CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
The hotel
financial accounting system is the control center for the property and workers
at the supervisory level and above must be well trained and motivated in order
to achieve business objectives of high yield, high occupancy rates and above
all top quality service. In hotel financial accounting management, hotel
general manager are required to meet the challenges of day to day operation
while practicing solid future planning and controlling skills. The
technological advantages today’s hotel managers have at their disposal and the
challenges of living, training, scheduling and empowering workers to
achieve quality result.
The top quality
hotel in Nigeria is owned by government, other smaller hotels owned by
individual do not keep to the standard for hotel operations. This is because
the only reason for the setting up of a hotel is to maximize profit. They do
not take into account the welfare and condition of their customers. This result
in many of the customers not being satisfied after their stay in these hotels
due to poor management and time wasting in the flow of information with and
outside the environment .Using Rock view hotel ltd examining the effect of
computerization of hotel financial accounting system in our hotels. Rock view
hotel ltd is one of the well know hotel in Lagos and it is a private limited
company. It is located at 5/7 rangers Avenue, Ikeja.
It
was established in 1979 by late honorable MR.P.N Rock. The administration of
Rock View hotel is as follows: Executive director, board of directors, managing
director, head of department supervisors and staff.
Make
up the firm are Admin Dept. ,account dept. ,reception, cash office, business
center telephone exchange, restaurant, bar, housekeeping, laundry, gardeners,
reception waiters, stare dept., driver section, kitchen dept., car hire section
and security dept.
1.2
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The
present system of hotel front office accounting system in Nigeria has a lot of
problem which are mentioned below.
SPEED OF OPERATION:
Speed
of operation is a measure of the time lapse from when a process starts to work
when it ends. Since the present system is manually operated, there is tendency
for the workers of checking - in a guest, issuing of receipts checking – out a
guest can take the receptionist hour to finish.
ACCURACY
In
term of accuracy, the system is relatively slow and since it is dependent to
human effort, so inevitable, it is also prone to human errors and omission.
Example the issuing of receipts, most of the time is not accurate. The bills
prepared are sometime over charged or undercharge and this can be very
embarrassing to both guest and the management. The overcharging or under
charging could be due to the receptionist’s carelessness or the inefficiency of
the part of the account section.
DOCUMENT INTEGRITY
This
is viewed in the context of the safety, invalidity of the records in the
document files used in the report generation. In terms of safety, the nature of
the system (manual) makes it vulnerable to theft, fire or accidental
destruction. This makes the system unsafe as the time needed to replace lost
data or files in enormously large.
COST
This
is the greatest problem of the hotel. The hotel tends to lose a lot of money
running the hotel manually.
TIME
Going
by the present system of operation time is consumed in the handling of
operation and management of information in the hotel.
These
problem and many others not listed above due to limitations, form the basis of
this write- up.
1.3
AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The
objectives of the study are as follows:
1. To provide better service for the various
guests either permanent, temporary or causal guest that comes to lodge or stay
in the hotel.
2. To produce a system where information and
output report will be produced much faster, more accurately and more detailed
to management and guest of hotel.
3. To
keep records that are compact, integrated and updated.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
This study is designed
to help the hotel front office to handle the flow and use of information in the
hotel operation effectively. This study also tries to give an in-depth look in
the easiest and most effective way for the growth and development of hotel
industry in the country.
Finally,
the study will help new investors in the hotel industry to make the right
decision and steps needed to start up a hotel.
1.5
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study is
aimed at finding out how effective the computerization of a hotel front office
accounting system will improve the operation of the hotel system in small
hotels. However, out of the several departments that makes up the hotel. This
research is only to one section reception (front office) section.
1.6
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
During the course of this project work,
several setbacks were encountered, which slowed down the progress of the work.
They include the following;
i.
The time constraint prevented the researchers to have
an in-depth study and analysis on the subject matter.
ii.
Financial
constraint limits the frequency of investigation to the company toward
gathering the necessary information relevant for the study.
iii.
Lack of power supply
iv.
Lack of infrastructure
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
GUEST: This
guest is used in the contest of the work refers to individual, Companies or
corporate bodies who spends some time in the hotel either as permanent,
temporary or casual guest.
RECEIPTS: This
is a piece of paper which contains the description of expenditure and amount
paid for a service by the guest and also include is the name and address of
guest.
ARRIVAL FILE: This is master file consisting of the guest name,
Companies name and address, state, country, nationality, profession etc.
which also include the mode of payment to be used by the guest.
MENU FILE: This
is a transaction file used in the new system. It consists of the descriptions
of food, the price of the food and the menu code.
REST FILE: This is also a transaction file
that consist of information bill, about restaurant bill, the room price
reference number, dates etc