Hotel Night Audit Checklist: What to Close Out by Morning

At most independent hotels the night auditor is also the front desk, the security round and the person who answers the phone at 3 a.m. A good hotel night audit checklist puts those jobs in a fixed order, so the financial close, the walk-through, the security round and the notes for the morning team are all finished, not just started.

Most checklists you will find online cover only the ledger. At a boutique property with one person on overnight, the ledger is about half the job. The order below also assumes interruptions: a late arrival, a noise complaint, a card terminal that will not connect. Each block therefore ends at a point where you can stop, log where you are, and resume.

Before you start: clear the desk

The close goes faster when the desk is clean first. Work these before you touch the audit.

• Arrivals. Every expected arrival is checked in, canceled, or marked a no-show under your policy. Check in or update each due-in booking, and clear any arrival that still has an unpaid deposit balance before you start the audit.
• Departures and due-outs. Anyone past their departure date is checked out or extended. Confirm with the guest by phone or at the desk, not from the screen alone. If a room check is needed overnight, follow your property's policy: knock, and never enter an occupied room alone. Otherwise, leave it for the morning team or do it with the manager on call.
• Outlets. Confirm that every department has posted its charges (food and beverage, spa, parking) and no shifts are open. Ask the bar or restaurant closer for a handwritten total if your POS does not interface with the PMS.
• Handover notes. Read what the evening shift left. Anything marked "pending" is now yours or gets escalated.

The financial close, in order

Reconcile rooms before you balance money. Start by comparing the in-house list, departures, room assignments, and housekeeping or maintenance holds. A room that shows vacant with someone inside, or a departed guest still occupying a room on screen, is the kind of error that turns into a double charge or an oversold room.

1. Check what posts automatically. Room rate and tax are posted to each folio as part of the audit. Some cloud systems run the audit on their own at a set time the property chooses. Know which camp your system is in. Never add charges by hand before you have checked whether the system already posted them.
2. Review overrides and adjustments. Look at rate changes, comps and folio adjustments from the day. Each needs a name and a reason.
3. Count the drawer. Count the front desk cash against the system's cash total, record the figure, and make the safe drop. If you are short or over, write down the amount and what you checked. Do not plug it.
4. Match the card batch before you settle it. Print the credit-card-only payment report from the PMS, close the batch on each terminal, and compare the batch settlement to that report. The report must show only masked card numbers. Keep it secured while you use it, then file it in a locked location or shred it under your policy. Never leave it at the desk. Any difference should be investigated before the day closes.
5. Back up, then roll the date. The night auditor backs up the reservation system before the end-of-day procedure to prevent data loss.
6. Run and save the reports. The usual set is the manager's flash report, revenue by department, guest and city ledger balances, and the no-show and cancellation report.

Anything that does not reconcile goes into a variance log with the folio, the amount, and what you already ruled out. The GM can fix a variance that is documented in minutes, but an unexplained one costs a morning.

The property walk-through

Do the walk while the audit processes or after the rollover, when the desk is quiet. Use the same route every night, entrance to back of house, so you notice what has changed. The property walk inspection checklist covers a full daytime standard. The night version is shorter and aimed at what the day shift will otherwise find.

• Lobby and breakfast room: tables and buffet reset, spills wiped, lighting at night level, nothing left on the floor.
• Public restrooms: stocked, no leaks, no odors that suggest a drain problem.
• Corridors and stairwells: burned-out bulbs, exit signs lit, nothing stored in the egress path, fire doors closing fully.
• Elevators: level at each floor, no out-of-service messages.
• Ice machines, laundry and trash: no water on the floor, no overflowing bins, no unlatched dumpster enclosure.
• Amenity areas: the pool, fitness room and any gate are closed and locked at the posted hour.

Stay in your lane. The auditor looks, logs and reports. Do not open electrical panels, handle pool or cleaning chemicals, climb to fix a fixture, or move heavy items alone. If you smell gas, do not operate switches or anything that could make a spark. Move people away, then call the gas utility or emergency services from a safe location. If you smell burning or see a sparking fixture, follow the fire procedure and call emergency services. In both the gas and fire cases, notify the chief engineer next. For a water leak, keep people away from the water, especially near outlets, fixtures or electrical equipment, and call the chief engineer or on-call maintenance immediately. Do not touch electrical equipment or shut-off valves yourself unless you have been trained to. In every case, the licensed technician or the chief engineer does the work. Each finding gets a location, a one-line description and a photo if you can take one. "Third floor, east stairwell, light out at the landing" is useful. "Some lights out" is not.

The security round

Do the security round after the audit, and again at a set time before the morning shift. Check these points:

• Every exterior door is secure, and none is propped open or taped.
• The lobby entrance is controlled to whatever your late-night policy says.
• Parking, the side entrance and the loading area are clear of anyone who does not belong. Check these areas by camera or from inside where you can, and never confront anyone. Stay in contact under your check-in plan, and if someone is there who should not be, call the manager on call or the police.
• The pool gate and any back-of-house doors are locked.
• The fire panel shows normal, with no trouble or supervisory lights. Log what it shows. If the panel shows an alarm condition, start the fire alarm procedure at once and call emergency services; do not wait for the engineer (see the fire alarm response guide). Report any trouble or supervisory signal right away to the chief engineer or the fire alarm monitoring company. The auditor never silences or resets the panel.

A lone worker needs a plan too. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety advises setting up a check-in procedure. It should define when the lone worker checks in and how often, and include an emergency plan for when a check-in does not come on time. Set your interval based on the risks at your property, name who receives the check-in (the manager on call, usually), and tell the auditor what happens when one is missed. The same CCOHS guidance also advises scheduling higher-risk tasks for normal business hours, or for when someone who can help in an emergency is present. Nothing on this checklist should require the auditor to be somewhere unreachable.

When something happens, such as a disturbance, a trespasser or an injury, write it as fact while it is fresh. The incident report template lists the fields.

The notes for the morning team

This is the step most often skipped, because the auditor is tired and the work looks finished. It is not finished until someone else knows what is still open. The shift handover template goes deeper. For the night audit, the note should hold:

• Audit status: time the date rolled, who ran it, and whether it balanced.
• Variances: each one, with the amount and what was checked.
• Guest items: early departures, airport transfers, wake-up calls, a guest who complained, a late arrival who has not shown.
• Rooms: out-of-order rooms, a room switched mid-night, a room that may not be ready.
• Walk-through findings: each with a location and who should own it.
• Incidents: reference the report. Do not retell it.

Every open item needs a named owner and a time. "Maintenance to look at the stairwell light" is a wish. "Chief engineer, east stairwell landing light, by noon" is an assignment. If the GM or front office manager reads the note aloud with the auditor at shift change, errors and gaps show up quickly.

Where software fits

The financial close belongs in your property management system. Walk-through findings and handover notes are where overnight work most often goes missing between a paper log and the morning shift. In Altoreva Ops, findings from the walk can be raised as action calls and followed on the realtime board. In shift handover, before a note posts, Altoreva checks whether it leaves work someone still has to do. If it does, it asks the writer whether to make it an action call or post it anyway. The writer decides, and no call is raised unless they choose it.

If your overnight team already works from this sequence, adding it to a shared system is a small step. If it does not, fix the sequence first.

This article is general guidance for hotel operators, not legal, engineering or safety advice. Codes and regulations vary by jurisdiction and by edition, so confirm what applies to your property with your local authority and a qualified professional. Spot something wrong or out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.
Last reviewed: 2 November 2026