The operating date, and why it is not today

Each hotel runs on its own business date, which only moves when the night audit is run.

The date in the header is the hotel's operating date — the hotel trade calls it the business date. It is not the clock.

A hotel's day does not end at midnight. Guests check in at 2am, the late-night bar is still ringing sales at 1am, and all of it belongs to the day that has not been closed yet. So the operating date stays where it is until somebody runs the night audit, and then it moves on by one.

Consequences worth knowing:

• A charge posted at 1am lands on the day that is still open, which is almost always what the hotel wants.
• If the header shows yesterday, nobody ran the night audit. That is the fix — not a bug.
• Reports run "for today" mean the operating date, not the clock date, and that is why a day's revenue can still be moving at breakfast.
• Every property has its own operating date. Two hotels in one group can be on different days, and a group that skips the audit at one property will find that hotel drifting behind.

The restaurant has its own version of the same idea — see Day end at the outlet.