The Hotel Owner's 7am Check: A Daily Summary That Reads Like a Briefing

Frontdesko's Daily Summary puts revenue, occupancy, ADR, payments taken, tonight's room mix, guest movement and open items on one screen, with a date stepper and CSV export. An owner can read it in about two minutes before the day starts.

By the Frontdesko team · Last updated: October 31, 2026

Sunday, 7:00: The Owner's Check

Illustrative scenario. An 18-room hotel and its owner is a made-up property used to show the screens in order. It is not a customer story, and no figures here are real results.

No figures are shown here on purpose: the point is where each number sits and what it answers.

Time	Where	What she reads
07:00	Daily Summary tab	The owner opens the Daily Summary. It opens on today. The header has previous-day and next-day arrows, a date field, a Today button, Refresh and CSV export. The next-day arrow is disabled on today. She steps back one day to read yesterday.
07:01	The top strip	Four figures: Total Revenue with its change against the previous day and a hint splitting room revenue from tax collected, Occupancy Rate with a change in points and a thin bar, Average Daily Rate with rooms sold, and Payments taken with a count.
07:02	Rooms tonight	One stacked bar splits the inventory into Occupied Rooms, Arrivals Due, Available Rooms and Out of Order, with a count for each and the number of persons staying tonight.
07:03	Guest Activity	A row of four counts: Check-ins, Check-outs, Walk-ins and No Shows.
07:04	Outstanding Items	A panel lists unpaid balances, pending check-ins and overdue check-outs, plus any cash shifts still open. When there is nothing to chase, the panel says All clear.
07:06	The tables below	Revenue breakdown, Payments taken by method, Cash counters (cashier, counter, shift, float, cash, all methods, expected, counted, variance, status) and Today's Bookings (created, room, guest, source, amount). Each table has a totals row.
07:08	Refresh and export	A booking came in while she was reading, so she presses Refresh, which forces fresh figures instead of the copy cached for that date. She exports the day to CSV for the accountant.

What Does Each Block Answer?

Block	The question it answers	Definitions on this site
Total Revenue, with room and tax split	Did yesterday make more or less than the day before, and how much was tax?	Hotel KPIs
Occupancy Rate and bar	How full are we, and has it moved in points?	What is occupancy rate
Average Daily Rate, rooms sold	What did each sold room earn?	What is ADR
Rooms tonight	How many rooms are sold, how many guests have not arrived yet, and what is left to sell?	Hotel tape chart
Guest Activity	How busy was the desk, and did anyone not show?	Check-in procedure
Outstanding Items	Who owes money, who has not checked in, who has overstayed?	What is a guest folio
Cash counters	Is a till still open, and did the count match?	Hotel night audit

Screen hints in the product describe the room figures this way: Occupied Rooms means guests in house, Arrivals Due means rooms sold but the guest has not arrived, and Rooms Sold drives occupancy and ADR. Persons is adults plus children staying tonight.

The page replaced a layout of seven equal cards of large numbers. Tables for the revenue breakdown, payments, cash counters and bookings were kept as tables, because the people reading them add them up.

How Does the Learning Center Help an Owner Form the Habit?

A daily tip in the Learning Center, "Start the day with the Daily Summary", points at this screen, and a guided task called "Review the daily summary" walks a new user through it in about two minutes. See how guided tours train new staff.

What Does It Not Do?

It is a screen, not a message. The Daily Summary is opened in the app. It is not sent as a scheduled email or chat message.
One hotel at a time. For several properties see multi-property consolidated reporting.
No forecast and no benchmarks. It reports the selected day and its change against the previous day. For longer views use the Reports tab and hotel reporting and analytics.
Cash counters appear only if the hotel uses them. The panel and the open-shift warning show when cash counters are switched on.
Refresh is manual. The figures for a date are cached for a short window, and Refresh forces fresh data.

The Daily Summary is part of the PMS, which is free with unlimited rooms. See pricing for the paid add-ons.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a hotel owner check every morning?

Yesterday's revenue and how it moved, occupancy and average daily rate, tonight's room mix, guest movement, and anything outstanding such as unpaid balances, pending check-ins, overdue check-outs and open cash shifts. Frontdesko puts all of these on one Daily Summary screen.

How long does the Daily Summary take to read?

Frontdesko describes it as a briefing you can read in two minutes. The top strip gives revenue, occupancy, ADR and payments, then the room bar, guest movement and outstanding items, with detail tables beneath.

Can I look at a previous day?

Yes. Use the previous-day arrow or pick a date. The next-day arrow is disabled on today. Change figures are measured against the day before the selected date.

What does Arrivals Due mean in the rooms bar?

Rooms that are sold for tonight but whose guest has not arrived yet. Together with Occupied Rooms, Available Rooms and Out of Order they make up the rooms-tonight bar, so you see the sellable picture in one place.

How do I know if there is something to chase?

Look at Outstanding Items. It lists unpaid balances, pending check-ins and overdue check-outs, and counts cash shifts still open. When none of those apply it shows All clear.

Can I export the Daily Summary?

Yes. The header has a CSV export for the selected day. Refresh forces fresh figures, because the summary is cached per date.

Is the Daily Summary emailed to me?

No. It is a screen in the app. Open it each morning, or use the Reports tab for other views.

Is the Daily Summary included in the free plan?

Yes. It is part of the PMS, which is free with unlimited rooms.

Start Every Day With the Numbers That Matter

The Daily Summary is part of the free PMS. Open it in a live demo and step back through yesterday.

Start Live Demo See Pricing

Related Guides

Reporting and end-of-day routines