Housekeeping reports explained: room report, discrepancy and attendant sheets
Housekeeping reports are daily records that support decisions outside the department, from selling rooms to charging late departures. Learn which records to produce, who reads them, and how to run discrepancy checks that catch skippers and sleepers before errors occur.
Contents
Key takeaways
- Each housekeeping report answers one question for someone outside housekeeping: can this room be sold, is this guest still inside it, and what is missing from the linen store.
- The attendant's sheet records what one person saw; the room status report records what the hotel believes; the discrepancy report is the only routine place where the two are compared.
- A discrepancy is not an error to hide. It is the check that catches a guest who left without checking out and a room that was sold while someone was still in it.
- A report without a time and a name cannot settle an argument at the desk, which is the only reason to keep it.
Housekeeping reports are the daily records a hotel's housekeeping department produces: the attendant's room sheet, the room status report, the discrepancy report against the front desk, linen and amenity counts, and lost-and-found and fault logs. Each one exists to support a decision outside the department, from selling a room to charging a late departure.
At 23:40 the front desk sells room 412. The attendant's sheet from the afternoon says the room was still occupied when she knocked. Nobody compares the two until the guest comes back to the desk with a key that no longer works. Housekeeping reports for a hotel exist to prevent exactly this evening. After reading, you will know which records your department must produce each day, who reads each one, and how to run the comparison that catches a skipper before the desk sells the room out from under a sleeper.
What reports does housekeeping produce every day?
Housekeeping produces five routine records, and each one is read by someone outside the department. Their names and formats differ between hotels; the decisions they support do not.
| Report | Filled by | Read by | Decision it supports |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendant room sheet | Room attendant, during the shift | Floor supervisor | Whether a room is ready, and anything the desk should know |
| Room status report | Housekeeping supervisor | Front desk, reservations | Which rooms can be sold now |
| Discrepancy report | Night auditor with housekeeping | Duty manager, GM | Whether a guest left a room the system calls occupied, or remains in one it calls vacant |
| Linen and amenity count | Housekeeping store | Executive housekeeper, purchasing | How much stock to replace, and whether loss is real |
| Lost-and-found and fault reports | Whoever finds the item or fault | Duty manager, engineering | How to return property; whether a room can still be sold |
Every one of these must carry three things or it cannot settle a dispute: who wrote it, the time it was written, and which rooms it covers. A record missing any of the three is an opinion, not evidence.
These are common practice, not a published standard. Two hotels can use the same words for different things, so agree the definitions inside your own building before comparing reports between buildings. For a wider view of how the department fits into the day, see how the hotel housekeeping department works day to day.
What does the room attendant's sheet record?
One line per assigned room, written by the person who cleaned it: the room number, the time, the state she found the room in, what she did, and anything she saw that the desk should know.
The header carries the date, shift, attendant name or ID, floor or section, and a signature. Without the header the lines belong to nobody. Per room, the sheet records what she observed (empty, occupied with belongings, guests present, do not disturb, service refused), the service given (departure clean, stayover tidy, linen change), minibar consumption, damage or missing items, and faults.
The time is the most valuable field on the page. It is the only evidence of when a room became ready and when a guest was last seen inside it. The most common failure is writing the sheet at the end of the shift from memory. The second is a tick with no time. The third is recording a stayover tidy as a full clean.
A supervisor's check is short: every assigned room has a line, the times run in the order the rooms were actually done, and anything unusual was escalated during the same shift rather than left on paper. Paper or a device, the record matters more than the medium. A device adds a timestamp the attendant cannot backdate, which is exactly the point of the timestamp.
ChecklistWhat a room attendant's sheet must carry, one line per room
- Date and shift
- Attendant name or ID and signature
- Room number
- Time in
- State found: empty, occupied, guests present, do not disturb, service refused
- Service given: departure clean, stayover, linen change
- Minibar or chargeable consumption
- Damage, missing item or left property
- Fault found, and whether the room can still be sold
- Anything to tell the front desk
For the sequence the attendant follows in each room, see the step-by-step room cleaning order for attendants.
What is the housekeeping room status report?
It is the department's consolidated view of every room at a stated moment: ready to sell, dirty, occupied, blocked for maintenance, or out of order. The front desk uses it to decide what can be sold in the next hour.
It is built from the attendants' sheets plus the supervisor's inspections, and issued at set times, commonly morning, mid-afternoon and end of shift, plus on request when the house is full. The report is a snapshot with a time on it. A status list without a time is a guess, because rooms change state between the moment of cleaning and the moment of reading.
Distinguish a room blocked for a short repair from a room removed from sale for a longer period. Both stop a sale, but only one changes the number of rooms the hotel counts as available, and revenue needs to know which is which. The supervisor who compiles the report signs it, so a wrong status can be traced to a person and a time rather than to the department as a whole.
Send it to the front desk even when nothing has changed. A report that only appears when something is wrong trains the desk to distrust it.
NoteStatus codes are hotel practice, not a published standard
This article does not define them, because two hotels can mean different things by the same letters. Agree your own list with the front desk and write it down. For the vocabulary, see room status codes explained: VC, VD, OOO and OOS.
How does a discrepancy report catch skippers and sleepers?
It compares what housekeeping saw with what the front desk's system says, room by room, and lists every room where the two disagree. That short list is the only routine check that catches a guest who left without checking out and a room sold while someone was still inside.
Two classic cases, in the words hotels commonly use. A skipper is a room the system shows as occupied but housekeeping found empty and cleared of belongings. A sleeper is a room the system shows as vacant and departed but housekeeping found occupied. Hotels use both words loosely, so agree your meanings.
The night auditor or the night housekeeping supervisor compares the attendants' sheets against the rooming list, or walks the rooms the system calls vacant, and writes a short list of room numbers with both versions and the time of each. A skipper is not a checkout. The room has to be checked out properly, the bill settled or moved to a city ledger account, and the room released for sale, in that order.
A sleeper must not be disturbed. Correct the record, tell the duty manager, and handle the guest at a sensible hour with the bill and the extension discussed in person. Both sides sign and time the report: housekeeping supervisor and night auditor. Run it at least once every night, and again after a group departure or on a night when the house is full. The discrepancy check belongs inside the routine that closes the day; see the night audit checklist that closes the business day.
Watch outDo not resolve a discrepancy by changing the housekeeping record to match the front desk system
Record both versions with their times, then decide what to do and who decided it. The disagreement is the finding; matching the two records destroys the evidence and hides the cause.
How do linen counts, lost-and-found and fault reports work?
They are the three records that leave housekeeping's own floor: stock, property and repairs. Each one is only useful if it is comparable with yesterday's version of itself.
Linen count: count each item against the hotel's par stock, at the same hour, from the same store, by the same method. Otherwise the variance you are chasing is your own counting, not a loss. A linen difference is not automatically a loss: the item is in a room, in the laundry, at the pool, or gone. The count tells you the size of the gap; the walk tells you where it went.
Amenities are consumed by rooms serviced, not by rooms occupied. A stayover with service refused consumes nothing, and a report that assumes otherwise will always overstate use.
The lost-and-found register records the item, room, date found, who found it, where it is stored, and the date it will be disposed of. Keep the item and the record together, because the register is what answers a claim months later. The fault report records the room number, what is wrong, when it was found, and whether the room can still be sold. This is the step that turns a housekeeping observation into an engineering job with a date attached.
The usual failure is three separate notebooks that the duty manager never sees until something goes wrong. One page, one place, one owner.
TipCount linen at the same hour, from the same store, by the same method, every day
A count taken at a different time each day measures the schedule, not the stock.
Which housekeeping reports reach the GM's morning page?
Only the exceptions: rooms not ready, unresolved discrepancies, rooms out of order, and anything that will cost money or a guest. The full status list belongs to the front office, not to the general manager.
The GM needs the short list of what went wrong and what was decided, not a room-by-room inventory of the building. Typical lines: rooms out of order with an expected return date; discrepancies found overnight and how each was closed; departures that left without settling; lost-and-found items of real value; linen variance above the hotel's own threshold.
The threshold is set in advance by the hotel, not judged fresh each morning. A line that appears only when someone feels it is important will disappear within a month. Two rules for every line: it names a person and a time, and it says what happens next. A line without an owner is a note, not a report. Keep the morning page short enough to read standing up; if it needs a second page, the first page is carrying things that belong in the department. For the wider format, see what a GM's morning page should contain.
What to do next
Start with one habit rather than one system: put a time and a name on every line of the attendant's sheet, and compare that sheet against the front desk once every night. The attendant's sheet, the status report and the discrepancy report only work as a chain, and the chain breaks at the first untimed line.
If you want that chain in one place rather than in three notebooks, AI Otel's hotel operating system is built and working, ahead of launch, with 150+ built-in reports and 5 languages (June 2026). If that is the kind of system you are evaluating, you can request a briefing.
Frequently asked questions
Who should sign a housekeeping discrepancy report?
Both sides: the housekeeping supervisor who holds the department's version and the night auditor or duty manager who holds the front desk's version, each with a time. A single signature makes the report one department's opinion; two signatures make it evidence of a check that happened.
How long should a hotel keep room attendant sheets?
There is no single published period that fits every hotel, and this article does not set one. Keep them at least long enough to answer a billing dispute, an insurance claim or a guest complaint that arrives weeks later, and confirm the retention period with your accountant and legal adviser, since personal data rules also apply to anything written on the sheet.
Can housekeeping reports be kept on a tablet instead of paper?
Yes. The medium does not change what makes a report useful: who wrote it, when, and which rooms it covers. A device can add a timestamp the attendant cannot backdate and can push a fault straight to engineering, which is an improvement; it can also tempt a hotel to drop the supervisor's signature, which is not.
What is the difference between a room status report and a discrepancy report?
The status report is one side's view of every room at a moment in time, produced by housekeeping for the front desk. The discrepancy report is a comparison of two views, housekeeping's and the front desk system's, and it lists only the rooms where they disagree. One tells you what to sell; the other tells you what is wrong.
Does every hotel need a maid raporu?
Some version of the attendant's sheet is common practice in Turkish hotels and in hotels elsewhere, because it is the only record of what one person saw in one room at one time. Its name, format and fields differ between hotels, and no single published standard fixes them, so the useful step is to agree the fields inside your own building and keep them the same every day.