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3. Ageing debtors balance
3.1 Accounts Receivable is responsible to keep all individual accounts up-to-date and maintain the subsidiary ledger (which records the receivable amounts and payments received against each debtor). The Credit Manager must ensure on daily basis that the subsidiary ledger and General Ledger are balancing.
3.2 Periodically, the Credit manager or Director of Finance is to randomly select Debtors’ accounts and ensure that:
- All A/R invoices that are recorded in the debtor ledger, with all supporting documents attached (i.e.: Travel agent voucher or guarantee letter, monthly statement of account, and all reminder letters attached to over due invoices) can be easily retrieved.
- When filing is done by debtor account. All paid invoices are marked as such and removed from the current debtors’ filing to be filed separately with all payments of the month.
- Payments received are promptly allocated against the correct invoices s stated on the remittance advices issued by the debtors. The hotel must request from all debtors that remittance advices be sent along with the payments.
- There are no unexplained unallocated payments.
- Monthly statements are sent to all debtors.
- Follow-up actions are properly documented (telephone calls, reminder letters) and reminder delays respected.
3.3 At the end of the month, Accounts Receivable must print out the accounts Receivable ageing Balance report (summary and detailed) to be used to support the General Ledger account reconciliation. The Director of Finance must ensure that the total A/R ageing summary and the General Ledger balance.
3.4 When employee accounts are authorized by the hotel, they must be settled on a monthly basis through salary deductions. Balances must be loosely monitored and the director of Finance must ensure the strict respect of the hotel policy.
4. Credit meeting
4.1 A credit meeting is to be held at least once a month. The following points are discussed:
- Previous meeting minutes and update on status
- New credit applications and change of status for any current debtor
- Debtor ageing balances with special attention to all over 60 days balances
- Potential and actual bad debt accounts (and external debt collection actions if any)
- Permanent and pending in-house guest accounts
- Pending guarantee deposits to be received and expired deposits
- Forced credit accounts
- Dishonoured cheques and credit card charge backs
4.2 This meeting should be chaired by the Credit Manager with the participation of the General Manager, Director of Finance, Director of Sales, Front office Manager and Reservation Manager.
4.3 Detailed minutes of the meeting must be taken and distributed to all attendants. The minutes must be reviewed at the time of the following meeting.
5. Average Recovery Delay
5.1 The Average Recovery Delay must be calculated on monthly basis based upon the receivables revenue and reported to the hotel management.
5.2 The calculation is as follows:
Total of Month aged trial balance x 30 days
Average turnover in debtors account for the last 3 months