What Should a New Hotel Finance Manager Do in the First 30 Days?

Starting as a hotel finance manager can feel overwhelming.

You may inherit a property with existing reporting routines, unresolved reconciliations, budget pressures, operational issues, owner expectations, and a finance team that already has its own way of working.

One of the most common mistakes is assuming that the first 30 days should be about changing everything.

They should not.

The first month is better used to understand the hotel, establish financial visibility, identify risks, and build relationships with the people who create the numbers.

That is particularly important in hotel finance because financial results are closely connected to what happens in operations. Rooms, food and beverage, labour, purchasing, sales, engineering, reservations and front office activity all eventually affect the financial picture.

So what should a new hotel finance manager actually focus on during the first month?

Start by Understanding How the Hotel Makes Money

Before changing spreadsheets, reports or procedures, understand the hotel’s operating model.

Ask basic but important questions:

• Where does the hotel’s revenue come from?
• Which departments generate the largest contribution?
• How does the property sell rooms?
• What are the major labour drivers?
• Which costs are fixed and which move with activity?
• What are the major contractual commitments?
• What does ownership care about most?
• Which numbers does the General Manager review every day, week and month?

This is where hotel finance differs from simply working through accounting entries.

You are not only trying to understand whether a number is correct.

You are trying to understand why the number exists and what operational activity produced it.

The Hotel Operations Financial Playbook is particularly relevant to this way of thinking because it connects financial information with hotel operating decisions, contribution, cash, capacity, people and assets.

Don’t Change the Finance Process Before You Understand It

A new manager will almost always find things that look inefficient.

Perhaps a report is too manual.

Perhaps several spreadsheets appear unnecessary.

Perhaps someone is performing a reconciliation differently from how you were taught.

Perhaps a report takes two hours to prepare when you believe it could take twenty minutes.

That does not automatically mean the process should be changed immediately.

First understand:

What is the process?

Why does it exist?

Who uses the output?

What risk does it control?

What happens if it is removed?

Only after answering those questions should you redesign it.

This is particularly important when joining a hotel where finance processes have evolved over several years. A spreadsheet that looks inefficient may actually compensate for a limitation somewhere else in the hotel’s systems.

Review the Core Financial Flows

During the first 30 days, a finance manager should develop a clear picture of the hotel’s major financial flows.

That includes areas such as:

Accounts Receivable

Understand:

• who owes the hotel money
• how old outstanding balances are
• which accounts create recurring problems
• who approves credit
• how collections are followed up
• whether disputed balances are being resolved

Accounts Payable

Understand:

• major suppliers
• payment terms
• outstanding invoices
• approval processes
• recurring supplier issues
• unusual or unexpected liabilities

Revenue

Look at how hotel revenue moves from operational activity into financial reporting.

Understand the relationship between:

• reservations
• room sales
• POS transactions
• payments
• commissions
• taxes
• adjustments
• financial reports

Cash and Banking

Understand:

• bank accounts
• cash positions
• payment cycles
• reconciliations
• major upcoming obligations
• unusual cash movements

You do not need to redesign all of these processes during month one.

You need to know where the money is coming from, where it is going, and where the risks are.

Learn How the Hotel’s P&L Actually Behaves

A new finance manager should spend time studying previous months rather than looking only at the current month.

Look for patterns.

For example:

• Does labour consistently exceed expectations?
• Does F&B profitability fluctuate significantly?
• Are certain costs highly seasonal?
• Are there recurring revenue adjustments?
• Are there departments with persistent unexplained variances?
• Do certain expenses appear late every month?
• Are there large differences between operational expectations and financial results?

The goal is not to create a long list of variances.

The goal is to understand the drivers behind the hotel’s financial performance.

For a deeper approach, Hotel Financial Reporting in Practice follows hotel activity from the guest event through statements, schedules, KPIs and owner results within the USALI® 12 framework.

That type of connected thinking is useful when you are trying to understand a property rather than simply prepare reports.

Talk to Operations Before You Judge the Numbers

One of the biggest lessons for a new hotel finance manager is that finance does not create the numbers alone.

Operations does.

Spend time with:

• General Manager
• Rooms Division
• Front Office
• Housekeeping
• Food & Beverage
• Sales
• Engineering
• Procurement
• Human Resources

Ask operational leaders questions such as:

“What financial problem causes you the most frustration?”

“Which report do you actually use?”

“Which number do you think finance does not understand?”

“What operational issue do you think is affecting profitability?”

These conversations can reveal problems that a spreadsheet cannot.

A department head may know that a particular cost increase was caused by a temporary operational issue.

A sales leader may know that a revenue variance is connected to a specific business segment.

A housekeeping manager may understand why labour productivity changed before the variance becomes obvious in the financial report.

Finance becomes more useful when it understands that context.

Identify the Five Numbers You Need to Watch Closely

You do not need fifty KPIs during your first month.

Start with a manageable set that helps you understand the property.

Depending on the hotel, these may include:

1. Occupancy and room revenue
2. ADR or relevant rate metrics
3. Departmental profitability
4. Labour and productivity
5. Cash or working-capital pressure

The exact list should depend on the hotel’s business model.

A luxury full-service property, independent hotel, limited-service property and resort will not necessarily have the same financial priorities.

The important point is to avoid building a dashboard simply because the data is available.

A KPI should help answer a management question.

Check Whether the Budget Still Reflects Reality

A new finance manager will often inherit an approved annual budget.

That does not mean the assumptions behind it are still realistic.

Review:

• occupancy assumptions
• rate assumptions
• revenue mix
• labour assumptions
• departmental costs
• major contracts
• CapEx expectations
• cash requirements
• seasonality
• known operational changes

The objective is not to immediately rewrite the budget.

Instead, understand what assumptions the hotel is currently operating against.

The Hotel Budgeting and Forecasting in Practice resource approaches budgeting as a connected process involving market evidence, operating drivers, departmental economics, cash requirements, management review and owner decisions.

That perspective is useful because a budget should be more than an annual spreadsheet.

It should represent an agreed view of how the hotel expects to operate.

Find the Risks Before Chasing the Small Savings

New finance managers sometimes focus on easy savings because they are visible.

Reducing a small expense by 5% feels productive.

But a larger financial risk may be sitting somewhere else.

During your first month, look for issues such as:

• significant overdue receivables
• unexplained revenue adjustments
• weak reconciliation processes
• uncontrolled purchasing
• recurring payroll issues
• inaccurate operational statistics
• missing approvals
• unreliable reporting deadlines
• major budget assumptions that no longer match reality

The question should be:

“What could materially hurt this hotel if nobody addresses it?”

That question usually produces better priorities than simply asking:

“Where can we cut costs?”

Establish a Reliable Month-End Routine

If you are joining a hotel finance department, learn the month-end process as early as possible.

Understand:

• the closing calendar
• responsibilities
• supporting schedules
• reconciliations
• revenue reporting
• payroll information
• accruals
• inventory
• management reporting
• owner reporting
• review and approval stages

Do not wait until month-end to discover that different departments have different expectations.

A reliable close depends on coordination across the property.

The objective should be to make the month-end process predictable enough that management can focus on what the numbers mean rather than questioning whether the numbers are ready.

Build Trust With the Finance Team

Your first 30 days are also about people.

Meet your finance team individually.

Understand:

• what each person is responsible for
• what they do well
• where they struggle
• which processes depend heavily on one person
• where knowledge is undocumented
• what they think should be improved

Avoid assuming that the person with the longest tenure automatically has the best process.

But also avoid assuming that your previous hotel’s process is automatically better.

Your first goal is to create an environment where people will tell you when something is wrong.

That is more valuable than creating the appearance of perfect control.

Create a Simple 30-Day Finance Manager Checklist

By the end of the first month, you should ideally be able to answer questions like:

Property

• How does this hotel make money?
• What are its biggest operational drivers?
• What are its biggest financial risks?

Reporting

• How does operational activity flow into financial reporting?
• Which reports does management actually use?
• Where are the reporting weaknesses?

People

• Who owns each major financial process?
• Which departments need closer finance support?
• Where are relationships strong or weak?

Performance

• What are the biggest recurring variances?
• Which drivers explain them?
• Which issues need immediate action?

Planning

• What assumptions drive the current budget?
• What has changed since the budget was approved?
• What should be monitored in the next forecast?

If you can answer these questions, your first month has been productive.

You do not need to have solved every problem.

You need to know which problems matter, why they matter, and what should happen next.

What Should Happen After the First 30 Days?

Once you understand the property, you can start moving from observation to improvement.

That may mean:

• improving reporting
• strengthening financial controls
• redesigning inefficient workflows
• improving forecasting
• supporting departmental decisions
• developing finance capability within the team
• improving communication with operations
• creating clearer owner reporting

This is where hotel finance starts becoming a management function rather than an accounting function.

The broader From Finance Manager to CFO resource takes this progression further, focusing on the move from financial processes and reporting toward business decisions, operations, capital, people and enterprise performance.

Final Takeaway

The first 30 days as a hotel finance manager should not be a race to prove how much you can change.

It should be a period of disciplined learning.

Understand the hotel.

Understand the numbers.

Understand the people.

Understand the processes.

Understand the risks.

Then decide what deserves to change.

That approach gives a new finance manager something much more valuable than a long list of improvements: a reliable understanding of how the hotel actually works.

FAQs

What should a new hotel finance manager do first?

Start by understanding the hotel’s operating model, financial flows, reporting processes, people, major risks and current performance before making significant process changes.

What should a hotel finance manager review in the first 30 days?

Key areas include revenue, accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash, bank reconciliations, month-end processes, labour, departmental performance, budget assumptions and major financial risks.

Does a hotel finance manager need to understand hotel operations?

Yes. Hotel financial performance is closely connected to operational activity. Understanding rooms, F&B, labour, sales and other departments helps finance managers explain financial results and support better decisions.

Is hotel finance only about accounting?

No. Accounting and reporting are important foundations, but effective hotel finance also involves budgeting, forecasting, operational analysis, risk management, business partnering and management decision-making.

What should a new hotel finance manager avoid doing?

Avoid changing processes before understanding why they exist. A better approach is to learn the current system, identify material risks and then prioritize improvements based on their business impact.