How to Control Inventory in Hotels | Resorts

Inventory  Control is often coordinated through the accounting department. Although some departments perform inventories of their supplies for their own benefit.

Major inventories should not be conducted by department heads or supervisors for their own departments. Better control is obtained when the inventory control staff comes from outside the department. Like for Example inventory control audit of Housekeeping done by the Accounts department.

Inventory control for IT appliances and other equipment may be enhanced through the use of serial numbers marked on the manufacturer's plate on many pieces of equipment. If there is no such serial numbers of markings from the manufacturer then you should consider implementing a system with unique serial numbers for each department.

Example Front desk unique serial  number:

1) 'FO-KEY-02' ( Front office keyboard)

2) 'FO-CPU-03' 

3) 'FO-PRN-02' ( Front office Printer) 

4) 'FO-DES-10' ( Front office Desk )

5) 'FO-OMP-11' ( Optical mouse pad) etc.

While defining the unique serial number for tracking the inventory one should also follow a standard.  Like first two-digit is always department code 'FO', next three-digit is for item 'DES' ( Desk), last digits stand for the number. Anyone looking at the Inventory control register should be able to identify what item it is by reading the unique code.  

The markings should be maintained in a register within the accounting office for inventory purposes and for identification when stolen items are recovered.

Nowadays there is an increasing number of incidents where the guests take away hotel items as collectables! Hotels can reduce these issues by avoiding placing of logos or other identification which might be attractive to these so-called "collectors".

There is also some disadvantage by doing this when the items are recovered it becomes difficult to positively identify these items actually belongs to the property or not.

Some properties have solved this problem by sewing a coloured thread into the corner of a hem or other appropriate place on linens, blankets, towels. So these tags will help them to identify and recover stolen goods.

If you are running a large hotel then it really becomes difficult to do a proper inventory control manually, In this case, it is always recommended to opt for a good computer-based inventory control software which is available in the market.