Stayntouch PMS Journal
The Journal can be accessed from Financials > Journal.
Once in the Journal, you'll see four tabs (SUMMARY, REVENUE, PAYMENTS, and CASHIER). The Journal functions much like a report and lists all the property's financial transactions based on when End of Day was last completed. The Journal is a succinct overview of the total revenue generated and every payment posted and refunded at the property. Different ledgers on the Journal can be run for a single date or for multiple date ranges with the calendar icon in the upper left corner. Users must be assigned the Access Journal permission from Settings > Hotel & Staff > Permissions to access the Journal. When we open the Journal, it automatically opens to the SUMMARY tab.
This page includes the day's deposit balance, guest balance, and A/R balance, as well as the total ledgers.
The REVENUE and PAYMENTS tabs show the hotel's revenue and payments for the selected date range, respectively. The CASHIER tab is where you can close out your shift if you've taken in cash or checks.
Lastly, in the BALANCE END OF DAY tab, you'll see purple download buttons next to each ledger. This allows you to download the End Of Day report for each of the ledgers for the DATE selected at the top left corner of the screen. The End Of Day reports downloaded will be in CSV format.
Any payment made to a reservation prior to the reservation's arrival or stay date is considered an advanced payment and appears under the DEPOSIT BALANCE section. This is also applicable for group blocks where a deposit is taken on the group account prior to the group's arrival date. You can choose to view an expanded list of all the day's postings by clicking on the orange chevron arrows that expand down.
The OPENING balance is the CLOSING balance from the previous business date.
The DEBIT is the charges posted to future reservations and deposits being moved to the guest ledger at check-in.
The CREDIT includes payments posted to future reservations.
CLOSING is the closing balance for the current day—as listed from the calendar icon.
The guest balance ledger reflects any charges or payments posted to a guest after their arrival date has passed, once they've checked in, or to a house account. You may choose to view an expanded list similar to the deposit balance, where you can see a list of all of the day's postings.
The opening balance reflects the closing balance for yesterday's in-house guests, checked out with balance guests, and accounts.
The debit refers to charges posted to in-house guests, checked out with balance guests, and accounts.
Credit reflects payments transferred from the deposit balance when a guest checks in. This includes payments made for in-house guests, checked out with balance guests, and accounts.
Closing is the balance for the day for all checked in guests, in-house guests, and accounts.
As a note, the guest balance also includes any balances on cancelled or no-show reservations.
The A/R balance, or Accounts Receivable balance, is a list of all charges that were direct billed to an A/R account. The opening balance reflects closing balance for all A/R accounts from the previous date.
The debit reflects any direct bill from any guest reservation or front desk or group account.
The credit reflects any payments received on A/R accounts.
The closing reflects the balance for the day for all A/R accounts.
You can also toggle over to EXPANDED to automatically expand all of those sections.
You can also print the Journal by using the blue print button in the top right corner.
Or, you can even search for certain transactions by searching for the reservation or account name.
Or, by changing the search parameter to Room Number, Amount, Reservation/Account Number, Invoice/Folio Number, or A/R Invoice Number.
For example, if I search for Jane, the system will pull debits and credits posted on this date for a reservation with the name Jane.
Let's now move along to the other tabs, starting with REVENUE.
This section shows you the total revenue generated for each charge code. As a note, that might include taxes and fees, which might be considered non-revenue for you. These charges are grouped by charge group configured for your property in the backend. Within the PMS, multiple charge codes can be grouped under a unique charge group, such as rooms, tax, food, payments, et cetera.
When I click on a charge group, I then get an expanded view of all of the charge codes that exist within that charge group. If I want to see the charges that were posted within one of those charge codes, I can click anywhere on the gray bar or on the orange chevron arrows to expand down and see those details.
By default, the Journal is always going to show you yesterday's date, but you can change the date range to view another date or date range.
You can also filter by certain departments or employees.
If you click this gray dropdown tab in the middle of the screen, you can apply any filters or search parameters you want here.
For example, you can sort by certain reservations, rooms, accounts, reservation account numbers, or invoice or folio numbers.
You can also filter by charge group or by charge code or charge name.
You can also expand the view to see the details for all charges.
Additionally, you can print by clicking the blue print button.
Moving onto the PAYMENTS tab, this is a running list of all your property's configured payment types.
Each payment type, when you expand it down, will list the total amount collected for each date or date range.
You can also expand those out to see more details if you wish.
When clicking on the confirmation number, which is highlighted in orange, the system will take you to the Bill & Charges screen where that specific transaction is recorded.
The PRE-STAY, IN-HOUSE, and POST-STAY tabs reflect changes made to different types of reservations.
The TOTAL shows all totals.
PRE-STAY shows all payments that would be placed under the deposit summary—for example, prior to check-in.
IN-HOUSE shows payments collected for in-house reservations, checked out reservations, or house accounts.
POST-STAY shows payments collected for A/R accounts.
Lastly, we'll move onto the CASHIER.
The CASHIER is where you can track cash and check payments submitted at the end of a front desk agent's or any other agent's shift. We have a separate video on how to manage the CASHIER for users that take in cash and checks.
From the CASHIER, you can filter between different cashiers or change the date.
Additionally, if you click the gray dropdown tab, you can print reports and choose to see inactive cashiers, if necessary.
