Room 22 has been out of order since Tuesday
On Tuesday morning a room attendant noticed the toilet in room 22 was running constantly. The supervisor set the room out of order in the PMS and wrote the fault in the maintenance book. The maintenance man, who looks after the building three days a week, fixed it on Wednesday afternoon in ten minutes. He ticked the book. Nobody told reception.
On Friday the hotel is sold out apart from room 22, and the revenue manager asks why it is blocked. Nobody knows. Meanwhile room 9 has a wobbly bed frame that a guest mentioned at checkout, which reception wrote on a sticky note that fell behind the desk. Room 9 is let that evening.
Why rooms and repairs lose track of each other
Room status lives in the PMS. Maintenance jobs live in a book, a whiteboard, a WhatsApp group or the maintenance person's head. The two are joined by whoever remembers to walk between them.
- Faults are reported by housekeeping, reception, guests and the duty manager, all by different routes.
- Not every fault needs the room taken out of order, and the decision is made inconsistently.
- Maintenance staff may be part time or contractors who never touch the PMS.
- When a job is done, nobody is prompted to inspect it and release the room.
- Recurring faults in the same room are not visible because old jobs are in last year's book.
The cost of a room that should be selling
A room blocked for no reason on a busy night is a room you could have sold. A room let with a real fault leads to a room move at ten at night, a refund or a complaint. Both happen because the information was there somewhere, just not in front of the person making the decision.
There is a longer-term cost too. Without a history, you cannot see that room 14's shower has been repaired four times this year and needs replacing, or that one floor's heating is behind most complaints.
How we build a maintenance job list tied to room status
- Anyone can report a fault from a phone or the reception PC: the room or area, a photo, and a short description.
- Each job is given a priority by rules you set, such as whether it stops the room being let, and the PMS room status changes automatically when a job stops the room being let.
- The maintenance person or contractor sees their list on a phone, with photos, and marks jobs as started and done. Contractors can use a simple link without an account.
- When a job that blocked a room is done, the housekeeping supervisor gets a prompt to inspect. Once passed, the room returns to sale in the PMS.
- Reception sees which rooms are blocked, why, and when they are expected back, before offering them or moving guests.
- Every job is kept against the room, so recurring faults and the rooms that need attention stand out.
| Fault | Priority by your rules | Room status |
|---|---|---|
| Running toilet | Fix today | Stays on sale unless it cannot be fixed before arrival |
| No hot water | Urgent | Out of order until fixed and inspected |
| Broken blind | Next visit | On sale, note to reception |
| Wobbly bed frame | Urgent | Out of order until fixed and inspected |
Where your PMS offers an API for room status, changes happen automatically. Where it does not, the list tells the desk exactly what to change.
Friday, with the job list
On Friday the revenue manager looks at the blocked rooms and sees none. Room 22 was inspected and released on Wednesday within the hour. The bed frame in room 9 was reported by reception on the job list at checkout, so the room went out of order before anyone could let it, and the maintenance man fixed it the next morning.
At the end of the month, the owner can see how many jobs were raised, how long rooms were blocked, and which rooms keep coming back. Decisions about refurbishment start from that list.
Signs rooms are blocked longer than they need to be
- You regularly find out-of-order rooms with no clear reason.
- Maintenance faults are reported on paper or in a group chat.
- Guests have been put in rooms with known faults.
- Your maintenance person or contractors do not use the PMS.
- You cannot easily see which rooms have repeated faults.