Improving the Hotel Sales & Finance Relationship

Synergy between hotel sales and finance teams is hugely important to ensure business is closed quickly and correctly. Especially in today’s climate, where your employees may be feeling overwhelmed and short-staffed, it’s easy for things to slip through the cracks and chaos to ensue.

Here are some simple strategies to improve communication and collaboration between your teams.

1. Set and Share Goals: Keep teams aligned and working in unison with clear goals. Give them a view on what the path to success looks like and how their individual and collective contributions help make your overall property more successful.
   
   
2. Enable Open and Frequent Communication: Give team members a chance to better understand each other’s needs, priorities, and challenges by hosting regular cross-departmental syncs, training sessions, and even informal get-togethers. Building that empathy can help your team get ahead of conflict and be better joint problem-solvers when concerns do arise.
   
   
3. Keep Everyone in the Loop Early: Include your accounting team in the sales process to ensure financial considerations are taken into account, plus they can provide valuable insights on pricing, profitability, and revenue management strategies. Likewise, make sure your accounting team is providing timely, accurate financial reports to your sales team. This helps sales reps track their performance, assess the profitability of their bookings, and make informed decisions. Reports can also highlight discrepancies or areas for improvement that need attention.
   
   
4. Connect Your Front and Back Offices with Technology: Bring in solutions that can help your teams work more effectively, both separately and together. Many vendors (including Sertifi) integrate with other hospitality solutions so your teams can reduce manual steps and keep each other better informed. Give them a single source of truth that automatically gives them visibility into customer information, billing activity, and other important information.
   
   
5. Celebrate the Wins: Recognize and appreciate both teams’ efforts, especially wins that they earned together. Recognition fosters a positive work environment and reinforces the importance of teamwork.