Hotel Rules

Hotel Rules is a setting applied to your community's occupancy data. With this rule, ALIS occupancy reports honor the Financial Move Out Date, which is automatically adjusted to the date after your selection of this date.

This means of calculating occupancy is often used by large organizations to account for the downtime in room availability on the days following move-outs.

Hotel Rules impact in ALIS

This setting will automatically switch your Financial Move Out date to the date after your selection in the Move Out pane.

• Once you confirm the move out, you can see the updated Financial Move Out date in the Move Out Information section at the top of the resident's Moved Out profile. This date will be reflected in your occupancy reports.
• The date you originally selected remains visible and editable in the Move In & Community Information section.
  • If you edit this field, this will automatically update the display date at the top of the profile (and in reports) to the following day.

For comparison, when Hotel Rules is off, the resident's room will be reported as unoccupied on the room unassignment date, which is possibly different from the Financial Move Out Date.

This setting is on by default, and you can update it for your community in Floor Plan Settings. 

Reports

When this setting is set to Yes, your occupancy reports will include a Hotel Rules label.

The following reports will be impacted when Hotel Rules is turned on:

Unit Occupancy

• The Move Out columns (labeled "-") will indicate move outs ("-1") on the day of a resident's Financial Move Out Date. This date displays in the Move Out Information section at the top of their Moved Out profile.
• The Res Days at the tops of the tables will calculate occupancy until the day of a resident's room Financial Move Out Date.
• In the tables at the bottom of the report, the Move Outs table will display the Financial Move Out date as the the date reflected on the Moved Out resident's profile. Keep in mind that this is the day after the Financial Move Out date that was selected in the Move Out pane.

Example:

Resident Michael Smith is moving out and is financially responsible for rent until 3/28.

In ALIS, you completed the Move Out pane on his profile and set the Financial Move Out Date to 3/28.

• Without Hotel Rules, Unit Occupancy tables will display the date of the room unassignment, which matches the Financial Move Out Date selected when you moved out the resident (unless it is later changed). Michael Smith's move out is represented by "-1" on 3/28 on Unit Occupancy.
• With Hotel Rules enabled, the Financial Move Out Date is automatically switched to the date after the date you selected in the Move Out pane.  Michael Smith's move out is represented by "-1" on 3/29 on Unit Occupancy.

Weekly Occupancy

• Similar to Unit Occupancy, the Move Outs are calculated based on the room unassignment date if Hotel Rules is not used.
• With Hotel Rules enabled, Move Outs are calculated based on the Financial Move Out date (which is the date after your selection in the Move Out pane). 

The rules apply the same to the Range Move Outs and MTD Move Outs columns.

Unit Occupancy Summary

The Unit Days Occupied calculates the same way as the Unit Occupancy report. This value should match the "X Unit Days" value in the second row of the Totals section of Unit Occupancy.

A unit day occupied is calculated using Financial Move Out Dates when Hotel Rules is enabled, and room unassignment dates when Hotel Rules is turned off.

Open Room/Bed Census

The Days Vacant column will calculate vacancy based on the rules applied to the above reports.

• Without Hotel Rules, a room is considered vacant starting the day after a room is unassigned from a resident.
• With Hotel Rules enabled, a room is considered vacant starting the day after a resident's Financial Move Out Date.

Move Out

This report has a filter to apply the Date Range by Financial Move Out Date, and it shows a column for Financial Move Out Date.

As above, if your community has Hotel Rules on, the report will honor the Financial Move Out Dates at the tops of your resident profiles, which is the day following your initial selection in the Move Out pane.

More considerations when using Hotel Rules

Anticipate how this rule will represent move outs on your reports at the end of each month. If you set a resident move-out with the Financial Move Out Date as the last day of the month, this date will be automatically adjusted and display in your reporting on the first day of the next month!

If you use a separate CRM software, it is an important practice to test for potential discrepancies between ALIS and the CRM. From week to week or month to month, move out totals may not match if the move outs are calculated differently. This is possible if the definition of hotel rules is applied differently in your CRM than what is done in ALIS, or if your CRM does not apply hotel rules at all.

Related articles:

How to Audit Resident Occupancy

Unit Occupancy Report Guide