Corporate Accounts — Know Who Owes You, and How Long

A corporate bill settled "on account" is not paid, it is lent. Zitlin puts that money on the company that owes it, ages it week by week, and prints the statement you send to collect it.

Around a third of a busy independent hotel's room nights are sold to somebody who does not pay at the desk. A company block, a travel agent's allocation, a conference. The guest checks out, somebody marks the bill Credit — on account, and the money becomes an entry in a notebook, a parallel spreadsheet, or nothing at all.

Then the owner asks the only question that matters about it — how much does Acme owe us, and how long have they owed it — and nobody can answer without an afternoon of paperwork.

The bill lands on a company, not in a void

Settle as usual and choose Credit — on account. Zitlin then asks the one question that was missing: whose account.

A company picker appears and has to be filled in. Split settlements still work — part card, part credit — and only the credit portion goes onto the account. Zitlin shows what that company already owes as you pick it, so an account that has quietly run away from you is visible at the moment you are about to add to it.

If the company is not on the list, the clerk creates it there and then: name, phone, tax number. That is deliberately a front-desk power rather than a manager's. A clerk who cannot add Acme Corp at eleven at night settles the bill as cash to make the guest go away, and the money is gone from the record — which is the exact problem this is here to solve.

What each company owes, and how old it is

The Credit accounts screen lists every company you bill on credit with its balance, sorted by what is owed rather than alphabetically — the screen exists to tell you who to chase, and alphabetical order buries that under everyone who has already paid.

Open one and you get its whole ledger: every charge with the invoice number it came from, every payment with its reference, what is still open on each bill, and how many days old it is.

The accounts receivable report is the same money the other way round — companies down the side, age across the top:

Current	Billed today
1–30 days
31–60 days
Over 60 days	Shown in red. Past this point a debt is usually not late, it is a problem

It ages open bills rather than the balance, so a company sitting in credit from an over-payment correctly shows nothing to chase.

Payments clear the oldest bills first

Acme's cheque arrives. Open the account, record the amount, how it came in and a reference — cheque number, UTR — and Zitlin applies it to the oldest open bills. No matching screen, no list of tick boxes, no hunting for invoice numbers.

On a property this size the matching was never the hard part. Doing it at all was. So the payment lands, the oldest bills close, and the ledger redraws showing what is left.

Pay more than the balance and the account goes into credit, which is exactly what a company depositing a round sum against a coming group has done. The next bill absorbs it.

The statement you actually send them

Every company's ledger prints as a statement of account: every charge, every payment, the ageing of what is still open, and the closing balance.

This is the deliverable. Most properties above a certain size keep their real books in Tally, Xero or a spreadsheet, and Zitlin is not trying to replace that. It is trying to stop somebody re-typing forty invoices into a reminder email — and to give the corporate client's accounts department a document they can reconcile against their own, instead of a phone call.

Money that never arrives

Some of it does not. Writing off what is outstanding on a bill closes it, with a reason recorded, and it is an administrator's action that re-asks for the PIN.

It does not edit or delete the original charge. The bill was real and it was issued, so it stays exactly as it was and a separate write-off entry closes it — a ledger that can quietly shrink a charge cannot be reconciled against the invoices that produced it, which is the whole reason anyone keeps one.

Kept out of the drawer, and out of double counting

A credit settlement moves no money, so it never reaches a cashier's shift count. The bill still counts as revenue — the stay happened and the invoice was raised — while the money shows as an open balance on the company. The two are never added together, which is the same discipline Zitlin applies to prepayments and security deposits.

What this deliberately is not

It is not an accounts package, and it does not pretend to be:

• No credit limits and no payment terms. Nothing blocks a booking because an account is over a line somebody drew.
• No manual invoice matching. Payments apply oldest-first, and that is the only behaviour.
• No numbered receipt document for a company payment. The ledger entry carries the reference you typed, which is what reconciliation actually needs.

What it does is answer the owner's question, and hand a clean statement to whoever does the real accounting.

Who this is for

• Hotels with corporate contracts — the block of rooms every Tuesday that gets invoiced monthly
• Properties working with travel agents and DMCs, where the agent pays and the guest never sees a bill
• Banquet and conference venues, where the client is a company by definition
• Anyone keeping corporate dues in a spreadsheet today — the arrangement this replaces

Adding companies and recording payments are part of Zitlin Pro. Reading the ledger, the balances and the ageing report is not, so a property between plans can still see and print everything it is owed. Settling a bill to credit is never gated at all — it sits on the check-out critical path, and nothing should stand between a corporate guest and the door.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a city ledger in a hotel? It is the account of money owed to the property by companies rather than by guests in rooms — corporate clients, travel agents, event organisers. The guest ledger is the folio, and it closes when the guest leaves; the city ledger opens at that moment and stays open until the company pays. Zitlin calls it Credit accounts.

Do I have to pick a company when settling on credit? Yes, and that is the point. "On account" with no account behind it is how the money used to disappear into a pile of unsettled invoices. If the company is not on the list yet, the clerk adds it from the same dialog — name, phone and tax number — without leaving the checkout screen.

How does Zitlin decide which bills a payment pays off? Oldest first, automatically. Record the amount, the mode and a reference — cheque number or UTR — and the oldest open bills close. There is no matching screen and no checkboxes, because on a 40-room property the matching is not the hard part; remembering to do it at all is. A payment larger than the balance leaves the account in credit and the next bill absorbs it.

Can the tax invoice be addressed to the company instead of the guest? Not from the settle step. The company is recorded when the bill is settled, by which point the tax invoice has already been issued, and rewriting the bill-to on an issued invoice is not something to do casually. If the invoice itself has to name the company, raise it that way before generating it. The ledger, the ageing and the statement all work either way.

Does a credit settlement affect the cash drawer? No. No money changed hands, so nothing lands in the shift count and no cashier is asked to account for it — the same rule complimentary and OTA-collected settlements follow. When the company eventually pays, that payment is recorded on their ledger by transfer, cheque, card or QR.