What is USALI?
USALI (Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry) is the standardized accounting framework hotels use to structure their chart of accounts, departmental schedules, and financial statements — currently in its 12th edition, so performance is comparable across properties, brands, and owners.
Why hotels standardize accounting
Owners and management companies compare properties constantly — RevPAR, GOPPAR, departmental margins. Those comparisons only work if every property books revenue and expenses the same way. USALI is that agreement.
USALI 12
The 12th edition updated departmental schedules, clarified resort-fee and service-charge treatment, and modernized utility and labor reporting. Hotels still on USALI 11 face a genuine migration — the USALI & Chart of Accounts course in the LMS Systems catalog covers the catch-up in 41 minutes.
Who needs to know it
Not just accountants: any manager reading a P&L, any owner reviewing a schedule, and every finance hire coding invoices on day one.
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