Jun 8, 2026
By: Fernando Campos | Managing Partner - EAS LATAM
In many cases, the problem is not only the operation itself, but how financial information is presented and analyzed. A traditional income statement can show whether the hotel made or lost money, but it does not always explain where the hotel made money, where it lost money, which channel was more profitable, or which cost is putting pressure on the margin.
That is where USALI comes in. USALI stands for Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry. Its function is to organize hotel information by operating areas, indicators, and profit centers.
USALI 12 becomes effective on January 1, 2026, and has a clear focus: greater transparency in hotel operations.
USALI does not replace IFRS
USALI is not an accounting standard like IFRS, the International Financial Reporting Standards. It also does not replace the financial statements that a company must prepare under the applicable accounting framework.
The difference can be summarized as follows:
Framework | Purpose |
IFRS | Prepare general-purpose financial statements. |
USALI | Read hotel operations by departments, margins, channels, and indicators. |
In simple terms: IFRS organize the financial statements; USALI helps understand the hotel operation.
The USALI 12 presentation itself clarifies that USALI does not define accounting principles such as GAAP or IFRS, but rather serves as a guide for standardized financial reporting, management analysis, and hotel benchmarking.
Why a hotel should consider it
Adopting USALI does not mean complicating accounting. It means presenting information in a way that makes sense for the hotel industry.
A hotel is not a single sales line. It has rooms, food and beverage, events, laundry, maintenance, technology, energy, water, waste, commissions, payroll, loyalty programs, and brand costs.
USALI helps answer very practical questions:
Question for the hotelier | How USALI helps |
Does Rooms deliver the expected margin? | It separates revenue, costs, and profit for the department. |
Does Food and Beverage generate profit or only activity? | It shows the specific margin of the area. |
Do digital platforms fill the hotel but reduce profitability? | It helps analyze revenue and costs by channel. |
Is payroll aligned with occupancy and service? | It allows labor productivity to be measured. |
Are energy, water, and waste affecting margin? | It provides more visibility over these costs. |
Are brand costs clear to the owner? | It presents them in a more organized way. |
A simple example: viewing the hotel by department
A traditional income statement may look like this:
Traditional statement | Amount |
Total revenue | USD 800,000 |
Operating costs and expenses | USD 580,000 |
Operating profit | USD 220,000 |
That report shows that the hotel made money, but it does not explain where.
Under a USALI logic, the same result may be read as follows:
Department | Revenue | Direct expenses | Departmental profit | Margin |
Rooms | USD 520,000 | USD 130,000 | USD 390,000 | 75% |
Food and Beverage | USD 220,000 | USD 190,000 | USD 30,000 | 14% |
Other departments | USD 60,000 | USD 35,000 | USD 25,000 | 42% |
Undistributed expenses | - | USD 225,000 | - | - |
GOP | - | - | USD 220,000 | 28% |
GOP means Gross Operating Profit. In this example, the hotel generates profit, but Food and Beverage has a low margin. Without a department-by-department reading, that pressure may remain hidden.
OTAs: not all room revenue has the same quality
An OTA, or Online Travel Agency, is a digital booking platform. These platforms can help fill rooms, but they do not always generate the same profitability as direct sales.
Channel | Gross revenue | Commission / channel cost | Estimated net revenue | Management reading |
Direct website | USD 80,000 | USD 2,000 | USD 78,000 | Most profitable channel |
OTA retail | USD 120,000 | USD 18,000 | USD 102,000 | High volume, lower margin |
OTA merchant | USD 60,000 | USD 12,000 | USD 48,000 | Review real profitability |
Negotiated corporate | USD 90,000 | USD 3,000 | USD 87,000 | Good stability |
Wholesalers / tour operators | USD 70,000 | USD 10,500 | USD 59,500 | Evaluate net rate |
USALI 12 expands the definitions used to segment room revenue, including discount rates, negotiated rates, qualified rates, promotions, OTA discounts, and opaque rates. This helps analyze the quality of the revenue, not only the sales volume.
A practical point: who collects the reservation can affect the reading
In reservations through digital platforms, there are two common collection methods:
Method | Simple explanation | Risk for the analysis |
Property collects | The guest pays directly at the hotel. | The hotel normally records the full rate and shows the commission separately. |
OTA collects | The guest pays the platform, and the platform later settles with the hotel. | If the hotel records only the net amount received, the average rate may look lower. |
This affects ADR, which stands for Average Daily Rate.
For example, a room sold for USD 200 through an OTA with an 18% commission may generate net revenue of USD 164 for the hotel. If some reservations are recorded at the gross rate and others at the net amount received, ADR may decrease not because the hotel sold cheaper, but because the commission was hidden inside the revenue.
The management recommendation is simple: compare channels on the same basis. Commissions and distribution costs should be clearly visible to determine whether a platform contributes profitability or only occupancy.
Indicators that owners and managers should review
USALI also allows operating indicators to be connected with financial results.
Indicator | Meaning | What it is used for |
ADR | Average Daily Rate | Measures the average price per room sold. |
RevPAR | Revenue per Available Room | Combines occupancy and rate. |
GOP | Gross Operating Profit | Measures hotel operating performance. |
GOPPAR | GOP per available room | Measures profitability per installed capacity. |
FTE | Full-time equivalent employees | Connects payroll with productivity. |
A hotel may increase occupancy and average rate, but still not improve operating profit if commissions, payroll, energy, laundry, or brand costs increase.
What changes with USALI 12
The new version seeks greater transparency. The main changes include new reports and adjustments in rooms, loyalty programs, executive lounges, energy, water, waste, payroll, mandatory brand costs, and all-inclusive hotels.
Rooms and loyalty programs. The segmentation of revenue is expanded, and more clarity is provided for costs related to guest benefits, points, promotions, and service recovery.
Executive Lounge. A specific report is created for executive lounges, club lounges, or similar spaces. This helps identify how much it costs to maintain them and whether the cost relates to guests who paid for access or to loyalty program benefits.
Energy, Water and Waste. A report is incorporated for energy, water, and waste. In tourism hotels, this point is especially relevant for sustainability, operating efficiency, and information requirements from owners, brands, banks, or corporate clients.
Payroll FTE. A report on full-time equivalent employees is added. This helps measure whether payroll is aligned with occupancy, service, and revenue.
Mandatory brand and operator costs. An annual report is incorporated to identify costs required by the brand or operator, such as programs, systems, and mandatory services. For owners, this improves visibility over costs that are not always clearly seen in a general financial statement.
What hotels in Costa Rica should do
The first step is not to change the entire accounting system. The first step is to review whether the current chart of accounts allows the hotel to properly separate rooms, food and beverage, other departments, administration, sales, technology, maintenance, energy, water, waste, payroll, and brand costs.
Then, the hotel should prepare monthly reports that are not limited to the general income statement. Management should be able to see margins by department, sales channels, operating indicators, undistributed costs, and variances against budget.
USALI 12 does not come to complicate hotel accounting. It comes to organize the financial conversation among owners, operators, managers, and accountants.
The message is clear: it is not enough to know whether the hotel made or lost money. It is necessary to know where it made money, where it lost money, which channel left a better margin, which department needs attention, and which costs should be seen with greater transparency.
References
HFTP / AHLA. USALI 12th Revised Edition - A Deep Dive into Changes in the New Edition. Presentation on the main changes, relationship with GAAP/IFRS, revenue segmentation, loyalty programs, Executive Lounge, Energy Water & Waste, Payroll FTE, and Schedule 16.
HFTP. Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, 12th Revised Edition. General guide on purpose, structure, operating statements, metrics, and selected changes in the new edition.