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Harborby Signalry
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Ops / GMThis event week

Job brief

Hold a banquet guarantee without ghost covers

How and who for the hotel job—verified when attested.

When sales writes a guarantee the kitchen cannot see and banquet pads the count, I want one BEO number so we stop cooking for guests who were never coming.

Usable on this screen

Scoped brief

Pick one number: the guarantee on the BEO. Sales may change it until the cutoff. Kitchen cooks that number, not a padded guess. Cover Line will sit the three desks. Morning Count can watch breakfast; it does not own banquet. An agent may draft the change note. Nobody silently adds ten covers.

Outcome
One guarantee the kitchen, banquet, and sales can point at. Ghost covers are a fail, not a buffer.
Catalog budget band
$6–14k process sprint + any BEO layer. A worksheet range, not a quote.
Catalog timeline
2–4 weeks to a shared count. Not a promise.

  1. Step 1

    Name who may change the guarantee

    Sales until cutoff. Banquet captain after. If both can write, you will cook twice.

  2. Step 2

    Put the cutoff on the BEO, not in email

    Hour and day. A text at 4 p.m. is how ghost covers happen.

  3. Step 3

    Score cooked vs guaranteed vs actual

    Three columns. If cooked always exceeds guaranteed, the pad is the product.

  4. Step 4

    Kill the second count

    Whiteboard, WhatsApp, a chef notebook — pick the BEO. The rest is archaeology.

Provider shortlist

  1. People

    Cover Line

    Banquet guarantee & BEO discipline

    Catalog score 8.4. A post-job shape, not a verification. Stable id cover-line.

  2. Software· demo

    Morning Count

    Breakfast and banquet count from occupied rooms

    Catalog score 7.9. A post-job shape, not a verification. Stable id morning-count.

  3. People

    Meridian Ops Partners

    Demand recovery & occupancy

    Catalog score 8.7. A post-job shape, not a verification. Stable id meridian-ops.

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The next hotel starts from what you leave

Harbor by Signalry stays hotels only. A description, a claim, and a reported result each leave a stable id behind. Nothing here is a price, a customer, or a verification.

  • Buyer

    Describe your job

    No account. Harbor by Signalry opens the closest catalog brief, when not to buy, and a shortlist. A weak sentence stays on the catalog.

    Open a brief

  • Supplier

    Join as a supplier

    Company, jobs served, regions, and a hotel reference. The packet is queued as unverified pending. The form cannot mark it verified.

    Start a claim

  • Hotel

    Record a result

    A metric, before and after, and the dates. It is shown as reported until a person checks the evidence. Verified Outcome is not insurance.

    Record a result

AdviceA guarantee nobody in the kitchen can find is a rumor.

Name a verified-outcome priceSit a 30-minute pilotHow ranking works

Situation

What is actually on fire

Sales wrote a guarantee the kitchen cannot see. Banquet padded ten. The BEO and the whiteboard disagree.

Approaches

Two or three paths — with the give

One BEO number

When. Food cost you can defend

You give. The safety pad the kitchen likes

Cook for the maybe

When. A quiet chef

You give. Waste and a guarantee that means nothing

Who to involve

  • · GM
  • · F&B / banquet captain
  • · Chef
  • · Catering sales

First 7 days

YAML-shaped: day / theme / tasks / owner / risk / exit. Advice until a case is verified.

  1. day: 1

    Pull the last six BEOs

    • · Pull the last six BEOs. Write guarantee vs cooked vs actual. The gap is the job.
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

  2. day: 2

    Name who may change the guarantee, and the

    • · Name who may change the guarantee, and the cutoff hour.
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

  3. day: 3

    Kill the second count (whiteboard / chat /

    • · Kill the second count (whiteboard / chat / chef notebook). One BEO.
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

  4. day: 4

    Walk one event from sales sign-off to plat

    • · Walk one event from sales sign-off to plating. Photograph the number, not the guests.
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

  5. day: 5

    Vendor questions: can they print the same

    • · Vendor questions: can they print the same number sales signed?
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

  6. day: 6

    Run one event with a written overage, not

    • · Run one event with a written overage, not a silent pad.
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

  7. day: 7

    Publish cooked ≤ guarantee + written overa

    • · Publish cooked ≤ guarantee + written overage as the fail line.
    owner:
    GM / ops lead
    risk:
    The exit is not written down
    exit:
    A note the next shift can open

Decision worksheet

Questions, red flags, bands

Take this to a vendor call. Budget bands are Advice — a Harbor shape, not a quote.

Ask the vendor

  1. 1. Who types the status / number — a person, or your product?
  2. 2. What would have happened anyway in 90 days without you?
  3. 3. Show a property of this size and stack. Demo-labeled categories do not count as proof.
  4. 4. What can your agent never do (folio post, mark clean, change a rate)?
  5. 5. What is the kill-switch if guest comments move?

Red flags

  • · A guarantee that lives only in the sales CRM.
  • · Kitchen adding ten 'just in case' after cutoff.
  • · A banquet system that cannot print the same number sales signed.

When not to buy. Do not buy a banquet CRM if sales and kitchen still keep two spreadsheets. That is a number-owner job first.

Do it in-house

Time and a named owner. No vendor. Use the 7-day plan first.

$6–14k process sprint + any BEO layer

Typical Harbor band for this job — advice, not a quote.

Full program

People + system + 90-day proof. Only if the 7-day plan already failed.

Vendor checklist

Score the call. Keep it on this browser.

Weighted questions — yes/no, scale, or text. Must-pass ids persist on this browser. Pass threshold 70. A no on a must-pass is a walk-away — not a maybe.

Brand
Stack shape — not a partnership

  1. property context · weight 2 · must pass

    Can they name your key count and whether you are independent, soft-brand, or major — without a discovery theater?

  2. property context · weight 2 · must pass

    Do they treat your PMS as a shape (Opera-class / Mews-class / Cloudbeds-class) — not a fake partnership slide?

  3. control · weight 3 · must pass

    Who types the status / number — a person, or your product?

  4. vendor · weight 2

    What would have happened anyway in 90 days without you?

  5. vendor · weight 2

    Show a property of this size and stack. Demo-labeled categories do not count as proof.

  6. vendor · weight 2

    What can your agent never do (folio post, mark clean, change a rate)?

  7. vendor · weight 2

    What is the kill-switch if guest comments move?

Does not clear

0 / 100

must_pass: banquet-guarantee-without-ghost-covers-ctx-rooms, banquet-guarantee-without-ghost-covers-ctx-stack, banquet-guarantee-without-ghost-covers-q1

A must-pass failed. Walk away.

How

The brief

Pick one number: the guarantee on the BEO. Sales may change it until the cutoff. Kitchen cooks that number, not a padded guess. Cover Line will sit the three desks. Morning Count can watch breakfast; it does not own banquet. An agent may draft the change note. Nobody silently adds ten covers.

  1. Step 1

    Name who may change the guarantee

    Sales until cutoff. Banquet captain after. If both can write, you will cook twice.

  2. Step 2

    Put the cutoff on the BEO, not in email

    Hour and day. A text at 4 p.m. is how ghost covers happen.

  3. Step 3

    Score cooked vs guaranteed vs actual

    Three columns. If cooked always exceeds guaranteed, the pad is the product.

  4. Step 4

    Kill the second count

    Whiteboard, WhatsApp, a chef notebook — pick the BEO. The rest is archaeology.

Tradeoffs

  1. One BEO number

    You get. Food cost you can defend

    You give. The safety pad the kitchen likes

  2. Cook for the maybe

    You get. A quiet chef

    You give. Waste and a guarantee that means nothing

Pitfalls

  • · A guarantee that lives only in the sales CRM.
  • · Kitchen adding ten 'just in case' after cutoff.
  • · A banquet system that cannot print the same number sales signed.

Success criteria

  • · One guarantee visible to sales, banquet, and kitchen.
  • · Cooked ≤ guarantee + written overage.
  • · Cutoff hour printed on the BEO.

Who

Ranked for this job

Rank is post-job score, then listed order. Not for sale. Software marked demo is an archetype.

Agencies & contractors

Systems

AI agents

None ranked in AI agents yet. Harbor will not invent a provider.

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Compare

When to pick whom

People do the work beside the desk. Software is a system — demo-labeled when it is a category shape. Agents draft; they do not post money or mark a room clean.

ProviderKindScoreFeePick whenWalk away when
Cover LinePeople
8.4
$6–14k process sprintGMs whose banquet food cost cannot survive an owner question.Limited-service houses with no banquet book.
Meridian Ops PartnersPeople
8.7
$18–32k sprint, or $4.5k/week embedGMs who need a time-boxed occupancy recovery with a grown-up rate posture.Full-service branded hotels looking for a new management company.
Morning CountSoftware· demo
7.9
$180–$340 / monthHouses whose breakfast pad is always +20 and nobody can say why.Hotels whose brand already owns F&B forecasting.

Open graph

Hotels on this job

This job is not pinned to a house yet. Open the graph to place it on a building, or the investment desk if the work is a sale file. Harbor will not invent a house.

Open hotelsBuy / sell desk

Evidence

Peer case studies

Ops / GM
8.4

The kitchen cooked the BEO, not the pad

Cedar Hall · 186 keys · Asheville, NC

Claim.
One banquet guarantee the kitchen cooked.
Evidence.
BEO vs plated vs actual for six consecutive events.
Caveat.
A wedding weekend still needs a written overage. The pad is named, not silent.

Read the case

Verified

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