The short answer
A guest folio is the running account of one hotel stay. Every charge, such as room nights, food, laundry and the tax on them, is posted to it as it happens, along with every advance and payment. At check-out the balance is paid so the folio ends at zero, and the final bill is made from it.
Why a hotel keeps a folio instead of separate bills
A guest staying three nights might eat in the restaurant, send clothes to the laundry and pay an advance at check-in. Billing each of those at the counter would mean several small payments and no single record of what the guest owes. The folio keeps them in one place: charges on one side, payments on the other, and a balance that shows what is still due at any moment.
CBSE’s Class XII front office marking scheme describes the guest folio as the master bill holding all the cash and credit transactions of a resident guest. Charges reach it from where they happen: the restaurant or laundry sends a signed bill to the desk, or the software posts it directly. At check-out the desk goes through the folio with the guest, the balance is paid, and the folio is closed.
What goes on a guest folio
- Room charges, posted night by night, usually at night audit, with the tax on them.
- Food and drink from the hotel’s restaurant or room service, when the guest charges it to the room.
- Laundry, minibar and other services.
- Paid-outs: money the desk pays on the guest’s behalf, such as a taxi fare, which is recovered on the folio (the CBSE marking scheme calls the slip a visitors paid-out voucher).
- Advances paid at booking or check-in, and payments made during the stay.
- Corrections: an allowance or correction entry when something was posted wrongly (CSJM University guest accounting notes).
Types of folio
Course notes list four common types of folio (CSJM University), and Mews, a hotel software maker, also describes the split folio.
| Folio | Who it is for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Guest folio | One guest or one room | A couple in room 204 for three nights |
| Master folio | A group, where one party pays for several rooms | A wedding family paying for twelve guest rooms |
| Split folio | One stay billed to two payers | A company pays the room; the guest pays for food and laundry |
| Non-guest folio | A business or agency that is not staying but may charge purchases to the hotel | A local company whose staff dine at the hotel and settle monthly |
| Employee folio | Staff allowed to charge purchases | A manager’s meals in the hotel restaurant |
How a folio is settled at check-out
- Post anything outstanding. Breakfast, room service or minibar from the last morning goes on before the folio is printed.
- Go through the folio with the guest. Show the itemised folio with its supporting bills attached, so the guest can check and sign the final bill, as the CBSE marking scheme describes.
- Take payment for the balance. Cash, card or UPI. If a company is paying, the balance is moved to the city ledger, the hotel’s record of money owed by accounts that are not staying, and collected from the company later.
- Close the folio at zero and issue the invoice. A settled folio balances to zero (CSJM University notes). The invoice the guest takes away is made from it.
EkamOS
How EkamOS helps with guest folios
EkamOS is hotel management software for independent hotels in India. For folios, it does the following today.
- Post charges and payments to a guest’s folio from the front desk. Payments on the folio settle its invoice.
- A café on the same property can post an order to an in-house guest’s folio instead of taking payment at the counter, and it is settled with the rest of the stay at check-out.
- Check-out settles the folio into one GST invoice, and corrections to an issued invoice are made with credit notes.
- Night audit posts each night’s room charges to the folio.
Not in EkamOS yet: group bookings and company billing are on the roadmap, so a master folio for a group, or billing a stay to a company, is not available today.
Guest folio questions
Is a folio the same as an invoice?
No. The folio is the running account during the stay and changes as charges and payments are posted; the invoice is the final bill issued from it at check-out. Mews puts it as the folio being the running tab and the invoice the final bill.
What is a master folio?
A folio for charges that one party pays on behalf of several rooms, such as a family paying for all the guest rooms at a wedding (CSJM University notes). Charges the guests pay themselves can stay on their own room folios.
What is a split folio?
A stay whose charges are divided between two payers, for example a company that pays for the room while the guest pays for food and laundry (Mews).
What is the city ledger?
The record of money owed to the hotel by accounts that are not staying, such as a company that settles its employees’ stays every month. When a folio is not paid in full at check-out and the balance is billed to a company, it moves from the guest ledger to the city ledger (CSJM University notes).
How do you correct a wrong charge on a folio?
Post a correction rather than deleting the line. Course notes describe a correction voucher for posting errors and an allowance voucher to reduce a charge (CSJM University, CBSE). The original line and its correction both stay, so the folio still shows what happened.
Sources
The pages this guide relies on, opened when it was written or last updated.
- Advanced Front Office Operations (754), Class XII sample paper marking scheme, CBSE
- Front Office Operations (753, 754), Class XII curriculum, CBSE
- Guest Accounting (course notes), CSJM University, Kanpur
- Hotel folio definition, benefits and examples, Mews
Related guides
- Hotel night audit: What night audit is, the steps to run one, and the figures on the report: occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room.
- Kitchen order tickets (KOT): What a kitchen order ticket is, how it moves from table to kitchen to bill, special KOTs, and printed tickets against a kitchen display.
See EkamOS on your own kind of business
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