A guide to using the Rate Variance Report in RMS to identify differences between the rate quoted to a guest and the rate actually charged on their reservation.

Overview

The Rate Variance Report compares the Quoted Rate captured on a reservation against the Charged Rate that is applied to the reservation account. Where these two values differ, the report records a variance so that Revenue Managers, Front Office Managers, and Property Owners can review where and why rates have been changed.

The report is produced from the Accounting group of reports and can be run for any selected Arrival Date range. Results can be filtered by Category and Reservation Status, grouped by Category, Area Status, or Loyalty Membership Type, and sorted by Reservation No, Area, Rate Type, Company, or Travel Agent.

A Summary section at the end of the report breaks the totals down by room count and guest nationality and provides the total Quoted Rate, Charged Rate, and Variance values across all reservations in scope.

Reasons to Use

The Rate Variance Report supports several operational and revenue-integrity use cases:

• Revenue Auditing: Identify reservations where the Charged Rate differs from the Quoted Rate, helping to detect unintentional discounting, data entry errors, or unauthorised rate changes.
• Rate Override Monitoring: Detect reservations where the system-generated rate has been manually overridden, so that management can review whether the override was appropriate.
• Revenue Leakage: Quantify the cumulative dollar impact of rate variances across a selected Arrival Date range to understand the financial effect on the property's revenue.
• Channel and Source Analysis: Compare variance patterns across booking sources such as direct, Online Travel Agent (OTA), Company, or Travel Agent, to see whether specific sources are consistently producing lower charged rates.
• Rate Plan Compliance: Confirm that the correct Rate Type and pricing are being applied in line with the property's pricing strategy, membership tiers, or corporate agreements.
• Pre-Arrival Checks: Review upcoming reservations with a rate variance before arrival so that pricing issues can be corrected before the guest checks in.

How the Report Works

For each in-scope reservation, RMS compares two values:

• Quoted Rate: The nightly rate recorded on the reservation at the point it was quoted or made, before any subsequent manual override.
• Charged Rate: The nightly rate currently applied to the reservation and used to post accommodation charges to the reservation account.

The Variance column shows the difference between the two values. A variance is only recorded when a Quoted Rate was captured on the reservation and that value has since diverged from the Charged Rate.

Prerequisites

Before running the Rate Variance Report, confirm that the following are in place:

System Configuration

• Rates Configured: Rate Types and Rate Tables must be active and correctly set up. The report compares Quoted Rate against Charged Rate - without correctly configured rates, variance data will be incomplete or inaccurate.
• Reservations in Scope: At least one reservation with an Arrival Date in the selected range must exist in the selected Reservation Status(es) for the report to return results.

User Access

• A Security Profile with access to the Reports menu and the Rate Variance report.

Guide

In the side menu of RMS, go to Reports > Accounting > Rate Variance.

1. Select the Reservation Arrive Date range.
   (Optional) Select In House Reservation Only.
2. Select the Category.
3. Select the Reservation Status to include.
   (Optional) Select the Group By option.
   (Optional) Select the Sort By option.
   (Optional) Select Show Only Reservation with a Variance.
   (Optional) Select Replace Billing instructions with Reservation notes.
4. Select Build.
   

Build Screen Options

The table below lists every option on the Rate Variance build screen, the type of control used, and the values available for each dropdown or checkbox.

Report Columns

The table below describes each column displayed in the Rate Variance Report.

Summary Section

The bottom of the report includes a Summary section with the following totals:

Related Articles

• Quoted Rate Variance Report
• Company
• Security Profile