TakeoverTakeover

When a hotel changes owners, a long list has to move with it: the booking system and its data, the brand agreement, vendor contracts, keys, logins, staff and money held for future guests. Most of it lives in emails, binders and the seller’s memory.

Miss one item and the cost shows up later: a lost reservation, a double-booked room, a deposit that stays with the seller. Meanwhile the new owner still has to run the front desk and schedule staff from day one.

I broke a takeover into four phases: before handover day, handover day, system cutover and the first week. Under them sit 124 checklist items across 12 areas, each with a plain-English reason it matters and a flag when it is critical or involves money.

I then built the tools a new owner needs in those weeks: a front desk view of arrivals, departures and room status, a booking-system cutover runbook, a vendors and accounts register, documents, analytics, and a weekly schedule with timecards.

Staff clock in with Punch In, a phone app that signs them in by phone number. Their punches feed the same timecards the manager reviews.

Takeover is live at gettakeover.vercel.app, with accounts and live cloud sync so the whole team works from one list. Staff use Punch In to clock in, take meal breaks, clock out and see their schedule.

A new owner gets one place that shows what is done, what is critical and what is still open, from before handover day through the first week.