Departmental expenses are costs directly attributable to specific hotel departments, such as
Rooms, F&B, or Spa, and form the basis of departmental profitability analysis under USALI.
Why it matters:
Accurate allocation of departmental expenses is essential to understand which parts of the hotel
generate profit and which consume resources.
Practical use:
Hotels allocate cleaning supplies to Housekeeping and service staff wages to F&B instead of
reporting them as undistributed costs.
Real-life examples:
If laundry costs are reported as Undistributed instead of Rooms, the Rooms department appears
more profitable than it actually is, masking efficiency problems.
