Question Bank
1. What is Bell Desk? Give its organizations?
Answer:
Bell desk is an extended arm of front desk. There are many activities at the time of arrival, during stay
and at the time of departure of guest which cannot be carried out from the front desk but are to be
carried out essentially, in order to provide services to the guest. As the name suggests it is a small
desk/counter in the lobby near the main entrance of the hotel. The bell desk should be situated in clear
view of the front desk, cashier and particularly the doorman standing outside the lobby, so that the
doorman may signal for a bellboy at the arrival of a guest. Further, it is also important that the bell desk
is situated near the luggage centre and luggage entrance.
Head Hall Porter is the in-charge of uniformed staff is the head hall porter, and he usually wears a
uniform of either tails or a frock coat with brass or silver buttons and gold or silver braid or any other
uniforms as decided by the management. The majority of hall porters in larger hotels are members of an
international society called as “Societe des clefs d’ or’’ and wear a badge of crossed keys on the lapel of
their coat.
2. What are the various functions performed by bell desk ?
Answer:
1. Luggage handling
Luggage handling of the guest is done at various occasions such as arrival, during stay (change of
room) and at the time of departure. At the time of arrival when the luggage of the guest is moved from
car/taxi to the lobby and further to the allotted room, the activity is called “up bell activity”. When the
luggage of the guest is moved from room to lobby and further to the car/taxi at the time of departure
the activity is called “down bell activity”.
2. Paging
Apart form luggage handling the bell desk is also responsible for paging a guest. The paging is a
system of locating the guest in the hotel. Many times the in-house guest expects a phone call or
a visitor but decides not to wait in the room, and might decide to go to a public area such as bar,
restaurant, swimming pool, lobby or lounge etc. of the hotel or may go out of the hotel. In such
cases the hotel requests the guest to tell about his whereabouts through a location form
3. Mail and Message Handling
The bell desk’s function is also to handle and distribute mail and message received by the front
desk in the absence of the guests to their respective rooms. Also distribution of newspaper and
magazines etc. to various rooms and the areas of the hotel and keeping a record of the same is
done by the bell desk.
4. Delivery of newspapers
As per the hotel policy all hotel guests receive a copy of local newspaper each morning. The bellboys in
the night shift are responsible for delivering the newspapers to all occupied rooms.
The bell captain obtains the room verification report (providing information on all rooms
presently occupied). The bellboy then marks the room numbers on each newspaper. The bellboys also
inserts the daily newsletters in each paper provided by the public relations office the previous evening.
The bellboy then distributes the newspapers. The record of numbers of newspapers received on daily
basis is maintained by the night shift bell captain.
5. Collection of Room Keys at Departure.
Another very important function of the bell desk is the collection of room key from a checkout guest and
Depositing the same at the information desk.
6. Miscellaneous Jobs
Miscellaneous Jobs such as postage stamps handling, taking care of outgoing mail of the guest,
carry out outside errands for the guest and hotel such as buying of cinema tickets, moving of
files and documents etc. for the guest as well as going to banks, post office and FRRO police
station foe delivering of ‘C forms’ etc., confirming of railways/bus reservation etc. are done by
the bell desk
7. Wake Call
In some hotels the wake up call to groups and crews is coordinated by bell desk. In such cases it is the
responsibility of the bell captain on duty in the morning shift to prepare the wake call sheets of all the
groups and crews in –house.
3. Give a comprehensive list of Bell Desk equipments?
Answer:
The list of various equipment required for efficiently performing the bell desk function is very
exhaustive and comprehensive and depends upon hotel to hotel, its standard and degree of automation
used in the hotel. But generally the following items are important.
1. Luggage trolleys and bell hop trolleys: It is important that the trolleys are well maintained,
proper greasing and oiling is done in time and in case of brakes, make sure that they
function properly. Also make sure that their movements are well controlled and move only
in required guided direction. There is no squeaking or rattling noise when the trolleys are
moved. However avoid excessive oiling as the oil drops may cause stains on floors and
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
carpet which may be difficult to remove and may also cause accidents. The trolleys should
fit in easily along with the guest and bellboy without creating overloaded condition in the
elevator cage:
For proper and effective intra-communication with front desk areas and intercommunication with other areas of the hotel as well as outside hotel the bell desk must be
equipped with intercoms, telephone and computers, etc. For written communication proper
proformas should be there.
Postage weighing machine is also important.
Franking machines for printing the value of postage.
Date and time punching machine for putting the date and time of reviving the mail and
message by the bell desk.
Luggage net for identifying and separating the luggage of groups usually.
Stamp folder, glue, twines, scissors cardboard for packaging etc.
Stamp folder, glue, twines, scissors cardboard for packaging etc.
4. Draw a format of Left luggage register and Left luggage inventory sheet?
Answer:
LEFT LUGGAGE REGISTER:
Date
Room No.
Name
Guest
of Bell
No.
Boy Luggage
Tag No.
Description Date
of Remarks
of Luggage Delivery
LUGGAGE INVENTORY SHEET
S.No
Luggage
Tag No
Name of Room
the
No
Guest
Date of Description Location
Deposit
of Luggage in
Luggage
Room
5. Draw a left luggage flow chart?
Answer:
LEFT LUGGAGE FLOW CHART
Intimation received from guest for storing luggage
Collection Remarks
Date
Ascertain no. of pieces and duration for storing
Prepare left luggage receipt
1st copy
Collect cash & stamp
‘paid’ & give to the guest
2nd copy
Affix on
baggage
Direct bellboy to affix 2nd
Copy on baggage and store
Systematically as assigned
3rd copy
File copy
4th copy
Retained in the Book
Book sent to FO
cashier as and when
directed with the cash collected
to be deposited.
6. Who is a night auditor in a Hotel?
Answer:
A night auditor is a person who works at night at the reception of a hotel. They typically handle both the
duties of the front desk agent and some of the duties of the accounting department. This is necessitated
by the fact that most fiscal days close at or around midnight, and the normal workday of the employees
in the accounting department does not extend to cover this time of day.[1]
In larger hotels, night auditors may work alongside other nighttime employees, such as security officers,
telephone attendants, room service attendants, and bellhops. In smaller hotels and motels, the night
auditor may work alone, and may even only be "on-call", meaning that once he or she completes
running the daily reports, the auditor retires to an area away from the desk while remaining available to
attend to unexpected requests from guests. In the smallest hotels and some bed and breakfast
establishments, the front desk may close entirely overnight. Guests in such facilities are typically given a
contact number for an employee or manager, who may be sleeping on the premises or live nearby, for
use in case of emergency.
7. What are the various functions performed by a Night Auditor?
Answer:
The night audit itself is an audit of the guest ledger. The guest ledger (or front office ledger or transient
ledger) is the collection of all accounts receivable for currently registered guests. It can also be defined
as the collection of all guest folios. A folio (billing receipt) is the account of an individual guest who is
currently registered. The guest ledger is distinct from the city ledger, which is the collection of accounts
receivable for non-registered guests (such as credit card companies). The purpose of the night auditor is,
but is not limited to, ensuring the accuracy of all financial information, and gathering all needed
paperwork to complete the audit. This will include pulling any or all checked-out guests' registration
cards, and making sure all guests are checked-out in the system that should be checked-out.
One task of the night auditor is posting the day's room rate and room tax to each guest folio at the close
of business (which usually occurs from midnight to 2 AM).
Second, the night auditor must ensure the accuracy of the charges to the guest folios, ensuring that the
sum of revenues due to accounts receivable from the various departments (i.e. Food & Beverage,
Rooms, gift shop) found on the department control sheets equals the sum of the charges made to the
guest folios.
The folios for guests who are scheduled to depart the next morning may be printed and delivered to the
guests' rooms
8. Explain the duties & responsibilities of night Auditor?
Answer:
Duties and responsibilities of a night auditor:
 The night auditor is an official of the hotel who verifies the correctness of the guest accounts checks
the entries of the day’s sales and verifies whether the cash collected during the day has been duly
accounted for with the help of summaries and statements received from various departments during
the night shift.
 The night auditor should also be familiar with the nature of cash transaction affecting the front office
accounting system.
 The night auditor typically tracks room revenues, occupancy percentages and other operating
statistics.
 In addition, the auditor prepares a daily summary of cash, check and credit card activities that
occurred at the front desk. These data reflect the front office’s financial performance for the day.
 The night auditor summarizes and reports the results of the operations to the front office
management. This accounting data can also be used by hotel’s accounting department for the
generation of further statistical reports.
 The night auditor establishes guest and non guest account integrity by cross- referencing account
posting with departmental source documentation.
9. Explain the process of Night Audit?
Answer:
1. All pending vouchers, left unposted by the previous billing clerk are entered into
the guest account.
i.
Charges room rate to all guest accounts and accumulates room charges for the day are also
posted in the guest account
ii.
Closes all guest accounts for the day in the Visitors Tabular Ledger as well as in the Guest
Weekly bills
iii. Prepares new sheets of Visitor Tabular Ledger for coming day and opens all guest accounts
iv. Totals Debit and Credit sides of each V.T.L.
Checks the arithmetical accuracy of the total of each debit and credit item on the last sheet of
the V.T.L. The formulas applied are:
Daily total vertical figures = daily total horizontal figures
Daily total + Balance B/F(Dr.) – Balance B/F(Cr.) = Grand total(Dr.) – Grand Total(Cr.)
2. Two transcripts of the guest accounts are prepared; one for the in-house guests and the second for
the departed guests
3. The total individual items showing the transcript are compared with the respective sale summaries of
the departments
a) The total room sales is compared with the room sales shown by the V.T.L., room count sheet
and the night receptionists room sales report
b) The total food sale is compared with the restaurant sale summary, cash book summary and
V.T.L. food column
c) The total of the bar sale is compared with the bar allocation sheet of control dept. and cashiers
bar sale summary and V.T.L. bar column.
d) The total of telephone column is compared with the telephone summary and V.T.L. telephone
column.
e) The total of other departments is compared with the sales journals of these departments and
respective columns of the V.T.L.
f) The balance b/f is compared with the balance c/f for the previous day
g) The total of cash receipts is compared with the front office cash sheet
h) The allowance vouchers are not listed in the front office so the night auditor prepares a
consolidated statement of allowances. The total of these is compared with the allowance
column of the transcript.
10. What are the various reports generated during Night audit?
Answer:
The night auditor typically prepares reports that indicate the status of front office activities and
operations. Among those prepared for management review are the final department detail and
summary reports, the daily operations report, the high balance report, and other reports specific to the
property.
Final department detail and summary reports are produced and filed along with their source
documents for accounting division review. These reports help prove that all transactions were properly
posted and accounted for.
The daily operations report summarizes the day's business and provides insight into revenues,
receivables, operating statistics, and cash transactions related to the front office. This report is typically
considered the most important outcome of the front office audit.
The high balance report, as shown in Exhibit, identifies guests whose charges are approaching
an account credit limit designated by the hotel (the house limit).
In a computerized front office system, the computer may be programmed to produce many
management reports on demand. For example, the high balance report may be produced at any time
during the day as a continuing check on guest transactions and account balances.
In addition, other reports are usually created at this time by the night audit. A report showing
each group in the hotel, the number of rooms occupied by each group, the number of guests for each
group, and the revenue generated by each group is common. This report helps the hotel sales
department with the group history. The same type of report may be generated for guests on package
plans or guests staying in the hotel due to a special promotion or advertising program. Other reports
may list guests who stay frequently and guests who are VIPs. In automated hotels, this type of
marketing information can be automatically tracked, sorted, and reported.