What it is
Containn does not receive an export from the hotel system: it reads exactly what the hotel ran. The bridge has three parts: accounting concepts, the business date and the day signature.
How a peso travels
- The front desk and cashiers capture. Every folio charge and every payment lands on a business date, which runs from one cutoff time to the next. The night audit posts each night of room revenue with its taxes.
- Concepts classify it. Each movement falls into a line of the day's sheet according to its concept: the night's room revenue, a folio charge by its category, a payment by its method, or tips. Codes and names are the hotel's own (for example, 001 room revenue or 080 cash payment) and live in Settings → Accounting concepts.
- Someone with permission signs the day. In Finances → Day close, the sheet is frozen with its totals. It is the same sheet as the Night Audit Totals report.
- Containn writes the póliza (the Mexican term for a journal entry). Using the frozen sheet and each concept's account, it builds the day's revenue póliza, with the next number in the month and the fiscal folios (UUIDs) of that date's CFDI, Mexico's electronic tax invoices.
How each line posts
| Sheet line | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Room revenue and charges | Clientes · huéspedes en casa (guests in house), for the total | The concept's revenue account for the net amount, plus taxes and service charge |
| Payment from a guest who has arrived | The cash or bank account for that payment method | Clientes · huéspedes en casa |
| Deposit for a future stay | The cash or bank account for that payment method | Anticipos de reservas (advance deposits) |
| Arrival of a guest with a deposit | Anticipos de reservas | Clientes · huéspedes en casa |
A payment never creates revenue: revenue is recognized with the night or the consumption charge. That is why what the hotel earned and what went into the cash drawer do not match, and should not (accrual versus cash).
An example
Say a 40-room hotel signs a day with 28 room nights: 33,600.00 MXN of room revenue and 6,384.00 MXN of IVA (Mexican VAT) and ISH (state lodging tax); it collects 25,000.00 MXN by card and 8,000.00 MXN in cash. With the base chart of accounts, the póliza looks like this:
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 105-01 Clientes · huéspedes en casa (day's charges) | 39,984.00 | |
| 401-01 Hospedaje (room revenue) | 33,600.00 | |
| 208-01 IVA trasladado (the general output tax account) | 6,384.00 | |
| 102-01 Bancos · depósitos de tarjeta (card deposits) | 25,000.00 | |
| 101-01 Caja del hotel (hotel cash) | 8,000.00 | |
| 105-01 Clientes · huéspedes en casa (day's payments) | 33,000.00 | |
| Equal totals | 72,984.00 | 72,984.00 |
The signed sheet carries room tax as a single amount, so the IVA and ISH on room revenue land together in the general output tax account even if you assigned an account to each tax. Folio charges, such as a restaurant charge, arrive at their final amount with no separate tax, and post in full to their revenue account. Your accountant splits those taxes out with a manual reclassification póliza.
What does not come from the day
Vendor invoices and payments, payroll, depreciation and bank movements with no matching entry create their own póliza from their own section. Adjustments, accruals and the opening entry are entered in Pólizas → Capturar póliza (enter a póliza).
What can go wrong
- The property does not have the night audit turned on. Without it there is no day to sign, and without a signed day there is no póliza.
- The day has not been signed. It has no póliza yet: accounting does not get ahead of operations.
- A concept used that day has no account. Containn does not build half a póliza: it skips that day's póliza. See why a póliza is not created.