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The Hotel Reports That Actually Matter

Most PMS systems offer dozens of reports. Here are the five your independent hotel should be running every month — and what to look for in each.

Property management software often comes with a report library that looks impressive on a demo but goes largely unused in practice. The reports your hotel actually needs aren’t complex — but they need to be easy to run and straightforward to read. Here are the five that matter.

1. Monthly Occupancy Report

Most other decisions start here. Your occupancy report should show:

  • Overall occupancy rate for the month
  • Occupancy broken down by day of week
  • Room type occupancy (which rooms fill first, which sit empty)
  • Comparison to the same period last year

What to look for: patterns in your low-occupancy days, whether certain room types are consistently underperforming, and whether you’re trending up or down year-on-year.

2. Revenue Summary

Your revenue summary tells you the financial story behind the occupancy numbers. It should show total revenue, average daily rate (ADR), and revenue per available room (RevPAR) — at minimum.

Break it down further if you can: revenue by room type, by booking channel (direct vs OTA vs phone), and by rate plan. A high-occupancy month with low ADR tells a different story than a lower-occupancy month with strong rates.

3. Arrivals and Departures Report

This is an operational report, not a financial one — but it’s the most important one your front desk will use daily. A clean, printable or on-screen list of today’s arrivals and departures, with booking details, payment status, and guest notes attached, is the single most valuable tool for a smooth day.

Run it every morning. Review it before your first arrival.

4. Guest History Report

How many of your guests are returning guests? What’s your repeat guest rate? These numbers matter because returning guests cost significantly less to acquire than new ones and tend to book more directly.

A guest history report should let you see guests who haven’t returned in 6 or 12 months — so you can reach out to them before peak periods with a re-engagement offer.

5. Channel Mix Report

This report answers: where are your bookings coming from? What percentage are direct? What percentage come through each OTA? What’s your average commission cost by channel?

Most independent hotels don’t track this closely enough. If your OTA share is creeping up year-on-year, you’re quietly paying more in commission every season without noticing. This report surfaces that trend before it becomes a significant cost.

What Good Reporting Looks Like

A well-designed PMS should give you all of these reports in a few clicks — without configuration, without exports, without a spreadsheet. If running a monthly occupancy report requires more than 30 seconds of effort, your system is adding friction that costs you time every month.

Equally important: the reports should be readable by a non-analyst. Clear labels, sensible date ranges, and exportable formats for your accountant. Complexity for its own sake isn’t a feature.

Sticky Guest includes pre-built occupancy, revenue, and guest reports that are ready to run immediately — no setup required. Start your free trial and see your property’s numbers clearly.

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