Till for B&Bs and small hotels: bar, breakfast, minibar and shop with charge to room

Paolo Vezzola

Founder · Vezpa PMS · Profile →

A pint jotted on the back of a receipt, a bottle of water taken from the breakfast-room fridge, a glass of wine that “we'll put on the bill later”. In a small guest house each extra sale is worth very little; together they add up to real money — and when they slip through, that money never arrives. This guide shows how to organise the till in a B&B, inn or small hotel: departments, charging to the room, settling at check-out and closing the day, with practical examples and the most common mistakes.

1. Why a lost bar tab is a cost, not a slip

Run the numbers for an eight-room B&B with a small honesty bar. If each evening you lose track of two drinks at £4 and one minibar item at £3, that is £11 a day: across a 200-day season, £2,200 — the margin on quite a few room nights. And the money is not the only cost:

• Awkward check-outs: the guest does not remember the second gin and tonic, you have nothing written down, and in the end you let it go.
• Stock that never adds up: if you do not know what you sold, you do not know what to reorder. Someone finds out there is no milk on Sunday morning.
• A cash drawer that will not balance: at the end of the shift the cash matches nothing in particular, and nobody can say why.
• Made-up prices: without a price list, the same cocktail is £7 with one member of staff and £8 with another.

You do not need a restaurant EPOS with ten tablets. You need a simple routine, followed every time, and a tool that makes the routine easier than the scrap of paper.

2. Room folio and extras folio: two bills, not one

The first step is to keep two different things apart, in your head and in your software:

Mixing the two causes almost every mistake: a prepaid Booking.com guest is asked for the full room price, or leaves having paid for the room but not the bar. Keeping both on the same booking, but separate, lets you say in one sentence: “your room is already paid, there's £23 on the bar.”

3. Departments: how to organise what you sell

A department is a group of items that makes sense to read together at the end of the day. A few clear departments beat many precise ones. A realistic example for a B&B or small hotel:

Two rules: every item has a price in the list (except open-price items, flagged as such) and every item belongs to one department only. That way the department totals at the end of the day can be trusted.

4. Charge to room, done properly

Charging to the room is the convenience guests value most and the riskiest one for you. It works if three conditions are met:

1. Only charge guests who are in house. Not a room number said out loud: a guest who is checked in, picked from a list. That stops you charging the neighbour, or someone who left this morning.
2. Record it at once, not at the end of the shift. Every postponed charge is a charge at risk.
3. Settle at check-out, with the detail in front of the guest. The guest sees each line (date, item, quantity, amount) and pays without argument. If part has been paid already, print only the balance due.

A typical case: the Murphys arrive from Booking.com with the stay prepaid. Over three nights they have two rounds of drinks, a breakfast in bed and a bottle of local gin from the shop. Each item lands on the booking's extras folio; at departure the bill reads room paid, extras £38, you take the card and the guest gets a payment receipt.

5. One catalogue, with stock levels

Many properties keep the same product in three places: the bar price list, the extras page on the website and the stock spreadsheet. Prices drift apart and stock never matches. The fix is one catalogue: a single list of departments and items, with price and stock quantity, used everywhere you sell — the till, the booking engine (for example breakfast offered as an extra during a direct booking) and the wellness area.

Stock control can be light: enter the quantity when deliveries arrive and let each sale count it down. You do not need to track everything — keep stock only for what really runs out (wine, shop products, minibar drinks) and leave coffee or services without it.

6. Closing the day: the till report

At the end of the day, before you count the drawer, you need four numbers:

• Taken by payment method: cash, card through the connected reader, card on another terminal.
• Charged to rooms: sold today but collected at check-out.
• Totals by department: what the bar made, what the shop made, what wellness made.
• Voids: what was reversed, when and for how much.

If the cash in the drawer matches the “cash” line, the day is closed. If it does not, at least you know where to look. Printing or saving the report every evening builds an archive that tells you, at the end of the season, which departments actually pay.

7. A payment receipt after the card

When a guest pays by card, especially at check-out, they want something in hand: the amount, the date, your property, what they paid for. A clear payment receipt, printed or sent to their phone, closes the conversation and cuts disputes. For the tax rules that apply to you, check with your accountant.

8. Checklist to get the till in order

• Set up 4-6 departments, no more.
• Write a price list with a price for every item; flag the open-price ones.
• Track stock only for items that actually run out.
• Agree one rule: every item is recorded when it is served.
• Charge to room only for in-house guests, picked from a list.
• Keep the room folio and the extras folio separate.
• At check-out, show the extras in detail and take the balance.
• Every evening, compare the till report with the cash in the drawer.
• Correct mistakes with a void, not by deleting: the trail must stay.
• Review department totals monthly and update the price list.

9. The most common mistakes

The “I'll write it down later” note

The surest way to lose revenue. If recording a sale takes more than ten seconds, nobody will do it during the breakfast rush: the tool has to be quick, on the phone already in your pocket.

One bill for everything

Putting extras inside the booking total makes it impossible to see what the platform has already collected. The result is wrong payment requests and irritated guests.

Charges with no guest attached

“Room 4” scribbled on a pad is not enough: room 4 has one guest today and another yesterday. The charge must belong to the booking, not to the door number.

Deleting instead of voiding

A mistake is fixed with a void that stays visible in the report. Deleting a sale removes the trail and makes the evening check pointless.

Different prices on different channels

Breakfast at £12 at the counter and £15 on the website, without that being a deliberate choice, raises questions that are hard to answer. One catalogue avoids it.

10. How Vezpa does it

Since version 3.8.1, Vezpa includes a department till (the Cash desk in the app) in the same app you use for the calendar and bookings, on iPhone, Android, Windows and macOS:

• One catalogue of departments, items and stock, shared by the till, the Booking Engine and Wellness. Items can have a fixed or an open price.
• Take cash, card (Stripe card reader or Tap to Pay on your phone, or another terminal) or charge to room, picking the guest from those in house.
• Room folio and extras folio kept separate on the booking: print the full bill or just the balance due, in A5 or 80 mm thermal format.
• End-of-day till report: taken by method, charged to rooms, totals by department, list of sales and voids, also as a PDF.
• Payment receipt after every card payment (card reader, Tap to Pay, Wellness), in A5 or 80 mm format, to print or share.

Catalogue extras — breakfast, transfers, late check-out — can also appear with photos and descriptions in the Booking Engine, offered to guests while they book direct with you. For everything else, see the features and pricing pages.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between the room folio and the extras folio?

The room folio holds the accommodation (and any board basis or local levy), which is often already partly paid online or through the booking platform. The extras folio collects everything the guest buys during the stay: bar, extra breakfasts, minibar, shop, treatments. Keeping them apart stops you confusing what the platform has already collected with what the guest still owes you on site.

Can I charge to the room for a guest who booked through Booking.com or Airbnb?

Yes. A room charge goes onto the extras folio of the booking, whichever channel it came from. At check-out the guest settles the extras by cash or card, separately from the accommodation.

Do I need a separate till for the bar?

Not necessarily. A till organised by department lets you sell bar, breakfast, minibar and shop items from the same tool and read each department's total at the end of the day. For the tax rules in your country, check with your accountant.

Can I send the guest a receipt after a card payment?

In Vezpa, yes: after every card payment (card reader, Tap to Pay or Wellness) you can produce a payment receipt in A5 or 80 mm thermal format, to print or share with the guest.