5 Questions to Ask When Purchasing Hotel BI Software

Budget season has arrived, bringing with it critical decisions that will define the success of the upcoming year. Hotel leaders worldwide are meticulously analyzing financials, evaluating new technologies, and determining which solutions will best support their long-term goals. When it comes to investing in business intelligence software, the stakes are even higher. The right hotel business intelligence software can be a game-changer, providing the insights needed to make informed decisions and drive financial success. But with so many options available, the process can be overwhelming.

In our previous blogs, we covered key questions and considerations for purchasing hotel operations & CapEx software, as well as labor software. Now, we’re shining a light on hotel business intelligence software. What are the critical features you should look for? How can the right BI solution help you optimize financial performance and capitalize on savings?

If you're budgeting for new hotel business intelligence software, this blog will guide you through the key features to consider and the questions to ask, ensuring you make an informed decision that enhances your bottom line.

How Does the Software Streamline Reporting and Visibility?

The hospitality industry moves quickly, and the ability to harness real-time financial data for informed decision-making is crucial. However, reporting processes can be both time-consuming and prone to human error. Not to mention, the task of managing and consolidating data from various sources can be overwhelming, leading to delays and inaccuracies that ultimately impact financial performance.

That’s why, when choosing hotel business intelligence software, it’s essential to find a tool that makes reporting easier and more efficient. ProfitSword by Actabl does just that by consolidating data from multiple systems into ready-to-use, print-ready reports. It automates data aggregation, generating standardized, shareable reports that not only boost your financial visibility and accuracy but also save valuable time.
In fact, by integrating daily performance metrics into a single platform, ProfitSword cuts out the average annual cost of $45,000 typically spent on corporate administrator services. This means less time wasted on inefficient data management and more time for your team to focus on strategies that drive revenue.

How Does the Software Enhance Budgeting & Forecasting?

It’s no secret that creating accurate budgets and forecasts can be a complex, error-prone process, especially when data is scattered across various systems. Integrating disparate data sources manually is not only time-consuming but also introduces risks of human error, which can lead to poor resource allocation and financial missteps.

Utilizing hotel business intelligence software such as ProfitSword simplifies this process by pulling data from all systems into one unified platform, allowing your team to build precise budgets and forecasts without the hassle of manual data entry. This seamless integration enables effortless comparison of forecasts with actual performance while minimizing errors. The software also allows teams to collaborate in real time, providing in-line comments to contextualize quantitative insights, making the process more efficient and informed. With ProfitSword, select-service hotels earning $10 million annually can save up to $2,083 per month, or $25,000 per year, through improved forecasting. Full-service hotels earning $25 million can save $6,250 per month or $75,000 per year. By reducing errors and enhancing forecasting capabilities, ProfitSword helps your finance team reallocate funds more effectively and maximize financial performance.

How Does the Software Improve Sales Pacing, Productivity, and Performance?

Keeping track of sales performance across multiple properties, adjusting daily pacing, and pulling together sales data into something actionable is no easy feat. That’s why, if you’re looking for hotel business intelligence software, it’s crucial to find one that can do just that! You’ll want features that help with daily sales pacing, so you can easily compare occupancy and revenue across properties at the site level and make adjustments as needed to improve performance. Plus, you’ll need monthly group sales pacing to spot trends in real-time, forecast accurately, and keep your team on track toward their goals.

A tool like ProfitSword does both and also makes a big difference when it comes to banquet and catering sales pacing, giving you a full picture of the revenue you can expect from upcoming events. And with monthly transient pace and pickup, you can track demand based on pricing and booking patterns, helping you fine-tune your pricing strategy for even better results.

ProfitSword brings all of your sales data together in one place, letting you dive into transaction-level details like booking names, dates, and revenue. You can also track salesperson productivity, looking at revenue, solicitations, bookings, and even slippages to better understand performance and make smarter decisions around compensation.

What are The Benefits of Commentary Reporting, and Why Do I Need It?

Commentary reporting helps you make sense of complex performance data by adding essential context that raw numbers alone can’t provide. Without it, hotel management teams might miss critical trends or issues that affect profitability and guest satisfaction, leading to misguided decisions and missed opportunities.

With ProfitSword’s commentary reporting, you can gather in-depth insights directly from on-property staff and escalate them to management and ownership to ensure complete transparency. The weekly commentary reports allow your team to provide context to financial metrics, fostering a better understanding between properties and ownership. ProfitSword also provides monthly executive summaries, which give a clear snapshot of key metrics, financial summaries, and portfolio highlights. This ensures leadership has the full picture they need for strategic planning.
When investing in a new tool, make sure it includes features that go beyond just numbers, providing the full story behind the data. By combining both qualitative and quantitative insights, ProfitSword equips hotel leaders to make smarter, more informed decisions, leading to better operational performance and increased profitability.

How Does the Hotel Business Intelligence Software Simplify the Annual Business Plan?

Creating an annual business plan for hotels is a multifaceted challenge that requires accurate forecasting, operational efficiency, and a deep understanding of market trends. Hotel leaders often find it difficult to balance these factors, especially when relying on manual processes prone to errors.

When taking the leap on a new BI software, look for a tool that can simplify this process! ProfitSword, for example, takes the stress out of business planning by offering pre-built templates that auto-populate with data from all your systems. This reduces errors and streamlines the process, freeing you up to focus on the strategic decisions that matter most. Plus, with ProfitSword’s ability to integrate both quantitative data and qualitative insights, you’ll have a business plan that’s not only thorough but also adaptable to shifting market conditions.

By automating and simplifying the planning process, ProfitSword helps you create more accurate, actionable plans that set your hotel up for long-term success—even in today’s competitive landscape.

Why Actabl BI?

Actabl’s business intelligence software empowers both corporate and on-property staff to navigate today’s competitive landscape in partnership with increased transparency and accountability. Our business intelligence solution turns all your robust data into actionable insights that increase efficiency and maximize top—and bottom-line performance. Thanks to our patent-pending data normalization technology, a single view of normalized data across your systems gives complete portfolio visibility into finances, budgets, forecasts, sales performance, and more.

With deep drill-down capabilities into data from 260+ integrations, you can make better decisions and steer clear of obstacles. Create and share detailed reports and build dashboards to monitor every aspect of your business. Want to see what Actabl BI can do for your properties? Book a demo and see it in action!