USALI (Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry)

Definition

The Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, published by HFTP with AHLA and the Global Finance Committee and now in its 12th revised edition. It defines how a hotel groups revenue and expenses: operated departments (Rooms, Food & Beverage and other operated departments), each with its own revenue, cost of sales, labour and other expenses; undistributed operating expenses (Administrative & General, Information & Telecommunications Systems, Sales & Marketing, Property Operations & Maintenance, and Energy, Water and Waste, which the 12th edition renamed from Utilities and split into energy, water and sewer, waste and contract services); then gross operating profit (GOP), management fees and the non-operating items below it.

What it tells you

Where the money is made and lost inside the hotel, on a layout that an owner, an operator, a lender and a benchmark provider all read the same way. Because department results and GOP are defined once, two hotels, or two years of the same hotel, can be compared line by line instead of arguing about where a cost belongs.

How to track it

Map the hotel’s chart of accounts to the USALI line items once, then keep the monthly P&L and the annual operating budget in that layout. Watch each department’s result as a percentage of its own revenue, the undistributed expenses as a percentage of total revenue, and the GOP margin. A general-ledger view can sit beside it for the accountant; the totals do not change.

Where it fits

USALI is the backbone of GOP and GOPPAR, and the structure an operating budget should follow so that it can be benchmarked at all. The leadership track walks GMs through the revenue-to-GOP chain line by line; the Academy’s Budget and the planning cycle lesson shows where the cost side enters the annual plan.