Anna Ransom
Sales & Catering reporting has been a core component of hospitality software systems for years, but having access to data doesn’t necessarily mean that data is digestible and actionable. In fact, being inundated with data across a variety of systems can cause “analysis paralysis,” where the data becomes so complex and overwhelming that it is ignored in favor of gut decisions or preferences.
Before we dive in, be sure to visit our ultimate guide to grow events and group business for an all-encompassing rundown of events, sales and catering tips, data points and best practices.
With so many disparate systems, it’s more important than ever for hotels to gain a holistic view of their business with solid reporting. There are two ways to consolidate your hospitality data to gain that holistic view – by integrating your critical business systems and by viewing your data at the portfolio level. Both provide significant value for the hotelier to make more informed business decisions.
For more details on how to gain Big Data insights, read The Benefits of Centralized Data.
And we know clean, clear, and informative data continues to be a priority for hoteliers. Respondents of the a Hotel Lodging Technology Survey cited improving business and customer analytics as the #2 priority under top tactical technology objectives for the year. So how can sales and catering software reporting improve your business? Let’s walk through the event life cycle with our 4 P’s – Planning, Prospecting, Performance, and Productivity.
Planning
Most sales teams establish forecasts for their upcoming year, quarter, and month, revisiting and readjusting those numbers regularly based on performance and any external factors like economic changes or weather impacts. Forecasting your group business is key to establishing goals for the sales team and gauging if targets are on track to ensure the profitability of your business.
Most often, forecasts are established through historical reporting, looking at the previous year or two and keeping key seasons, dates, and days of the week in mind as they change from year to year to plan target revenue and budgets for the upcoming year.
Prospecting
Your sales and catering software can help make your team’s prospecting efforts significantly easier. Start by pulling reports on your top accounts and top repeat business. Then pull reports on lost business, by lost business status. Consider reaching out to lost business from prior years where you may not have had availability to accommodate a group, but you will in the upcoming year.
And be sure to note what lead source you’re getting bookings from. Lead source reports can help you determine what channels are working for you so you can better spend both your marketing dollars as well as your team’s networking hours.
Performance
You can view your bookings and their associated events in a number of ways. Start by pulling your daily events report and sharing it in weekly meetings with catering and operations teams. With an overview of what to expect over the next 7 – 10 days, teams can prepare to execute on required room setups, menus, and other booking details.
In order to project revenue, you can view events by status based on the potential to book, to determine what events are in the pipeline and how they will impact the forecast. For similar sales purposes, you can view events and profitability by room type or event type to help optimize your offerings in the future.
Input the expected and guaranteed (GTD) attendees to keep an eye on the forecast and that the meeting room will adequately meet the needs of the planner and set up is appropriate.
You can track your current pace relative to budget and compare your definite guestroom and booking production to last year’s actuals by using a pace report. Also, use pace to consistently watch the costs of bookings compared to revenue and last year’s numbers.
Easily track room pick up with the GRC (guestrooms control log) report and use that information to monitor ADR and RevPAR, keeping a close eye on revenue. By integrating with your other business systems (PMS, revenue management, etc.) you can clearly view your financial performance across the groups you’re managing for consistent metrics across all systems.
And while we hope you win all the business you want, there’s incredible value in noting lost business as well as the reason behind it. This data can help expose existing and new competition to inform pricing, menus, etc.
Productivity
Keeping track of productivity across your properties and sales team to ensure everyone is on track to meet their forecasted numbers is key. Pull productivity reports by salesperson to monitor top performers and identify which team members may need further coaching. You can also keep an eye on activities completed by sales team members on a regular basis to inform training and coaching opportunities. Lastly, you can review average checks and revenue by event type and sales person to determine who is discounting most and could be upselling even more.
Productivity reports by industry and market segment will show the sales team where they have been most profitable, helping to inform future planning, prospecting, and even staffing decisions. Productivity reports by property and region can provide a management company or brand with insight into which locations are performing well and which may need more focus, attention, and assistance.
There are a vast number of ways that sales and catering software reporting can help you learn more about your business and improve your decision-making process for future investment of resources – both in time and money. Even better, there are solutions that offer automated reporting with configurable dashboards, emails right to your inbox, and the ability to download reports to Excel or a PDF document. With a sales and catering system, especially one that is integrated into your other critical business systems, you can automate core processes to see insights faster, make quicker decisions, and win more business.
Learn more about the value of sales and catering software reporting and all that a sales and catering software solution can provide. Download the eBook, 10 Questions to Ask Before Buying Sales & Catering Software.
