Housekeeping, the folio, and the accommodation tax line

Three things move at the same time, every day, in a hotel: housekeeping’s cleaning round, a guest’s running total on their folio, and the invoice that gets cut at checkout. Track these three separately and a room goes back on sale too early, an extra charge gets left off the invoice, or the accommodation tax line comes out wrong.

Why housekeeping shares a screen with the front desk

When a guest checks out, a room shouldn’t automatically show as free — it needs cleaning first, then it goes back on sale. The housekeeping module updates a room’s status (dirty, being cleaned, clean, needs inspection) on the same room plan the front desk already looks at. The front desk can only assign a room to a new guest once housekeeping has marked it clean; that order never runs in reverse.

Housekeeping’s daily task list

Every morning, whoever runs housekeeping sees the list of rooms checking out and needing to be turned around that day; the list comes straight from the front desk’s room plan, not from a separately maintained sheet. As each room gets cleaned, staff update its status and the color on the room plan changes. Rooms that need a closer check — after a long stay, or on special request — can be flagged separately; those rooms don’t count as clean until housekeeping’s own sign-off clears them.

The folio: one account, from the room rate to every extra

For the length of a guest’s stay, the room rate, the minibar, laundry, a late checkout — all of it posts to the same folio. No invoice is cut before the folio closes; at closing, everything on the folio rolls into a single invoice draft, so nobody has to add the line items up by hand.

The accommodation tax: a line outside VAT

The accommodation tax, calculated on the accommodation service price, shows on the invoice as its own line, outside the VAT taxable base (the Revenue Administration’s accommodation tax implementation communiqué). This tax’s rate isn’t fixed — it changes from time to time — which is why Rotenta never hard-codes the rate; you set it with its own effective date instead. An invoice carries whatever rate was in force on the date it was issued; if the rate changes afterward, past invoices are unaffected. Whatever the current rate is on the date you’re invoicing should be confirmed against gib.gov.tr directly. When the rate changes at the start of a season or a new year, all you do is enter the new rate with its effective date; invoices issued before that date keep the old rate, with no retroactive correction needed.

Choosing e-Fatura or e-Arşiv on the invoice

The invoice draft that comes out of a closed folio can go out as e-Fatura or e-Arşiv, depending on which scenario your accountant uses. Which one applies depends on the taxpayer’s own status; that choice is set once, in the firm’s settings inside the accounting module, and doesn’t need reselecting on every invoice. If someone tries to send before that connection is set up, the screen shows it as plainly inactive rather than ever claiming an invoice was “sent” when it wasn’t.

Example: at a 20-room hotel, housekeeping tracked room status on a paper sheet, and the front desk sometimes put a room back on sale before seeing that sheet; a few times a month a room wasn’t actually ready when the next guest arrived, leaving them waiting in the lobby. The accommodation tax was also gathered into a separate spreadsheet at month end and added to invoices by hand, and it got missed on some of them — the accountant spent extra time at month end hunting down and fixing the gaps. After housekeeping, the room plan and invoicing moved into one flow, the early handovers stopped, and the accommodation tax line now comes out automatically, at the right rate, on every invoice.

How Rotenta runs housekeeping and invoicing

1. When a guest checks out, the room is marked dirty in the housekeeping module.
2. Housekeeping cleans the room and updates its status to clean; that status reflects on the front desk’s room plan instantly.
3. The front desk can only assign the room to a new guest once it shows clean.
4. Through the stay, the room rate and any extras post to the guest’s folio.
5. At checkout the folio closes; the room rate, extras and the accommodation tax line all roll into one invoice draft.
6. The invoice goes out as e-Fatura or e-Arşiv, according to the scenario set in the firm’s settings.
7. The invoice and the accommodation tax amount post to the running account and the correct period.

You can read how the folio runs from check-in onward in the front desk and room plan, and where the identity information collected at check-in goes in guest identity reporting (KBS). More on invoicing and the running account is on the accounting: running account, invoices, cash module page, and e-Fatura/e-Arşiv output is covered on the e-Fatura and e-Arşiv module page.

Frequently asked questions

Can the front desk sell a room before housekeeping signs off on it?

No; the front desk cannot assign a room to a new guest until the room plan shows it as clean.

If the accommodation tax rate changes, do my past invoices change too?

No; every invoice carries the rate that was in force on the date it was issued, and a later rate change never recalculates a past invoice.

Can an invoice be cut before the folio closes?

No; the invoice draft is created when the folio closes, so an open folio never gets invoiced.

Do I have to choose e-Fatura or e-Arşiv every time?

No; which scenario applies is set once in the firm’s settings, and every invoice follows that setting.

Can housekeeping update room status from a phone?

Yes; room status can be updated from a phone screen too.

You can see how this flow fits into the rest of hotel management software on the hotel management software page. To set up your housekeeping and invoicing flow together, contact us.