The hotel industry employs a wide variety of assets to run its operations smoothly. Hotel assets range from perishable food items, kitchenwares, furniture, facilities to electronics, equipment and vehicles. These resources enable hotel owners to provide satisfactory services to customers. 

 

Hotel assets are a financial liability. How they are managed and maintained will determine how much expenses a hotel will incur. If the assets are neglected and poorly managed, it will negatively impact the hotel’s operational efficiency and will also drain a lot of money. This is why it is imperative to manage hotel assets. 

 

Thanks to the emergence of hotel asset management software solutions – today, hotel assets can be managed effectively with precision and speed. Consequently, financial liabilities can be minimized and profits can be improved. In this article, we will take a detailed look at what the common challenges in managing hotel assets are, the limitations of traditional asset management methods, what a hotel asset management software is, its features and benefits.

Challenges of managing hotel assets

A myriad of hotel asset management challenges hamper business operations. By being aware of what the common obstacles are, it will be easier to address and avoid them as and when they arise. The most common difficulties hotels face in managing assets without a hotel inventory management software are:

 

 

  • Locating assets – There are many movable assets in the hotel industry. When you require an asset, but don’t know where it is, it will cost unnecessary time and money.

 

 

 

  • Maintaining assets – It can be overwhelming to individually oversee and ensure that all of the hotel’s assets are properly maintained.

 

 

 

  • Purchasing assets – When purchasing new assets, it is important to analyze whether they fit your budget, how useful they will be and most importantly whether you already have them in the inventory.

 

 

 

  • Managing costs – Inaccuracies in estimating asset liability costs can increase unnecessary expenditure.

 

 

 

  • Workflow – A non-linear, haphazard asset management methodology will complicate matters and result in subpar operations and ROI.

 

Drawbacks of traditional asset management methods

Before the advent of digital asset management solutions, hotel owners had to depend on manual asset tracking methodologies. They included the use of spreadsheets and paper-based methods. Although they did the job, they only did it to a certain extent. Such asset management methods were bound by several limitations and more often than not were regarded as unreliable. Continuing to use them in the present poses many drawbacks like:

 

 

  • Oversights – The possibility of missing critical details while manually managing numerous assets is high.

 

 

 

  • Typo – Typing errors in financial values or accidentally adding duplicate assets in the records can cause several issues including compliance problems.

 

 

 

  • Asynchronization – Additions and modifications to asset records do not reflect in all systems immediately. 

 

 

 

  • Inflexibility – Hotel staff has to physically be present on-premise in order to access asset records.

 

Hotel asset management software

The challenges of asset management and the drawbacks of traditional asset management methods can be effortlessly overcome with a hotel asset management software. It is a digital asset tracking & management system that simplifies the process of adding, transferring, maintaining, allocating, auditing and disposing assets. The software helps asset owners and managers perform such operations using special features built into the application. Let’s take a brief look at its features.

Features of hotel asset management software

The features that hotel inventory tracking software solutions contain enables hotel owners and managers to manage assets at the click of a button. Features include:

 

 

  • Dashboard – The dashboard gives you an overall at-a-glance view of all the latest asset developments in the hotel. It displays information like how many assets your hotel has, what is their total value, how many categories of your assets you have and more.

 

 

 

  • Asset records – hotel inventory management software solutions display comprehensive asset records. They contain extensive information about assets such as when they were acquired, name of the asset, unit number, etc.

 

 

 

  • NFC/RFID tracking – Hotel asset tracking software solutions are compatible with remote sensing technologies. You can create unique NFC or barcode tags and use them along with barcode scanners. This helps automate a myriad of asset management processes.

 

 

 

  • Maintenance schedules – Create, modify and view asset maintenance schedules at an instant. Set up reminders that help never miss asset maintenance ever again.

 

 

 

  • Asset audit – Perform quick and accurate audits by cross verifying the assets in your database with what you actually have in your inventory. Easily track and scan assets and estimate the total value of your hotel’s resources.

 

 

 

  • Asset compliance – The software ensures that all your assets are compliant with the latest industry-regulated policies. It automatically finds compliance issues and informs you about it via alerts.

 

 

 

  • Notifications – Set up custom audio visual notifications that reach you via SMS and in-app notifications. It helps stay updated about critical circumstances like low inventory, pending maintenance, excessive expenditure and more.

 

 

 

  • Reports & analytics – Finally, the software automatically tracks and collects data at every point of your workflow. It processes this data and displays them in the form of visually stunning and insightful reports.

 

Benefits of using hotel asset management software

All of the features and functionalities of hotel asset management and maintenance solutions translate to business boosting benefits. They help:

 

 

  • Cut down on expenses and improve savings
  • Drastically reduce operational time
  • Enhance operational accuracy
  • Comply with industry norms
  • Increase the lifecycle of assets
  • Optimally use assets
  • Make strategic and informed decisions
  • Increase returns on investment
  • Scale up operations

 

Conclusion

Manually managing hotel assets is a difficult task. It is simply outdated and unnecessary to do so when there is a much more efficient solution available in the market. By implementing a hotel asset tracking & management software, you will be able to reduce wastage, unnecessary expenses and optimally use available resources to gain higher profit. Get the best hotel asset management software called SmartAMS from SmartPoint. It is loaded with industry-leading features, secure with the latest protocols, easy-to-use and comes with great support. Contact them and revamp the way you manage hotel assets today.