Hotels & Lodging
Lodging businesses juggle seasonal cash flow, OTA platform fees, and investor reporting. We bring controller-level oversight to ensure your financials reflect true performance.
The Industry
South Florida lodging runs on a rhythm that outsiders don’t understand. November through April, you’re running at capacity with rates at their peak. May hits and occupancy drops by half. Managing cash through these swings while keeping staff, maintaining properties, and preparing for the next season requires financial discipline that most basic accounting can’t support.
The booking landscape has changed the economics dramatically. Guests pay through Expedia, Booking.com, Airbnb, or VRBO. Each platform takes its cut, holds funds on different schedules, and reports transactions differently. What the guest paid and what lands in your bank account are two different numbers, often weeks apart.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
Boutique hotels, motels, vacation rental operators managing multiple units, bed and breakfasts, and extended stay properties. Any lodging business in South Florida dealing with seasonal demand, platform bookings, or investor reporting requirements.
What Complicates It
What Complicates It
Revenue comes through multiple channels with different fee structures and payout timing. Deposits for future stays create liability tracking needs. Properties require constant capital investment. Many owners have investors or partners expecting professional financial reporting on a regular schedule.
What We Handle
We provide controller-level oversight that goes beyond transaction recording. Revenue gets reconciled across booking platforms so you know actual net revenue after commissions and fees. Advance deposits are tracked as liabilities until the guest checks out, keeping your income statement accurate and your balance sheet clean.
For properties with investors or multiple owners, we prepare financial packages that meet professional standards. This means properly categorized expenses, clear capital expenditure tracking, and reporting that can withstand scrutiny from partners, lenders, or potential buyers.
Platform Reconciliation
Platform Reconciliation
OTA payouts get matched to individual reservations. We track the gross booking, the platform commission, and the net deposit separately. This reveals your true cost of acquisition by channel and prevents the common error of understating revenue while missing deductible fees.
Seasonal Cash Planning
Seasonal Cash Planning
We forecast cash needs across your high and low seasons. This includes planning for property maintenance that should happen during slower months, debt service coverage during low occupancy periods, and reserve building during peak season to carry you through summer.
Common Problems
The biggest issue we see is treating peak season profits as permanent. A great January creates the illusion that the business is highly profitable. By July, that cash has evaporated into off-season operating costs and the owner is wondering where it went. Without month-by-month tracking that accounts for seasonality, the annual picture gets distorted.
Capital expenditures get expensed instead of capitalized. A new HVAC system or roof repair hits the books as a monthly expense, destroying that month’s profitability on paper while missing the depreciation benefits over time. For investor-owned properties, this kind of error creates reporting problems and potential tax issues.
Deposit Confusion
Deposit Confusion
Guest deposits collected for future stays are not income until the stay occurs. Recording them as revenue when received inflates your taxable income and creates a mismatch when cancellations happen. Refunding a deposit that was already recorded as income creates an accounting mess that takes hours to untangle.
Property-Level Blindness
Property-Level Blindness
Vacation rental operators with multiple units often see only the combined picture. Without unit-level profitability tracking, underperforming properties hide behind strong performers. You might have one unit generating most of your profit while two others barely break even after cleaning, maintenance, and platform fees.
What Changes
You gain visibility into true performance by property and by channel. You know which booking platforms deliver the best net revenue after fees. You know which units or room types generate the strongest margins. Pricing and marketing decisions become data-driven instead of guesswork.
Financial reporting meets professional standards. When investors ask for quarterly statements, you have clean reports ready. When the bank wants updated financials for a line of credit renewal, the package is organized and defensible. The financial side of your operation reflects the quality of the guest experience you deliver.
Confident Cash Management
Confident Cash Management
You build reserves during peak season with a clear target based on projected off-season needs. Capital improvements get planned and funded systematically instead of creating cash crunches. The seasonal roller coaster becomes a predictable cycle you manage rather than survive.
Investor-Ready Financials
Investor-Ready Financials
Partners and investors receive reporting that demonstrates professional management. Capital expenditures are tracked and depreciated correctly. Revenue and expenses are categorized consistently. When it’s time to refinance, sell, or bring in new investors, your books support the valuation you’re seeking.
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