Front office reports: arrivals, departures, in-house and the lists the desk reads daily

Front office reports are the working lists the reception desk reads each shift: expected arrivals, departures, stayovers, the in-house guest list and house count, room moves, out-of-order rooms, deposits due, high balances, no-shows, VIPs and wake-ups. Each answers one question at one hour, and each carries guest names, so each needs a handling rule.

It is 06:55 and the night shift is finishing. Today's arrivals list sits on the desk, printed at 02:00, and two of the rooms it promises are still out of order. Nobody has put the two lists side by side. This article defines the lists the desk actually reads, who needs each one at what hour, what to check on it first, and how long a printed copy with guest names may lie around.

What are front office reports?#

Front office reports are the short working lists the reception desk reads to run a shift: who arrives, who leaves, who is in house, which rooms can be sold, which bills need attention and which guests need a specific service. They are operational documents, not accounting ones.

Separate the desk's lists from the night audit's reports. The desk reads its lists during the shift and discards them; the trial balance and the manager's flash close the business day and go to accounting, and they are covered in night audit reports explained.

Names vary by system: expected arrivals, arrival list and due-in usually mean the same thing. Ask what a list is built from and when it refreshes, not what it is called. Each list answers one question at one hour. An arrivals list read at 23:00 has no value, and a departure list read at 07:00 arrives after the breakfast rush it was meant to prepare.

A list is only as good as the data behind it. A reservation changed after printing is invisible on paper, which is why the desk re-checks the screen before acting on a printed line. And give every list an owner per shift: a name and a time written at the top of the page is the cheapest control a front office has.

Which lists does the desk read before a shift?#

Three: expected arrivals, departures and stayovers. Read in that order, they tell the desk what the day will demand before the first guest reaches the counter.

The expected arrivals report carries name, room type and rate, estimated arrival time, special requests, deposit or payment status, and the room the system has assigned. Read it for what is missing, not for what is there. A missing deposit note or an unassigned room is the line that will cost the shift time later.

The departure list tells the desk who is due out, what balance is open, what transport time is booked and who asked for a late check-out. Its count also sets the order in which housekeeping can release rooms for tonight. The stayover list names the guests staying through, so nobody re-registers them and housekeeping knows which rooms to service rather than strip.

Cross-check arrivals against sellable rooms. If the list promises more arrivals than there are usable rooms, the problem exists now and the fix is a decision, not a hope. Read the lists at the handover, not after it: the outgoing and incoming shift should look at the same three pages together for two minutes.

What is an in-house guest list and what is house count?#

The in-house list is every guest currently registered in the building, room by room. House count is how many people that is, and how many rooms they occupy.

The in-house list holds room number, guest name, arrival and departure dates, rate code, open balance, VIP flag and any special request. It is the desk's picture of the building at this moment. House count is counted in persons, not rooms: a family of four in one room is one room and four guests, so always say which number you mean when you report it.

House count and occupancy rate are different instruments. Occupancy is a percentage of rooms sold over a period; house count is a snapshot. Using one where the other belongs produces numbers that cannot be defended.

In a power cut or an evacuation, the printed in-house list sorted by room number is the document that says who should be inside. It has to be current and it has to be reachable without a screen, which is why hotels keep an offline copy as part of a front desk checklist for when the internet goes down.

Expect three traps: guests who left without checking out and still sit on the list, early arrivals who are in the lobby but not yet registered, and day-use rooms that are sold but not overnight. Reconcile the list with housekeeping at least once a shift. A room the desk believes is occupied and housekeeping believes is vacant is a discrepancy to resolve, not a note to keep.

Which room lists does the desk keep?#

Three room lists: moves, out of order and due out. Together they explain why the room a guest was promised may not be the room the guest gets.

The room move log records the room left, the room entered, the reason, who authorized it, the time, and whether the rate changed. The key card, the guest record and the housekeeping sheet all follow the move. Out of order means a room is withdrawn from sale for repair. Out of service means a room cannot be sold tonight but will return. Both reduce what the desk can sell, and the return date is the part people forget to update.

The due-out list names rooms whose guests leave today. It sets the cleaning order and tells the desk which rooms can be sold tonight if the arrivals list runs short. Do the arithmetic once a shift: total rooms, minus out of order, minus out of service, minus occupied stayovers, equals what is left to sell. Compare that with the arrivals list.

Room status codes differ between hotels and systems, so write a one-page key in the hotel's own words and keep it at the desk rather than in a manual. The common codes are explained in hotel room status codes: VC, VD, OOO and OOS.

Which money lists belong at the front desk?#

Three: deposits due, high balances and no-shows. They are the lists that stop a small billing problem from becoming a written-off account.

The deposits due list shows arrivals whose deposit or prepayment has not landed. Check it before a key is handed over, not after the guest has gone to the room. The high balance list shows in-house guests whose open bill has passed the limit the hotel set; the desk asks for a settlement or an authorization while the guest is still in the building.

The no-show list shows reservations that did not arrive by the hotel's cut-off. The desk releases or holds the room, and reservations confirms the status before anything is charged. Any charge after a no-show follows the reservation's own terms and the contract behind it, whether the booking came directly or through an agency. Whether a particular charge is enforceable is a question for the hotel's legal adviser, not a rule this article can state.

Keep these three apart from the night audit's trial balance and exception lists, which close the business day and belong to accounting. Agency and city-ledger balances deserve their own list; the desk should not be reconciling them at the counter while a guest waits.

Which service lists does the desk keep?#

VIP, wake-up and special requests. They are the smallest lists at the desk and the ones most likely to embarrass the hotel when a line is missed.

The VIP and returning guest list carries name, preference, arrival time, who greets the guest and what is already in the room. It has to reach housekeeping and the restaurant, not stay at the desk. The wake-up list records time, room, method and confirmation that the call was made. A missed wake-up is a complaint with a name and a time attached, so the record matters as much as the call.

The special request list covers cribs, connecting rooms, allergies, late check-out and quiet rooms. The usual failure is a request captured at booking and never printed on any list the shift reads. Pass these lists at handover with initials, not verbally: a request that lives only in a conversation ends when the shift ends.

Keep each list short enough to read in two minutes. A twelve-page VIP list is not read, and an unread list is worse than none because it suggests the work was done.

How long may a printed list with guest names lie around?#

Only as long as the shift needs it, and never where a guest or a visitor can reach it. A printed list with names is personal data, and the hotel is responsible for it from printer to shredder.

Print only what the shift uses. A list printed just in case is a document nobody owns and nobody collects. Collect the copies at handover, count them, and keep them in a locked drawer or a back-office tray: never at the counter, never on a housekeeping cart, never in an open bin.

Shred when the purpose ends: at shift end for an arrivals list, on the departure day for an in-house list. The trigger is the purpose, not how full the sheet is. Nobody takes a list off the property; a manager who needs one at home exports it from the system under their own login, where the access is recorded.

Personal data must be kept for the purpose and period it was collected for. Describe that duty in general terms inside the hotel, and confirm retention periods and your own case with a legal adviser. Write the rule down as a retention and destruction table, so the answer does not depend on who is on shift; how long a hotel should keep guest records shows how to build one.

What to do next#

Pick one shift this week and read the three lists in order before the handover: arrivals, departures, stayovers. Then put the in-house list next to housekeeping's room sheet and see whether they agree. That single comparison finds more real problems than any new report will.

A report is only useful if the person reading it knows what question it answers. Before you build a new one, write the question at the top of the page: how many rooms did we sell last night, which charges are still unbilled, which arrivals have not checked in. A report that answers a named question gets read; a report that shows everything gets skipped.