Day to Day Control of your B & B

When you decide to start any business there are tasks that have to be performed on a regular basis.

A bed and breakfast is no different except that many tasks definitely need to be carried out every day.

As you start to come to grips with what is needed it might be an idea to start a list of daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly and yearly tasks. It will soon become second nature but writing it down always helps the learning curve.

You can go one further and make a list of jobs within each task. For example you could detail the daily chore of vacuuming down into the order it is best done: start with the bedrooms, work your way downstairs and finish in dining room. Sounds simple but imagine how much easier it will be to show someone a list like this rather than have to show them a few times before they understand.

Cleaning and preparing rooms is another example. It goes without saying that you should clean rooms daily, but do you need to change towels or sheets daily as well? If you have guests staying for two weeks, they'll probably not want to have the same towels and sheets, but it's probably not sensible, or expected, to change them every day.

Room fittings need to work so make sure that wardrobe doors, light fittings and televisions for example are all satisfactory. Of course you may not need to do that every day so it could become a weekly task.

Remember, you are running a business that relies on its reputation.

Guests will recommend a well managed business so make sure you spend sufficient time looking after the basics.