55 accounts with the departmental structure USALI requires, so rooms and food and beverage each produce a real departmental profit and the property can be benchmarked against others. Read the whole chart below, or take the file.

55Accounts

3Levels deep

2Formats

Follows USALI, the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, 12th revised edition. Operated departments first, then the five undistributed departments, then management fees and non-operating items.

Download the hotel chart

Pick a format. The file downloads immediately.

What is different

Departments first, everything else after

The structure is the whole point. A generic chart lists expenses in one run and produces a single profit figure. USALI settles each operated department on its own revenue and its own costs before any shared expense is counted.

01
Operated departments carry their own costs
Rooms revenue sits against rooms labor and rooms expenses. Food and beverage carries its own cost of sales, labor and other expenses. Other operated departments, spa, parking, laundry and the rest, do the same. Each one produces a departmental profit you can manage.
02
Five undistributed departments
Administrative and general, information and telecommunications systems, sales and marketing, property operation and maintenance, and utilities are reported below the operated departments because they serve the whole property. Pushing them into a single overhead line breaks the comparison.
03
Technology as its own department
Information and telecommunications systems sits outside administrative and general, as its own undistributed department. Property management software, booking engines, guest wifi and support contracts get their own reporting line rather than disappearing into admin.
04
Management fees and non-operating kept apart
Base and incentive management fees, then rent, property taxes, insurance, interest and depreciation, sit below the operating result. That is what lets EBITDA and the owner's return be read off the same statement the operator manages against.

Getting a vendor bill into the right department is the part that takes the time. Cleo Pay reads each invoice, codes it to the department that consumed it, routes it for approval and posts the payment back to QuickBooks Online.

The chart

The full hotel chart of accounts

All 55 accounts, with the note that tells you what belongs in each one. This is the same file the download gives you, rendered here so you can read it without opening a spreadsheet.

Code	Account	Type	What belongs here
4000	Revenue	Income	Revenue by department, following the USALI schedule structure.
4010	Room Revenue	Income	Guest room revenue, net of allowances. The USALI Rooms department.
4020	Food & Beverage Revenue	Income	Combined food and drink revenue for properties that report them together.
4030	Banquets & Events	Income	Banquet food and beverage plus room rental on a banquet event order.
4040	Spa & Wellness	Income	Spa treatments, wellness services and related retail.
4050	Parking & Valet	Income	Parking and valet revenue, including validations you bill out.
4060	Resort & Amenity Fees	Income	Mandatory resort, amenity and destination fees.
4070	Retail & Gift Shop	Income	Goods sold through a shop or front desk.
4080	Cancellation & No-Show Fees	Income	Charges retained when a guest cancels late or does not arrive.
5000	Cost of Sales	Cost of goods sold	Departmental cost of sales carried against the department that earned the revenue.
5010	Housekeeping Labor	Cost of goods sold	Room attendant and housekeeping wages.
5020	Front Desk Labor	Cost of goods sold	Front desk and guest services wages.
5030	Room Supplies & Amenities	Cost of goods sold	Guest room consumables and amenities.
5040	Linen & Laundry	Cost of goods sold	Linen hire and laundry, in house or contracted.
5050	Food Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Food bought for resale, including produce, protein, dairy and dry goods.
5060	Beverage Purchases	Cost of goods sold	Drink stock bought for resale where alcohol is not split out.
5070	Food & Beverage Labor	Cost of goods sold	Wages for the staff producing and serving food and drink.
5080	OTA & Booking Commissions	Cost of goods sold	Commission retained by online travel agents and booking channels.
5090	Banquet Supplies & Rentals	Cost of goods sold	Supplies and hired items consumed by a banquet.
5100	Spa Products & Contractors	Cost of goods sold	Products consumed in treatments and contracted therapists.
5110	Parking & Valet Contractors	Cost of goods sold	Contracted valet and parking operators.
6000	Operating Expenses	Expense	USALI undistributed operating expenses.
6010	Management & Office Salaries	Expense	Salaries for management and administration.
6020	Payroll Taxes & Benefits	Expense	Employer payroll taxes and the cost of employee benefits.
6030	Rent & Occupancy	Expense	Rent plus the occupancy costs that come with the building.
6040	Utilities	Expense	Electricity, gas, water and waste for the premises.
6050	Repairs & Maintenance	Expense	Repairs and upkeep of the building, plant and fixtures.
6060	Software & Subscriptions	Expense	Recurring software licences and subscriptions.
6070	Advertising & Marketing	Expense	Advertising spend and marketing programmes not tied to one event.
6080	Professional Fees	Expense	Accounting, legal and consulting fees.
6090	Business Insurance	Expense	General liability, property and business insurance.
6100	Card Processing Fees	Expense	Merchant fees on card payments taken from customers.
6110	Office & Supplies	Expense	Office consumables and general supplies.
6120	Telephone & Internet	Expense	Phone lines, mobile plans and internet connectivity.
6130	Travel	Expense	Agency travel not recharged to a client.
6140	Meals & Entertainment	Expense	Business meals and entertaining. Partially deductible, so keep it separate.
6150	Licenses & Permits	Expense	Operating licences and permits to trade.
6160	Dues & Memberships	Expense	Trade body memberships and professional dues.
6170	Training & Education	Expense	Staff training, certification and continuing education.
6180	Bank Fees	Expense	Account, wire and other charges levied by the bank.
6210	Property Management System	Expense	The PMS that runs reservations, rooms and folios.
6220	Grounds & Landscaping	Expense	Grounds keeping, landscaping and exterior upkeep.
6230	Guest Transportation	Expense	Shuttles and transport provided to guests.
6240	Franchise & Brand Fees	Expense	Franchise royalties and brand programme fees.
6250	Property Taxes	Expense	Property and real estate taxes on premises you own.
6260	Management Fees	Expense	Schedule 10. Deducted after gross operating profit.
6270	Waste Removal	Expense	General waste, recycling, food waste and confidential shredding.
8000	Other Income	Other income	Income earned outside normal trading activity.
8010	Interest Income	Other income	Interest earned on operating and reserve balances.
8020	Grants & Incentives	Other income	Grant funding and government or utility incentives received.
8030	Vendor Rebates & Commissions	Other income	Rebates and commissions paid back to you by suppliers.
9000	Other Expenses	Other expense	Below the line costs that are not part of operations.
9010	Depreciation & Amortization	Other expense	Write-down of tangible assets and amortisation of intangibles.
9020	Interest Expense	Other expense	Interest on notes payable and long-term debt.
9030	Penalties & Late Fees	Other expense	Fines, penalties and late payment charges.

Questions

Hotel chart of accounts questions

What is USALI?

USALI is the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry, the standard framework for how hotels report their financials. It is currently in its 12th revised edition, which took effect on 1 January 2026. Its defining feature is departmental reporting: each operated department carries its own revenue, labor and expenses, and the undistributed costs that serve the whole property are reported separately below them. Because nearly every hotel benchmark and management agreement is written in USALI terms, a property that does not follow it cannot be compared against anything.

What does departmental reporting actually change?

It changes whether you can tell which part of the hotel made money. Under USALI, rooms revenue carries rooms labor and rooms expenses, and lands on a rooms departmental profit line. Food and beverage does the same. Only after those departments are settled do the undistributed costs appear: administrative and general, information and telecommunications systems, sales and marketing, property operation and maintenance, and utilities. A chart that mixes those together produces one profit number for the whole property and no way to act on it.

Why are IT costs their own department?

Information and telecommunications systems became its own undistributed department in the 11th revised edition and remains one in the 12th, where earlier practice buried technology inside administrative and general. That reflects how much of a hotel's cost base is now systems: property management software, booking engines, guest wifi, phone service and support contracts. This template follows that split.

Do I need all 55 accounts?

No. A limited-service property with no restaurant should delete the food and beverage department entirely, and a property without spa, parking or laundry revenue should delete those other operated departments. What you should not do is collapse the departments you do run into a single expense list, because that is the part of USALI that makes the numbers comparable. The codes are numbered with gaps so you can add accounts without renumbering.

Can I import this into QuickBooks Online?

The CSV carries account code, name, parent account, type and a description. QuickBooks Online's account import expects its own headers and its own Detail Type values, so you will map columns during import rather than uploading the file untouched. Cleo can also apply the chart for you and keep the accounts you already have.

Does this replace a hotel accounting system?

No. It is the chart of accounts, meaning the categories. You still need a system that records transactions into it. What this template does is make sure that when your vendor bills and revenue postings arrive, there is a correctly structured place for each of them to land.

See your own invoices coded to this chart

Send us a week of real vendor bills. We will run them through Cleo, assign each one to the department that consumed it, and show you the result posted in QuickBooks.

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