Otelier Interview Series: Centralizing Hospitality Accounting to Drive Profit

With a legacy that includes senior leadership roles in Finance at Remington Hospitality, Highgate Hotels, Hersha Hospitality, Interstate Hotels & Resorts, and Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, Joseph Klam has seen hotel accounting evolve from on-site terminals to AI-powered automation. Today, as a Partner at BalanceHub, Joseph helps hospitality organizations rethink their back-office operations – bringing a global team with modern technology to deliver outsourced accounting solutions that improve bottom lines.

In the interview, Joseph emphasizes the shift from decentralized, property-level accounting to centralized operations – enabled by technology and embraced by forward-thinking hotel companies. 

Joseph’s early adoption of Otelier DigiAudit for night audit compliance and Rec for automated income journaling proved that back-office automation could deliver tangible ROI. “I had 20 hotels in New York City and was spending $1.5 million a year on storage," he says. "When I moved that to the cloud, I was able to prove to my board that we could save money without increasing revenue.”