How should an Irish hotel test PMS-to-accounting exports with its accountant?
A successful transfer can still put breakfast in the wrong sales account or treat a booking deposit as earned revenue. Use one controlled trading day to test the numbers with your accountant before approving the connection.
Agree the mapping, enter a small set of test transactions in your property management system (PMS), then compare each document and payment with the export and general ledger. Include rooms, breakfast, alcohol, an advance payment and a refund. Approve only when accounts, VAT codes, dates and totals match, and repeating the import creates no duplicates. First confirm the exact connector and its supported data.
Agree the mapping before testing
For hotel PMS accounting integration in Ireland, your accountant should approve the accounting treatment; the hotel should reproduce it in a test environment. Record:
- The accounting product, edition, Irish company, connector provider, data direction, transfer frequency and whether invoices, credit notes and payments are supported. Confirm any additional subscription or manual import steps.
- Each PMS sales category, destination general ledger account and accounting VAT code. A matching percentage alone does not prove that a tax code posts correctly.
- The invoice, payment and trading-date rules, Europe/Dublin cut-off, euro currency, rounding method and document identifiers. Agree whether exports contain individual documents or daily summaries.
Use synthetic guest records and an isolated accounting test company. Ask the supplier how to run the test without sending real guest emails, charging cards or affecting production accounts.
Run one fictional trading day
Hypothetical example: 12 November 2026. Start with zero test balances. Invoice the rooms, breakfasts and alcoholic drinks separately and collect all payments by test card. Then issue a room-price reduction and refund it. Take a separate advance for a future room-only stay. Assume invoice-basis VAT, no fees, no unpaid balances and no earlier deposits.
For this date, accommodation is taxed at 13.5%, qualifying restaurant breakfasts at 9% and alcohol at 23%. See Revenue’s accommodation and meals guidance and current VAT rates. These breakfasts exclude standard-rated drinks.
| Document and destination | VAT | Gross | Net basis | VAT amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R001: rooms → 4000 | 13.5% | €1,135.00 | €1,000.00 | €135.00 |
| B001: breakfasts → 4010 | 9% | €218.00 | €200.00 | €18.00 |
| A001: alcoholic drinks → 4020 | 23% | €246.00 | €200.00 | €46.00 |
| C001: room credit against R001 → 4000 | 13.5% | −€113.50 | −€100.00 | −€13.50 |
| D001: room-only advance → 2100 | 13.5% | €227.00 | €200.00 | €27.00 |
Account numbers are illustrative: 4000 rooms, 4010 breakfast, 4020 bar, 2100 advance-payment liability. Net basis includes the €200 advance liability; it is not all earned revenue. Gross ÷ (1 + VAT rate) = net; gross − net = VAT.
An advance is not automatically VAT-free. Revenue states that VAT is chargeable on prepayments for a supply. D001 is a payment towards identified accommodation, not a security hold: this example credits €200 to a liability and €27 to VAT. Have your accountant approve the mapping and its later release without charging VAT twice.
Reconcile PMS, export and ledger
Export once with a unique batch reference. Import into the test company and retain the import result. Match R001–D001 and the four receipts plus one refund, or document their traceable aggregation. Compare these expected movements:
| Control | PMS | Export | Ledger movement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earned sales, net of credit | €1,300.00 | €1,300.00 | Credit: 4000 €900; 4010 €200; 4020 €200 |
| Advance, excluding VAT | €200.00 | €200.00 | Credit: 2100 €200 |
| Output VAT, including advance | €212.50 | €212.50 | Credit: VAT control €212.50 |
| Card receipts less refund | €1,712.50 | €1,712.50 | Debit: card clearing €1,712.50 |
Sales after the credit are €1,300 + €185.50 VAT = €1,485.50 gross. Adding the €227 advance gives €1,712.50. Payments independently reconcile as €1,826 receipts − €113.50 refund = €1,712.50. Total debits and credits are each €1,712.50; any intermediate guest-debtor balance should clear to zero.
Check VAT by rate too: 13.5% → €148.50, 9% → €18 and 23% → €46. Do not accept a correct grand total with incorrect category allocations.
Set clear pass and fail conditions
- Require €0.00 unexplained difference, no unmapped entries and the expected debit or credit sign. Test a second import: it must be blocked or demonstrably leave balances unchanged.
- For C001, retain both the credit note and refund reference. The credit note must reference the original invoice; the card refund alone does not document the sales adjustment.
- Check document dates, numbers, descriptions and tax splits against Revenue’s VAT invoice requirements. A summary export must remain traceable to its underlying documents.
- Repeat after correcting any failed mapping. Hotel and accountant should record the batch reference, mapping version, expected and actual totals, exceptions and approval date.
Keep source documents, export, import log and reconciliation together. Revenue requires records that allow transactions to be verified. Add separate cases for any live process absent here, such as packages, unpaid invoices or rounding differences.
Apply the test to RoomRaccoon
RoomRaccoon’s hotel property management system includes invoice generation, and its Integrations Hub has an Accounting & Finance category. Confirm your exact accounting connection and exported fields with the team. The directory does not establish that every Xero, Sage or other edition supports this workflow.
Bring your accountant’s mapping and this test day to a demo to discuss the export route for your property.
Book a demo for your propertyAccounting export test FAQs
Should the bank deposit equal daily sales?
Not necessarily. Card settlement timing, fees, advances and refunds can create differences. Reconcile card clearing to the provider’s settlement statement separately; do not change sales to force a match.
Can we test a manual file export?
Yes. Use the same controls, then document who exports, imports and checks each batch. A successful file import does not confirm an automated connector exists.
What if the bar also exports from its till?
Choose one accounting route for each sale. If both the point-of-sale (POS) system and PMS export it, reconcile their scope so the same drink is not posted twice.
Is one test day enough?
It is a baseline acceptance test. Add your actual exceptions and a period-end cut-off test before relying on the connection for routine reporting.
Sources and checks
Checked 13 November 2026 for the Republic of Ireland. Example figures and account codes are hypothetical; connector scope requires property-specific confirmation.
- Revenue: Guest and holiday accommodation; current VAT rates.
- Revenue: Payments in advance and deposits.
- Revenue: VAT invoice information; VAT credit note information; keeping VAT records.
- RoomRaccoon Ireland: Integrations & App Directory; Property Management Software.
