The Post-Season Dock Review: What to Pull Before You Close the Books

A post-season dock review pulls six sets of records before the year-end close: every visit matched to a charge, open balances, power billed against power supplied, occupancy and turn-aways by season band, berth holder renewals, and the maintenance and incident log. Together they show what the dock earned and what to change.

Done in the weeks after the last visiting yacht leaves, the review turns a busy summer into decisions about rates, staffing and investment for the next one. Left until the new year, it becomes an exercise in reconstructing what nobody wrote down.

Key Takeaways

• Run the review before the year-end close, while corrections are still corrections and seasonal staff are still around to explain them.

• Match every recorded visit to a charge, and every charge to a payment or an open balance.

• Reconcile power billed against power supplied to the marine circuits.

• Review occupancy, revenue per metre and turn-aways by season band to set next year’s rates.

• Settle berth holder renewals and deposits before winter, not in spring.

• Turn each finding into a named decision with an owner and a date.

The review belongs before the year-end close

Timing decides how useful the review is. Before the year-end close, a missing charge can still be raised and an unpaid account can still be chased as a current debt. Afterwards, the same discovery becomes an adjustment that needs explaining, or a write-off nobody approved.

People matter as much as the ledger. Seasonal dock staff carry knowledge that never reached a system: the yacht that moved berths mid-stay, the agent who promised to pay in October, the pedestal that stopped reporting in August. Two weeks after the season ends, much of that can still be recovered with a conversation. By the new year much of it is forgotten.

What should a post-season dock review include?

Six records cover the season. Pull them in this order, because each one depends on the one before.

1. Visits and charges. Every recorded visit, with its vessel, berth and dates, matched to the charges raised against it.

2. Open balances. Every charge not yet settled, by guest, agent and berth holder.

3. Power. Kilowatt hours billed against kilowatt hours supplied to the marine circuits, month by month.

4. Occupancy and turn-aways. Metre-nights sold, revenue per metre and boats refused, by season band.

5. Berth holder renewals. Contracts ending, renewals offered, deposits taken.

6. Maintenance and incidents. Damage, repairs, equipment faults and guest complaints logged at the dock.

Match every visit to a charge

Start by listing every visit the dock recorded and checking that each has a charge, even if that charge was waived. A visit with no charge is either a deliberate hospitality decision, which should be recorded as such, or revenue that was never raised. Day berths and tender landings are where gaps tend to appear, because they turn over quickly and are often agreed by radio.

Clear open balances while they are still current

Charter companies, yacht agents and seasonal berth holders on account are a common source of open balances at the end of a season. Send statements built from the visits, not from memory, and chase them before the period closes. Where some dock charges went to guests’ room bills, check that each one arrived; the routes and their weak points are compared in the guide to dock charges and the guest folio.

Reconcile power billed against power supplied

Compare the kilowatt hours billed to guests with the consumption recorded on the property’s supply to the marine circuits. A gap you can explain, such as dock lighting or the property’s own boats, is fine. A gap you cannot explain points to unmetered pedestals, missed readings or vessels connected outside a recorded stay, and it is the first thing to fix before next season. The method is set out in the guide to metering and billing shore power.

Read occupancy, revenue per metre and turn-aways by season band

Occupancy measured in metre-nights shows how much of the dock was sold. Revenue per metre, which divides total marine revenue (berth, day berth, shore power and dock services) by the metres of berth available in the period, shows how well it was sold. The turn-away log shows demand the dock could not meet. Read the three together for each season band: high occupancy with a long turn-away list in peak weeks suggests the rate was too low, while thin shoulder weeks suggest the band boundaries need moving.

Settle berth holder renewals before winter

Owners who kept a boat at the property for the season decide about next year in the autumn. Offer renewals with next season’s terms while the summer is fresh, take deposits where your contracts allow, and record who has not replied. A berth holder who leaves in spring leaves a gap that is hard to fill once the season’s bookings are already set.

Log maintenance and incidents while they can still be explained

Collect every repair, equipment fault, damage report and guest complaint from the season into one list with dates and berths. Some become winter maintenance work, some become insurance or supplier conversations, and some become changes to how the dock operates. The point is to decide which, while the people involved are still available.

Five questions the review should answer for the GM

The records are inputs. What the GM needs is answers, and five cover the main decisions a property makes about its dock over the winter.

• What did the dock earn, gross and net of waived berths and hospitality?

• How much revenue was earned but not collected, and why?

• Which weeks turned boats away, and what did that demand cost us?

• Did guests arriving by water get the standard the rest of the property delivers?

• Which one change would most improve next season: rates, staffing, metering or systems?

The fourth question is easy to skip, and it is the one closest to the brand. Guest feedback, complaints logged at the dock and the concierge’s notes on arrivals by water are part of the review, alongside the numbers.

Turn every finding into a decision with an owner and a date

A review that ends in a report changes nothing. Each finding should become a decision with a named owner and a date before the pre-season work begins: a new rate for peak weeks, metering for the pedestals that leaked power, a change to how tender visits are recorded, a renewal list with follow-up dates. Those decisions then feed straight into the guide to pre-season readiness at the dock, and into the case for what the dock returns, set out in the guide to resort marina ROI.

Winter is the window to change how the dock is recorded

If pulling these six records took weeks of rebuilding from spreadsheets, notebooks and card terminal exports, the review has already produced an important result. The off-season is the time to change systems, because nothing is in flight; the guide to changing dock systems mid-season explains why historical data can wait until winter while live bookings cannot.

In Harba, the operating system for the dock, each visit is recorded against the berth, the vessel and the dates, each charge is tied to the visit, and seasonal berth holders run on recurring contracts, alongside the PMS rather than inside it. That is the record the next review would be pulled from. How it sits next to the room side is explained on the page about marine operations alongside your PMS.

If the review points to a new way of recording the dock, the sequence for doing it before spring is set out in the guide to moving your resort’s marine operations off Excel in 90 days.

To see what your dock’s records would show at season end, book a demo and bring your berth list, last season’s visits and your open balances.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. When should a resort run its post-season dock review?

In the two to four weeks after the last visiting boats leave, and before the year-end close. That keeps missing charges and unpaid accounts current, and keeps seasonal staff available to explain what happened. The decisions from the review then feed pre-season readiness for the next season.

2. Who should take part in an end-of-season dock review?

Whoever ran the dock day to day, the person accountable for it (often the Director of Operations), someone from finance, and the concierge or front office lead who handled arrivals by water. F&B is worth including where tenders brought restaurant covers, since waived berths are part of that story. The records each of them needs are described in the guide to what a berth-holder and guest record should hold.

3. How do you find dock revenue that was never charged?

Match every recorded visit to a charge, and compare power billed with power supplied. Visits with no charge and unexplained power gaps are the two places unbilled revenue shows up. If visits themselves were not recorded, card terminal exports, tender logs and concierge notes can help reconstruct them, which is a strong argument for recording them properly next season, as set out in mooring revenue that survives an audit.

4. What should a resort do with unpaid dock charges at the end of the season?

Send statements built from the recorded visits to every account holder, chase them before the period closes, and decide on any write-off deliberately rather than by default. Charges meant for guests’ room bills should be checked one by one; the guide to dock charges and the guest folio explains where they tend to go missing.

5. Which post-season numbers matter most for next year’s rates?

Occupancy by metre-night, revenue per metre (total marine revenue from berths, day berths, shore power and dock services, divided by the metres of berth available in the period) and the turn-away log, read by season band. Together they show whether each band was priced too high, too low or set on the wrong dates. The same figures form the baseline for next year’s budget and for the return the dock delivers.

6. Is the end of the season a good time to change dock software?

Yes, because nothing is in flight: no live bookings, no running billing cycles and no meter baselines mid-season. Moving the core records over the winter and adding reporting once the system is trusted is a sensible order, as explained in the guide to changing dock systems mid-season.