prescribed debt limit, the guest must be notified to pay immediately)

- Update guest advances (loans) to guest account (guest folio).

Figure 25: Cash advance form

- Manage departmental invoices/individual invoices, VAT invoices that the hotel's service providers transfer to the front desk cashier to serve as original documents when guests check out and make payment.

- Collect money on behalf of other departments (These departments do independent accounting, reporting revenue directly to the hotel management or the hotel's finance and accounting department, not through the reception cashier. They only transfer invoices that the customer has signed for debt to the reception cashier to collect on their behalf)

- Save data about paid guests into the system (guest history record) and save guest payment records in the correct location and time.

- Make revenue report for each shift.

- Balance the guest's account at the end of the shift (if the guest's debt exceeds the hotel's debt limit, the guest must be notified to pay immediately)

- Contact the hotel's finance and accounting department to sign and receive the VAT invoice that has been signed and stamped with a certain serial number;

- Cash advance from cash float at the reception counter when needed

- Regularly update the Black List at the front desk (List of names of guests who do not pay (skipper/walkout), guests using fake credit cards or cards on the list of stolen credit cards, list of guests who have stayed at the hotel but caused trouble or stole property of other guests or the hotel, guests whose names are on the police's wanted list,

In small and medium-sized hotels, the third-shift front desk cashier often doubles as the night auditor (also known as the end-of-day auditor, the person who performs the day-closing process). In this case, the third-shift cashier performs the review process, whereby financial activities related to guest accounts are updated and balanced. Traditionally, the end-of-day audit is performed during the night shift, as that is the time when transactions are least frequent and the work and

employee morale is minimal. Whether the hotel uses a manual or computerized system, the function of the end-of-day audit is to:

- Check, reconcile all accounting transactions and enter room charges, other expenses, taxes and/or service charges if applicable

- Detect and correct errors in calculations, billing, and updating costs from previous shifts

- Prepare and present guest accounts both inside and outside the hotel that have reached and exceeded their credit limits. The front desk clerk must be aware of what these credit limits are, whether they are credit card limits or corporate account limits. If these limits are reached or exceeded, the front desk clerk (who performs the end of day audit) must prepare a report called “High Balance Report” and prepare the guest bill for payment and prepare the report to forward to the Front Desk Manager/Front Office Manager for processing.

- Enter room rental: These costs include taxes or service charges and other special package rates, such as the 30.4 holiday promotion price in Vietnam, weekend room rates, Christmas room rates, or modified American room rates. If using a manual system, the front desk cashier will have to enter these costs separately into each account. A computerized system will automatically do this upon request by the front desk cashier.

- Reconcile charges and payments: The front desk cashier must reconcile all charges in the guest's account by comparing the charges entered into the system with the relevant documents. This is also known as re-matching invoices/documents.

- Reconciliation of financial activities of departments: All work of the front desk cashier (both front desk and restaurant) is audited. All totals must be checked to ensure that the figures entered into the system are correct compared to the attached detailed invoices. However, this work does not apply to departments, points

Hotel services are operated and settled independently and directly with the hotel's finance and accounting department.

- Conduct audits: Audits help the 3rd shift cashier to focus on accounts that are reported to have incorrect expense entries. It is important for the cashier to compare the sales of each department, with the actual transfer amount plus the invoices paid by each department.

- Reconciliation of debts: The debit book is a ledger of debt accounts kept at the front desk. It is a register of the accounts of hotel guests (those who are authorized to sign for debts for goods and services used in the hotel). The expenses in the debit book must be checked and reconciled by the 3rd shift cashier, in the same way as the expenses in the room guest's account.

- Prepare the end of day audit report: This is a report that summarizes all financial transactions for the day. This report is structured specifically for each hotel and is based on the type of information required by the hotel. Reading the end of day audit report allows the hotel management more flexibility to meet financial goals and support the hotel's profitability management. The 3rd shift front desk cashier (who also serves as the night auditor) must also prepare and distribute a number of reports and statistical information for operational and management purposes.

- Save data to the computer: Finally and very importantly, immediately after using the computer system, the receptionist must save all data about the day's business activities in case the computer system malfunctions.

1.5. Recruitment standards

1.5.1. Head of Reception Cashier

The need for recruiting personnel for each department in each hotel is very different, depending on a number of factors such as:

- Hotel class and scale of operation

- Specific characteristics and recruitment needs of each hotel

- Hotel organizational structure

- Seasonality in tourism

- Labor costs, recruitment, retraining

- Locally trained tourism human resources

- Existing human resources of the hotel

- …

From the above factors, hotels set out their recruitment needs for each department of the hotel. These candidates must meet specific recruitment standards set by the hotel before the interview on knowledge and professional skills. In the presence of the hotel's recruitment board members, each candidate answers direct questions about knowledge, communication skills, soft skills, ... or performs some specific professional skills as required at the hotel's facilities.

Hotels often evaluate candidates according to the standards that the hotel desires, based on a number of criteria such as: degrees, certificates achieved; knowledge and related vocational skills that have been trained; practical experience (if any will be an advantage); health; appearance; foreign languages and diplomacy.

3 to 5 star hotels often set recruitment standards for front desk cashiers such as:

- Have been trained and graduated in accounting or accounting specialized in tourism and hotel is better (Can be at university, college or intermediate level of accounting, depending on the needs of the employer)

- Ability to manage, operate and supervise the front desk cashier department of a 3-star hotel or higher independently or in a group; Have a high sense of responsibility, be hard-working and able to withstand work pressure

- Fluent communication in English with foreigners is a must; Priority is given to candidates who can communicate in another foreign language.

- Priority is given to candidates with experience working as a front desk cashier or equivalent at 3-star hotels or resorts.

- Proficient in office computer

- Gender: Male/Female; Age: from 25 to 35 years old

- Appearance: Good looking