Most night auditors are high school graduates, but college is seldom required.
Front desk auditors are also called night auditors or front desk clerks. In addition to registering new guests and checking out departing guests, night auditors handle certain bookkeeping chores. Exact duties depend on the motel or hotel, but typically include closing out the credit card machine so it is ready for a new day's business, balancing the cash registers at the front desk and restaurant, and accepting reservations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the occupation will grow an estimated 14 percent by 2018, a rate that is faster than average.
National Wage Estimates
The BLS reported that, as of May 2010, front desk clerks and auditors earned an average of $21,430 annually. Those in the lowest-paid 10th percentile earned $16,090 or less, and those in the best-paid 10th percentile earned $29,440 or more per year.
Best-Paying States
Front desk auditors earned the highest annual average wage of $34,310 in Hawaii, according to the May 2010 data released by the bureau. In the District of Columbia, the average salary was $30,380, and it was $27,410 in New York, slightly more than the $27,300 mean salary reported for the occupation in Nevada. Front desk clerks and auditors earned a mean annual salary of $26,570 in Massachusetts.
Worst-Paying States
The bureau's May 2010 salary data showed that front desk auditors earned the lowest average salary in the state of Arkansas, where their average annual salary was $17,750. In Indiana, they averaged $17,990, and they averaged $18,160 in Alabama. Front desk auditors fared slightly better in Idaho where the average annual salary was $18,190, and in West Virginia, where they earned an average of $18,320.
Best-Paying Metropolitan Areas
Average salaries for front desk clerks were highest in Honolulu, Hawaii, where they earned $36,110 per year, according to the bureau. In the greater San Francisco-Redwood City-San Mateo area of California, the mean annual salary was $32,450, and it was $31,230 in the New York City area that included White Plains, New York, and Wayne, New Jersey. Salaries in the greater Las Vegas, Nevada, area averaged $29,810, and front desk auditors averaged $38,830 annually in the Boston-Quincy-Cambridge district of Massachusetts.
Best-Paying Nonmetropolitan Areas
The bureau reports that the average annual wage was $32,620 in the nonmetropolitan areas of the islands of Hawaii, Kauai and Maui. The rural areas of Massachusetts' Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Island provided an average salary of $28,330. In the nonmetropolitan district of North Central Colorado, front desk auditors averaged $27,520 per year, and they averaged $26,010 in Southwest Massachusetts. In the Railbelt area of Southwest Alaska, the mean annual wage was $25,850.
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