“HIA is driven to build the best solution for our hospitality clients. We want to be the system that solves pain points, that allows you to do more with your team, to take them out of manual data entry and put them on a higher tier of operations. We are never going to be done developing, it’s not going to happen, it is in our DNA. We are going to keep building.”
– Chip Fritsch, Chief Operating Officer, HIA
The HIA software development team had another productive year in 2025, rolling out system enhancements and new features. They built new integrations, enhanced existing integrations, designed new capabilities to enhance the user experience or streamline it, and further reinforced backend systems and security. Below are some of the highlights of customer facing improvements made in the last 12 months, though this is certainly not an exhaustive list.
We would like to thank our customers for their great product feedback and for inspiring many of the enhancements listed below. HIA is driven to continuously innovate and we appreciate your partnership as we work to keep you, our customers, at the forefront of hospitality technology.
NEW PLATFORM ENHANCEMENTS
Single Sign-On Enabled for More Customers
More customers are choosing to use HIA’s single-sign-on (SSO) capability for increased security oversight and login ease. HIA is increasingly enabling this feature for customers upon request and supports Microsoft Entra ID as well as other Open ID systems in the market.
GL Legacy Import Tool Enhanced – Additional Vendors Added
The GL Legacy page enables users to import prior years’ financial history as they either onboard to HIA or grow their portfolios with new managed properties. The tool already supports imports from an extensive list of accounting software providers and has now been expanded to include NetSuite and Sage 50. (Other Sage versions already supported.) For more on HIA’s custom-built migration tools, read this blog on Migrating Historical Data.
New Dynamic Naming Developed – for File Exports
When exporting files from HIA for use in another software via FTP, the exported file has previously automatically received a standard name such as “Balance.xml.” This has meant that users have had to manually rename the file to identify it later. To address this issue, HIA has built a new Dynamic Naming capability so users can set up their own dynamic naming conventions for FTP exports with a prefix, middle, and suffix, drawing in dynamic information such as the date and export type. This new set-it-and-forget-it rule ensures your exports get the right individualized name every time automatically.
Enhancements to Debit Adjustments
This update allows the use of credit terms to be enabled for debit adjustments, and users can create debit adjustments with cash discounts. Previously it was not possible for users to specify the due date in debit adjustments that were created in the system.
New 1099 Forms for Digital Filing with Avalara
New 1099 forms were launched in January 2025 to facilitate a new 1099 digital tax filing option with partner Avalara.
NEW INTEGRATIONS
HotelKey PMS – Special Integration for IHG transition
While HIA has had a HotelKey integration for some time, this new version specifically supports IHG users as IHG Hotels & Resorts transitions from Oracle’s Opera PMS to HotelKey for all their limited-service brands in the US and Canada. HIA is happy to have this timely integration in place to support this major initiative and our customers.
UKG
UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) is a leading provider of cloud-based human capital management (HCM) and payroll solutions. Headquartered in the US, UKG serves over 80,000 customers across 150 countries. This new HIA integration with UKG pulls in payroll data for both accounting and labor business intelligence purposes.
WebRezPro
WebRezPro is an award-winning hospitality property management system (PMS) trusted every day by more than 2,000 properties worldwide. The cloud PMS software helps users simplify overnight lodging operations and maximize direct bookings. This new HIA integration with WebRezPro expands our already extensive list of PMS providers.
ENHANCED INTEGRATIONS
HotelKey Integration – New market segmentation data
The existing integration with HotelKey PMS has been enhanced to now pull in market segmentation data. New fields being imported include Statistics by Market Segment and Revenue Per Market Segment. This data is now visible to users throughout the daily reports.
Micros Symphony Integration Enhanced
The development team worked with the existing Micros Symphony POS integration to make it richer with additional data points.
Clock PMS Integration Enhanced
This integration configuration was further built out to make it more flexible and easily accessible for more customers.
Galaxy PMS Integration Enhanced
This integration was upgraded to simplify the process for customers who need to reuse the same source email account across multiple properties, such as when the email submission is controlled by the brand PMS. The system can now uniquely identify the destination property whose data will be populated even while using the reused email account. Existing properties using Galaxy PMS were updated to use this new feature.
NEW CUSTOM INTEGRATION FEATURES
New Payroll Integrations Feature – Auto-detection of Inactive Employees
A new feature was built for HIA’s payroll integrations to improve the management of inactive employees in the system. The new capability automatically cross-checks the employee information available in the system against the newest results from the payroll API integration to determine whether that employee is currently active or not. Employees without recent activity will then be automatically flagged by the system and identified as “inactive” for easier management.
New BankConnect Enhancement – Simplified Manual Imports
While HIA automates the importing of bank transactions in the majority of all cases, via partnerships with the vast Plaid and MX banking networks (13,000+ institutions and growing), for those banks that need manual imports, HIA has further streamlined the process. In this enhancement, users can pre-set a default charset value in the system, to create a direct upload without any manual adjustment required. This new default charset capability can be found under preferences in the “Import Bank Transactions Settings.”
ENHANCED PLATFORM MESSAGING
New Precautionary Pop-Up to Prevent Accidental PMS Mapping Deletion
The PMS Mapping page has an option to delete mapping that some users had been selecting accidentally and then needing help to restore. We have now added a new cautionary pop-up message plus action step of a required checkbox, so users can reconsider if deleting a PMS Mapping is really needed. If so, users can confirm with the checkbox and proceed with deletion.
Improved Daily Report Messaging
For Daily Report entry and setup status to improve ease of use.
Enhanced Mobile App Visuals
The new update includes the option to configure visual thumbnails for the records in the list view of a mobile app screen, for improved ease of use.
Enhanced Print Formatting
This enhancement to the Daily Report and Daily Entry With Budget Report make them look cleaner and more streamlined when printing.
New HIA Logo Deployed
All instances now show HIA’s rebranded logo, updating it from the prior corporate Hotel Investor Apps, Inc. logo.
ENHANCED BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
New Flex & Flow Metrics
A new Flex & Flow metrics table has been added to the business intelligence dashboard, enabling users to better evaluate their profit stories. Flow through metrics help you gauge how much profit hotels are able to hold on to. Flex metrics help to track how well your hotels are able flex expenses and save costs.
BI Sync Time Reduced
HIA’s BI system, like all BI platforms, is refreshed in a scheduled cycle due to the complex processing required. This ensures the BI dashboards are populated with the latest information while also allowing time for the data to be standardized and transformed from multiple sources. HIA is continually working to reduce the BI sync time and has already reduced it by 20% from late 2024 into 2025, with goals to again further reduce the sync time requirements in 2026.
BACKEND IMPROVEMENTS AND SECURITY
A number of seamless enhancements were made behind the scenes to make sure the HIA system operates with the least friction possible and delivers the highest level of security for customers.
Enhanced User Security Roles
The mid-year upgrade provided enhanced security with more granular access rights. A new set of user-roles now dictate the access rights for pages within the following modules: Daily Report, Bank Connect, Business Intelligence, and Payroll.
Enhanced Security For Bank Connect
HIA upgraded security protocols for the MX financial data platform that connects Bank Connect to live banking services from 13,000+ financial institutions. This MX platform upgrade provides an additional layer of protection for users and ensures compliance with the latest PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requirements.
Improved Backend Security
The development team deployed enhanced firewall security and database protections.
Enhanced PMS Excel File Conversion
Some PMS systems export data in older versions of Excel, and where previously HIA had a server application handle the conversion of the file types into an updated version, this process had inefficiencies, so has been redesigned. Now HIA enhanced this process to use a REST service and HTTPS protocol, ensuring a faster and more reliable PMS file transfer for customers and improving processing time.
LOOKING AHEAD
HIA’s award-winning development team is hard at work planning future updates to its hospitality ERP & Accounting platform. The road map for 2026 includes new and enhanced integrations, enhanced BI reporting, and an updated user interface to make using HIA an even more visual and user-friendly experience. Features of the new user interface will include a more modern look and feel, improved responsiveness to different screen sizes, and more streamlined page navigation.
Stay tuned and we will share more on these new capabilities in the coming months. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for how we can continue to improve the HIA product or streamline your user experience, please email us at support@hiasoftware.com. We appreciate your user input and are excited to take the platform to even higher heights in 2026.
Director of Marketing at HIA
Elisa Fritsch, Director of Marketing at Hotel Investor Apps (HIA), contributes 15+ years of sales and marketing experience from a wide range of corporate to start-up environments. At HIA, Elisa focuses on marketing strategy, content, and leveraging her hospitality industry knowledge to drive growth.
