Lausanne, Switzerland’s fourth largest city, sits on a picturesque hillside surrounded by vineyards overlooking Lake Geneva. Lausanne Palace & Spa opened its doors nearly a century ago in 1915 during the Belle Epoque; today the luxury hotel is a fixture of the townscape. The five-star inn has succeeded in blending tradition with modernity: In the last 30 years alone, some 60 million Swiss francs have been invested to restore and modernize the historic lodge. Lausanne Palace & Spa, where the presidents of the Olympic Committee stay every year, has been a place to both meet and relax since its inception.

It takes good leadership and inventory management to run a hotel as large as this. "We operate four restaurants, three bars, and a large wellness and spa area, and have 148 rooms and suites", notes Jean-Jacques Gauer, Directeur général of Lausanne Palace & Spa. "To keep on top of things, and particularly to get an accurate assessment for insurance coverage, last year we carried out a full and precise inventory of all objects in the hotel." VotreInventaire, the service provider tasked by the hotel to do this, used FileMaker-based Inventory Pro software.

Seen and captured directly on site using FileMaker Go and iPad

TV sets, phones, pictures, furniture, laundry, cutlery, dishes, spa fixtures— one could fill pages enumerating all the useful and beautiful things that turn a five-star hotel into what it should be, a comfy sanctuary for travelers and guests. Inventorying all the assets that constitute the value of such a house is a huge database-filling project. Depending how one goes about itemizing so many objects, an inventory can turn out to be a very complicated logistical effort. This, however, was not the case at Lausanne Palace & Spa. "FileMaker Go arrived just when we needed it", recalls Patrick Mariaux, Managing Director of Blu Real SA, the maker of Inventory Pro software and member of the FileMaker Business Alliance. "It’s in the nature of such things that the items to be inventoried are dispersed across many rooms or buildings. From one day to the next, the iPad and FileMaker Go afforded us unprecedented possibilities: Now the inventory could be captured in the database software right there on site using the iPad. Unnecessary intermediate steps were eliminated with one fell stroke," adds Mr. Mariaux. This enabled Lausanne Palace & Spa to be inventoried within the shortest time. Now every object could immediately and accurately be localized. What’s more, all the key information such as purchase price, current value, amortization status, warranty expiration date, insurance, and photographs may be retrieved any time at the touch of a button. The software offers various evaluation and reporting options enabling staff to keep track of the hotel’s inventory.