What a hospitality technology audit actually covers

A hospitality technology audit answers four questions: what systems you actually have, how money and data move between them, who really controls the accounts and credentials, and what to fix first for the biggest return. It ends with a plain English report an owner can act on, not a technical document written for a developer. Here's what a real one covers, based on how I run mine.

Day one: the platform

The systems themselves. The till and what state it's in, the data model behind it, hosting and deployment, backups that have actually been tested rather than assumed, and what happens when something breaks at ten on a Saturday. This is also where version control and access get checked: it's surprisingly common to find the business doesn't hold its own keys.

Day two: the commercial layer

How the numbers hold up under scrutiny. Where reconciliation happens and who does it, how bonus and tip calculations would look to an outside eye, which third parties the operation quietly depends on, and where ownership sits across code, domains, hosting and accounts. If you ever plan to raise money or sell, this is the section an investor's due diligence will go through line by line, so it pays to read it before they do.

What you get at the end

• What you have, and how much of it depends on people who don't work for you
• Risks ranked, with the likely cost of each in plain terms
• What to fix first, second and third, with a sense of effort for each
• If you're hiring, what your technical hire actually needs to be, which is a different person depending on whether the job is maintenance, rebuild or scale

Who this is for

• Operators who've accumulated systems for years and want one honest picture
• Founders preparing for investment who don't want technical due diligence to stall the raise
• Groups about to expand who need to know if the current stack can carry more sites
• Owners who depend on one contractor and want to understand their exposure

What it costs and what to expect

An audit at this scope is short by design: days, not weeks, agreed as a fixed fee up front so there's no meter running. Expect to provide read-only access, an hour or two with whoever built things, and honest answers. Expect back a report you can hand to a business partner, a bank or an investor without translation. Nothing beyond the audit is ever committed until you've read it; sometimes the report's conclusion is that you're in better shape than you feared, and that's a good outcome, not a wasted fee.

How to start

A free 30 minute call to hear what's bothering you, via the contact page. If an audit isn't the right tool for your situation, I'll say so on the call and point you somewhere better.