Hospitality finance is evolving rapidly, and finance leaders who continue to rely on outdated metrics are putting their organizations at a serious disadvantage. The latest edition of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI) introduces a more modern, detailed, and data-driven approach to financial reporting – one that reflects the complexities and expectations of today’s hospitality business. But despite the clear benefits, many organizations are still using legacy systems and reporting structures that make it difficult or even impossible to adopt these new standards.
The result? Limited visibility, missed opportunities, inefficient operations, and declining stakeholder confidence. As expectations rise for real-time financial insights, streamlined operations, and increased transparency, hospitality companies that fail to adopt the new USALI metrics as part of their reporting risk falling behind their peers – and falling short of investor expectations.
This article shows why.
What the New USALI Metrics Are – And Why They Matter
The 12th edition of USALI wasn’t just a cosmetic update. It was an overhaul designed to align financial reporting with the way hospitality companies operate today. The key changes include:
- More granular departmental reporting. The new edition of USALI introduces greater visibility into non-traditional revenue centers like spas, wellness centers, and other ancillary services. By capturing and reporting revenue and expenses at a more detailed level, hotels can better evaluate the profitability of each department – not just the rooms division or food and beverage (F&B). This granularity enables finance teams to allocate resources more effectively and make data-informed decisions to improve margins across the board.
- Enhanced tracking of undistributed operating expenses. Previously, expenses like IT services, utilities, and centralized management functions were difficult for finance leaders to monitor with precision. The 12th edition of USALI calls for clearer categorization and allocation of these costs, making it easier for hospitality finance leaders to identify cost-saving opportunities, improve operational efficiency, and better assess overhead allocation.
- More robust asset management insights. Capital expenditures and asset maintenance are now a bigger focus in the new USALI. By emphasizing areas like labor cost analysis and maintenance-related investments, the updated guidance gives finance leaders better tools to track asset utilization, optimize capex planning, and support long-term value creation.
- Net revenue metrics. To more accurately reflect revenue performance, the 12th edition of USALI introduces net revenue reporting that accounts for discounts, commissions, and other revenue offsets. This shift ensures a more accurate picture of true profitability and improves comparability across a hospitality company’s properties, brands, and markets.
- Sustainability metrics. Recognizing the growing importance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives, the 12th edition of USALI now encourages the inclusion of sustainability metrics like energy and water usage, waste reduction, and emissions. These metrics not only support compliance and reporting efforts but also help hospitality organizations meet investor and customer expectations for responsible business practices.
Failing to adopt these means risking outdated insights, missed opportunities, and falling behind competitors who are already leveraging smarter, more strategic reporting to drive performance.
The Benefits of Including New USALI Metrics
Incorporating the new USALI metrics into both daily and fiscal period reporting isn’t just about compliance – it’s about unlocking powerful business benefits that drive long-term success.
- Real-time visibility into key performance indicators. By adopting the new metrics in daily reporting, finance leaders can access timely insights into the performance of every revenue-generating and cost-incurring department. This real-time data enables faster decision-making, quicker course corrections, and a more proactive approach to financial management.
- Improved forecasting and budgeting accuracy. Aligning operational reporting with standardized metrics in the 12th edition of USALI enhances the reliability of forecasts and budgets. With more detailed and consistent data feeding into planning models, hospitality finance teams can create projections that are not only more accurate but also more actionable.
- Stronger benchmarking across properties and segments. The standardization brought by the new USALI metrics makes it easier to compare performance across different properties, regions, or segments of the business. This allows finance teams to identify outliers, benchmark best practices, and replicate successful strategies across the portfolio.
- Faster identification of issues and opportunities. Whether it’s a sudden spike in utility costs, a dip in spa profitability, or unusually high commissions in a specific channel, daily reporting with metrics in the 12th edition of USALI makes it easier to catch red flags early. Similarly, emerging opportunities can be identified faster and acted upon more decisively.
- Enhanced credibility and transparency with stakeholders. By producing reports that align with the industry’s gold standard, finance leaders can deliver more credible, transparent data to ownership groups, asset managers, lenders, and investors. This builds confidence, improves communication, and fosters stronger relationships with key stakeholders.
Hospitality finance leaders that are not embedding these new USALI metrics into their daily and fiscal reporting are missing opportunities to act faster, plan smarter, and prove their value.
Why It’s Difficult for Many Hospitality Companies to Keep Up
Despite the clear advantages, many hospitality companies find it difficult to implement the new USALI metrics in their reporting processes. The obstacles are both technical and organizational.
- Outdated financial systems that don’t support the new structure or metrics. Many hotels still rely on legacy accounting platforms that haven’t been updated to accommodate the 12th edition. These systems often lack the necessary data fields, reporting flexibility, or integration capabilities needed to support the new metrics – complicating implementation.
- Manual reporting processes that are time-consuming and error prone. Finance teams that rely on spreadsheets or manual data entry are ill-equipped to handle the level of granularity and frequency required by the new USALI standards. Manual processes not only slow down reporting but also increase the likelihood of inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
- Limited IT and accounting resources to implement changes. Many hospitality organizations operate with lean finance and IT teams. Implementing the new USALI metrics requires both technical configuration and process redesign – resources that are often already stretched thin. As a result, the transition to the new metrics is delayed or deprioritized.
- Data silos between departments and systems. Without integrated systems for property management (PM), point of sale (POS), and financial reporting, it’s difficult to pull consistent information for daily and period-end reporting. These silos create inconsistencies in the data, making it hard to comply with USALI’s detailed reporting requirements.
Every day hospitality finance leaders delay overcoming these obstacles is another day their property operates in the dark – missing critical insights, making slower decisions, and falling further behind competitors who’ve modernized their daily and fiscal period reporting to include USALI metrics.
How Data Plus Makes It Possible
Data Plus has designed its financial management system specifically for the hospitality industry – with full support for the 12th edition of USALI built right in. Data Plus eliminates complexity and manual work so finance leaders can focus on strategic decision-making, not data wrangling.
- Pre-configured support for the 12th edition USALI metrics. The Data Plus financial management solution comes with built-in templates and configurations that align with the latest USALI standards. That means finance leaders can start tracking and reporting on the new metrics immediately – without time-consuming customization or system overhauls.
- Real-time dashboards and reporting tools. With Data Plus, hospitality finance leaders get daily insights at their fingertips. Graphical dashboards are tailored for hotel finance teams, providing actionable views into departmental performance, cost drivers, and key metrics. This real-time visibility helps finance leaders take faster, more informed action.
- Seamless integration with PMS, POS, and other systems. Data Plus connects with core hospitality operational systems to streamline data collection and eliminate silos. These connections reduce manual data entry, improve accuracy, and ensure data consistency.
- Flexible, configurable reporting schedules. Whether a hospitality finance leader needs daily flash reports or fiscal period close summaries, the Data Plus platform makes it easy to customize reporting frequency and format – while ensuring every report is USALI-compliant.
- Cloud-based and mobile-access. Data Plus empowers finance teams to monitor performance and make decisions from anywhere. With secure, cloud-based access, finance teams stay connected to the data they need – on the property, at corporate, or on the go.
Data Plus gives hospitality finance leaders everything they need to modernize their reporting.
Lead the Industry, Don’t Lag Behind
The hospitality industry is changing, and financial leaders need to change with it. The 12th edition of USALI is a smarter, more precise way to run a hospitality business. Those who embrace the change will gain an edge in performance, agility, and transparency. Those who don’t will struggle to keep pace in a market that demands real-time insights and strategic foresight. Data Plus makes it easy to bring a hospitality company’s reporting into alignment with the latest USALI standards – without overwhelming a hospitality finance team or overhauling their existing PMS or POS systems.
Data Plus
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N. Chelmsford, MA 01863
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Send all press inquiries to Bruce Bensetler: ABB@dphs.com
