Accounting for multi-unit hotel franchisees
Booked gross. Paid net. Kite keeps both.
Some OTAs remit net; others bill a commission. Kite books the gross, the commission and the deposit as separate lines every night, and quotes your license agreement’s definition beside every brand fee.
AI agents do the work overnight. A named accounting lead owns your books.
$350 per location a monthno add-ons
Kite· Meridian Hospitality · 38 properties07:00Needs your attention · everything else has already been handled
- Open
A $9,840.00 Expedia payout has not reached the bank
- Chase
Property 2210 has 3 unreported nights
Draft vendor bill
Royalty and marketing fee · August
$43,129.00
posted · JE-10422
Already in hand
14 overnight
41 bank lines matched
Monthly rooms journal drafted for 6 properties
- JE-10422Royalty payable · August25,370.00
Posted, because a person said so. The agent drafted; the approval is the authorization.
Meridian Hospitality · 38 properties, on one night in its books.
Operators of these brands run their back office on Kite
Reads from the systems you already run
Where the money moves
Followed to the deposit, and every fee booked where it lands.
Every night, not at month end. The books are current when you open them, not when somebody closes them.
Running every night, not at month end
Property 2210 · Meridian Hospitality.
Fees on the wrong rooms figure
$1,842.60The commission the OTA kept. Where your agreement assesses fees before commission, booking only what landed understates the basis by exactly this much. Kite books both lines and cites the clause beside the fee.
The remittance that never landed
$9,840.00Remitted on Tuesday, per the statement. Nothing in the bank. Raised the morning after.
Deposits taken as revenue
LiabilityAn advance deposit is carried as a liability and released at close as the nights are stayed, so a strong booking month is not mistaken for a strong revenue month.
The workflows, in your words
Five workflows. One property at a time, and all of them together.
01
Money in
Rooms, food and beverage and other departments from the PMS, every night. Every OTA remittance followed to the deposit, with the commission booked as its own expense. Direct-bill and group accounts aged as the receivables they are.
02
Money out
Linen, housekeeping supplies, the brand’s technology fees, elevator and pool servicing, utilities: dropped in the inbox, read, coded against how you coded that vendor last time, drafted for approval. One vendor file across every entity.
03
Bank
Three tiers of reconciliation. Proof matches by itself. Evidence is suggested and waits. Interpretation is one pass of the model over the remainder, with its confidence shown, posting nothing.
04
Contracts
The franchise agreement, the ground lease and the management agreement, read into rules with a clause cited for every number. Royalty and marketing fee on rooms revenue as the agreement defines it, settled monthly; reservation fees per room night; percentage rent by the breakpoint.
05
Close
A monthly rooms journal per property. Advance deposits released at close as the nights are stayed. Depreciation on a property’s asset schedule, loan interest, and period recognition drafted when the month closes. A close package whose clean state reads: nothing open.
Obligations from the contract
- Royalty at a percent of Gross Rooms Revenue as your license agreement defines it, including how it treats rooms sold through an OTA
- Marketing and reservation fees, each on its own basis — a percent of rooms, a fee per room night
- Percentage rent over a breakpoint on a ground lease, settled in arrears
- Base and incentive management fees under the management agreement, each on its own basis
- Brand technology and loyalty-program charges per property per period
Compliance and audits
- Lodging license
- Occupancy tax registration
- Pool and spa permit
- Elevator permit
- Boiler inspection
- Fire inspection
- Food service license
The brand’s quality-assurance inspection and the fire marshal’s report read into scored findings with an owner and a deadline each; a standard failing across properties surfaced as one problem.
The calendar
A calendar month, closing when the last night of the month has been reported, so the royalty month and the accounting month are the same month.
Proactive insight
The morning after, not the month after.
A monthly report tells you a location ran hot last month. Kite tells you this morning, naming the property, the amount and the next action.
OTA remittance
A $9,840 OTA remittance has not reached the bank
The statement says it remitted on Tuesday; the bank shows nothing yet.
Unreported days
Property 2210 has 3 unreported nights
The royalty month waits on every night being reported; a closed night is an explicit zero, not a gap.
Restated sales
Property 2210 restated Tuesday’s rooms after the fee was billed
The royalty changes by the difference. Kite raises a delta charge; it never edits a posted bill.
Missing bill
Linen service has not billed Property 2210 this month
It has come on the 4th for six months. The month reads better than it was until it is accrued.
Lease expiring
The ground lease at Property 3120 expires in 180 days
The renewal-notice window from the lease itself, not a calendar someone forgot to keep.
Permit expiring
The pool permit at Property 2210 expires in 21 days
Until it is renewed the location is operating without it.
Repeat finding
Emergency lighting failed — cited again at Property 1045
Repeats are what a franchisor escalates on; the first fix did not hold.
Sync stopped
The PMS at Property 4402 has stopped syncing
Two days without a pull. Every figure downstream is waiting on the reconnect.
What matched overnight is already handled; these are what did not.
Start with a few propertiesHow we charge
$350
per location per month. An agentic software platform and a named accounting lead.
- The same rate at four locations and at four hundred. From twenty, the team working your books becomes yours alone at no extra cost.
- Only operating locations count. A store in development or closed costs nothing.
- Pilot a few stores, on your real data, at the same rate.
- No add-ons for payables, a faster close or franchisor reports.
Questions
Questions hotel operators ask first.
Do you reconcile OTA remittances?
Yes, from the statements the OTAs issue. Each remittance is matched to its deposit with the commission booked as its own expense. The franchise-fee basis is whatever your license agreement defines — gross as booked, where it says so — and that definition is quoted beside the fee.
How do you treat advance deposits?
As a liability by property until the stay. A deposit taken at booking is released at close as the nights are stayed, so the month’s revenue is the nights that happened, not the bookings that came in.
Do you handle occupancy tax?
It is accrued by property and jurisdiction from rooms revenue every month, so the return starts from a balance rather than a project. Filing it stays with you or your CPA, the same as sales tax.
Who actually works our books?
A named accounting lead, the same person all month. Under twenty locations your lead works with a qualified team shared across a few operators; from twenty, that team works only on your books, so they learn your brands, your entities and your franchisor’s reporting calendar rather than switching between groups. The lead is the same person all month: the bank on Monday, the bills daily, the close the week after period end.
Do we have to move every location at once?
No. Start with two to five stores through one full month-end close, beside your current bookkeeper, at the same price. The pilot has proved itself when that close ties to your bookkeeper’s to the dollar, with every difference explained. Then move the rest.
Start with a few properties.
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