What a hospitality technology audit actually covers

A proper venue tech audit covers your systems, the joins between them, who owns what, and what to fix first, in plain English.

Nick Carter, hospitality technology consultant. Twenty years inside venues, writing the software they run on.

A hospitality technology audit answers four questions: what systems you have, how money and data move between them, who really controls the accounts and credentials, and what to fix first for the biggest return. It ends with a plain English report an owner can act on, not a technical document written for a developer. Here's what a real one covers, based on how I run mine.

Day one: the platform

The systems themselves. The till and what state it's in, the data model behind it, hosting and deployment, backups that have been tested rather than assumed, and what happens when something breaks at ten on a Saturday. This is also where version control and access get checked: it's surprisingly common to find the business doesn't hold its own keys.

Day two: the commercial layer

How the numbers hold up under scrutiny. Where reconciliation happens and who does it, how bonus and tip calculations would look to an outside eye, which third parties the operation quietly depends on, and where ownership sits across code, domains, hosting and accounts. If you ever plan to raise money or sell, this is the section an investor's due diligence will go through line by line, so it pays to read it before they do.

What you get at the end

Who this is for

What it costs and what to expect

An audit at this scope is short by design: days, not weeks, agreed as a fixed fee up front so there's no meter running. Expect to provide read-only access, an hour or two with whoever built things, and honest answers. Expect back a report you can hand to a business partner, a bank or an investor without translation. Nothing beyond the audit is ever committed until you've read it; sometimes the report's conclusion is that you're in better shape than you feared, and that's a good outcome, not a wasted fee.

How to start

A free 30 minute call to hear what's bothering you, via the contact page. If an audit isn't the right tool for your situation, I'll say so on the call and point you somewhere better.

Wrestling with a decision like this one?

A free 30 minute call with someone who has sat on both sides of it.

Book a free callHow the review works

Back to Articles