November 17, 2017 Integration Updates

SPG Hotels to Transition to the Marriott Owner & Franchise Billing (OFB) Process January 1

SPG Owners & Franchisees | Over the past year, Marriott’s Finance discipline has continued to make progress on the migration of former Starwood financial operations to Marriott’s processes, policies and systems, and the retirement of Starwood financial systems (SAP & HFM). As part of the transition, Starwood Managed by Marriott (MxM) and franchised hotels globally will transition to Marriott’s Owner & Franchise Billing (OFB) process. Like the current Starwood process, OFB facilitates the billing and collection of fees (management and franchise) and the reimbursable cost of programs and services in which the hotels participate.

While the concept of management and franchise fees and reimbursables is not changing, other changes related to the transition to OFB will include:

Standardized invoice frequency and timing, as well as multiple invoice formats for use in review and analysis
Summarization of all invoices associated with an owner
More streamlined process for billing disputes, questions and resolution (BDR process)
Withholding tax configured in OFB and included on invoices sent to properties
Less customization of invoice format
Franchise reported results submissions on 3rd calendar day of month, versus the 3rd business day of the month (email alerts will serve as reminder to when franchised hotels need to submit reported results)

The deployment plan for properties includes communications, training and support prior to and after the January 1, 2018 transition date for those property associates who are directly engaged in the billing process. Property engagement to prepare for the transition will begin the week of November 20, 2017 with a general overview provided via the Change Champion webinars. Additional information will follow, and key dates are outlined below:

December-January

Franchised hotels report December results using current process; January invoices for December results will be via SAP

Jan. 9

1^st Weekly Payroll invoice from OFB for U.S. MxM (Tetris) hotels

Feb. 3

Franchise Reported Results Due in OFB

Feb. 2-6

Franchise: 1^st Reimbursable, Franchise Fee, S&M Invoices from OFB
MxM: 1^st Reimbursable Invoice from OFB

Feb. 15-20

MxM: 1^st Managed Fee and S&M Invoices from OFB

We look forward engaging you further as we continue to integrate the SPG hotels into the Marriott finance model.

Should you have any questions regarding the transition, please contact the Project Tetris team. Note: hotels will learn more about these changes on the November 21 Change Champion webinars.