Field notes for people who run properties
Guides, reports and working practice from the team building Vestibel — written about behaviour that ships, not roadmap.
The answer your AI should refuse to give
A guest asks about the pet policy at midnight. The confident wrong answer is worse than no answer at all.
The restaurant charge that never reached the room
The single most common piece of lost revenue in a hotel with a restaurant, and the two-system seam that causes it.
The Tuesday that quietly costs you a thousand pounds
A single ordinary day at a twenty-room property, and the six places money leaks when the systems do not talk.
Reports your accountant will accept
Why every operational report has to agree with the night audit, and what it costs when two of them do not.
The departments nobody budgets software for
Spa, laundry, HR, expenses and reporting are where independent properties leak time. What changes when they share one billing spine.
Letting guests order without losing the floor
Guest-initiated orders, waiter acceptance, and charging a room-service order to the room.
QR menus guests actually use
No app, no sign-up, and a page that knows which table or room it was scanned from.
Reading a Z-report and believing it
What has to be true underneath before a shift-end figure is worth reconciling against.
A shift change that does not close the drawer
Hand-over counts the cash, attributes the variance to the right operator, and leaves the till open for service.
Joining tables without losing the bill
Two tables become one party, one folio and one set of splits — then come apart again without anyone re-keying an order.
Sharing one tablet between six waiters
Per-tab identity on a shared device, so every order is attributed to the person who actually keyed it.
Waste that tells you something
Spoilage, breakage and over-production are three different problems. A single "wastage" figure hides which one you have.
A stock count that does not stop service
Counting half the store, correcting against live stock, and why an uncounted line must never be read as zero.
One menu, two audiences
The QR menu guests read and the till menu staff use are the same catalogue — and keeping them the same is the whole trick.
Costing a plate before you put it on the menu
Recipes, sub-recipes and modifier pricing — what it takes to know the margin on a dish rather than the margin on the month.