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Financial management

Accounting vs. Controlling

Understanding the difference between accounting and controlling.

accounting vs controlling

This article highlights the differences between accounting and controlling in hotels. Accounting focuses on precisely recording and reporting past financial transactions, while controlling works in a future-oriented manner to make strategic decisions.

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Understanding financial management in hotels

In the hotel industry, as in any industry, managing finances correctly is crucial for success. Two central functions that help hotels keep their finances under control are accounting and controlling. Although these two areas are closely linked, they are fundamentally different in their orientation and objectives. Let's take a closer look at the difference between accounting and controlling and show how profitize helps hotels to manage both disciplines efficiently.

What is accounting?

Accounting focuses on recording, monitoring and reporting all financial activities in a hotel. Your goal is to ensure an accurate and up-to-date record of income and expenditure.

Important accounting tasks:

1. Record transactions: Every financial transaction, such as room bookings, paid bills or expenses made, is recorded by the accounting department.

2. Create financial reports: The preparation of reports such as profit and loss statement (P&L), balance sheet and cash flow reports shows the financial condition of the hotel.

3. Legal compliance: The accounting department ensures that the hotel complies with all legal and tax regulations and is prepared for audits.

4. Work retrospectively: Accounting documents past financial events — it shows how much the hotel has earned and spent, as well as its current financial position.

profitize supports hotels by centralizing all financial data and helping them to effectively track expenses and income. In addition, profitize makes it easier to assign invoices to the right accounts and uses intelligent functions to ensure that costs are allocated to the correct month. This not only saves time, but also ensures that financial reporting is always accurate and up to date.

What is controlling?

In contrast to accounting, which focuses on the past, controlling is focused on the future. It involves planning, forecasting and analyzing to make well-founded financial and operational decisions. Controlling uses the same data as accounting, but with the aim of better understanding and being prepared for future developments.

Important tasks of controlling:

1. Budgeting and forecasting: Creating budgets and predicting future income, expenditure, and profits.

2. Performance analysis: Controlling compares budgets with actual accounting results in order to identify discrepancies and initiate improvements.

3. Long-term planning: Controlling helps prepare for future challenges, such as seasonal fluctuations or expansion plans.

4. Act with foresight: It's about identifying trends and ensuring that the hotel is well prepared for upcoming events.

With profitize, hotels can not only create budgets and track performance, but also predict future financial trends through AI-supported forecasts. In this way, hotels stay one step ahead of the competition and maximize their profitability.

Why hotels need both

Accounting and controlling are essential for the success of a hotel:

Accounting provides detailed insights into the hotel's current financial situation. Without them, you wouldn't know how much money was raised or spent.  It focuses on the past and records financial transactions, prepares reports and ensures regulatory compliance.

Controlling uses this information to make well-founded decisions for the future. It helps to forecast future bookings, control costs and plan investments. It plans and predicts the future, analyses performance and helps with strategic decision-making.

Without accounting, there would be no clarity about the current financial situation, and without controlling, it would not be possible to plan efficiently for the future. profitize combines these two important functions in one platform and helps hotels securely manage both the present and the future.

Conclusion

Accounting and controlling is crucial for any hotel that wants to grow and remain profitable. While accounting documents the financial past and ensures compliance with regulations, controlling uses this data to make future-oriented decisions.

profitize makes this process easier by not only helping to keep an eye on finances, but also providing the tools to effectively plan future trends and developments. Whether it's about managing expenses on a daily basis or strategic planning for the future — profitize offers everything a hotel needs.

accounting vs controlling

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