How Mitos made its hotels easier to run, and easier to understand

Mitos was not missing a system. It had hotel software, spreadsheets and a team that kept the owner updated on WhatsApp. What it lacked was the answer to simple questions without someone rebuilding the figures first. Which dishes and drinks were selling? What should the hotel stock more of, and stop buying? What did the month really cost?

The owner rebuilt reports in Excel and checked them by hand. One calculation error in a rebuilt report only came to light the following month. Away from the hotel, he relied on WhatsApp updates, and to look at the old system himself he had to connect to an office computer through AnyDesk.

Payments needed the same care. Transfers had to be confirmed against the bank, sometimes after the guest had already been let in. Corporate invoices were gathered, typed and checked stay by stay. A cost paid away from the computer had to be remembered and typed in later, with the receipt kept somewhere else.

None of this was a crisis. It was the steady work between recording the hotel’s activity and understanding it, and it fell on the owner.

Janus put the hotel’s daily records in one place, so the owner reads the business instead of rebuilding it.

Payments

Every payment staff record is kept apart from money confirmed as received, and names who was on shift. Transfers into the hotel’s Paystack account confirm themselves; the rest wait in view until someone confirms them.

Guest bills

Each guest has a bill, so the shift report shows who stayed, what they bought, what they paid and whether anything is still owed.

Expenses

A cost is recorded from a phone the moment it’s paid, with the receipt attached, so the accounts include it and the auditor’s evidence is already filed.

Company bills

Corporate bills are built from the guests’ bills and the stored company details, instead of from dockets and Excel.

Room access

The guest register and key records make it easier to compare keys issued with actual stays and, where needed, CCTV footage.

Reports

Sales by item show what sells and what to restock. From the shift report to the monthly accounts, the figures come from the day’s records.

A company client wrote to say one of its bills looked duplicated. Before Janus, answering meant going to the office and, by the owner’s estimate, at least a day.

This time he opened Janus from home, found the bill and its supporting documents, saw that the company had been sent the wrong attachment, and sent the right one within minutes. A staff update answers the first question. Direct access lets the owner answer the next one himself.

Asked what mattered most, the owner didn’t name a feature. He named three things: visibility, easier data entry, and reporting.

Easier oversight didn’t make him step back. He checks Janus often now, because the answer is a tap away. When the benefit was put to him as less admin, he corrected it.

Janus fits an owner or manager who already has a system of some kind, still rebuilds the figures that matter, and wants to answer questions about sales, payments, costs and company bills from a phone.