Finance and Accounting

Strong financial controls are a benchmark of Commonwealth Hotels.  Since our inception, we have created a strong team of degreed accountants lead by an on-staff Certified Public Accountant.  Our financial people have developed a system of processes and controls, which monitor all key areas of an operation.  These systems have resulted in timely and accurate reports to owners as well as created tools which can be used to manage the business.

Commonwealth Hotels uses the Standardized Chart of Accounts developed for the hotel industry, but our uniqueness comes in the number of sub-schedules that we have developed. These schedules create individual P&L's for department heads, which can be effectively used to monitor all aspects of their cost centers.  Department heads can monitor their own budget on a daily, weekly, monthly, and annual basis, and continue to make adjustments to track for a year-end goal.  The statements contain actual budget and historical information so that if a cost problem does develop in an area, the historic information is readily available eliminating the time consuming task of researching performance in order to uncover a departmental problem.  This information leads to standardized expected costs or benchmarks on a detailed line-by-line basis.  These costs can be monitored as both a percent of revenues as well as per occupied room cost and compared on a monthly, year-to-date, and annual basis.

Operating results for individual hotels are monitored weekly at our corporate office.  Reports as well as our strong hands-on interaction with all our properties allow us to identify changes in our business early on.  These early warning systems allow us to either capitalize on opportunities or correct problems before they get out of hand.  The early warning systems can also trigger an internal audit by degreed accountants trained as internal auditors.

The financial operations of each hotel are supervised by one of our Corporate Staff Accountants who supports the hotel staff in producing complete and accurate financial statements.  These financial statements provide excellent detailed information.  They are accurate and produced on a timely basis.  These statements are the tools needed by both managers and owners to maximize the performance of the business. 

The real story behind the financial controls and reporting comes from results.  The financial results of all the properties operated by Commonwealth Hotels have some of the strongest margins in their business segments.  Each and every property has been successful in the marketing and financial sense.  A number of our own properties have outside equity partners who will attest to our ability to deliver strong financial results while keeping ownership informed on a regular basis about the progress of the properties.

Key Finance and Accounting Strengths:

• Strong Team of on-staff CPA's
• System of controls to manage all areas of hotel operations
• Use of Standard Chart of Accounts  with department sub-schedules
• Established Cost Benchmarks to help identify anomalies
• Strong corporate monitoring to identify concerns
• Internal Audits
• Timely and relevant financial statements
• Payroll Services
• Central Accounts payable
• Labor Cost Analysis
• Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
• Financial Services can be provided on a contract basis