A Lawrenceville firm’s software that provides nearly 7,000 hotels across the U.S. and abroad with accounting and management services reportedly has been down for nine days, leaving hotels struggling to do things such as pay employees or service providers.
The shutdown of M3′s software is not affecting reservations or guest services, according to a hotelier who uses the system and an industry insider.
But hotel managers are scrambling to patch together systems for tasks such as tracking employee time or writing checks for services such as linen, said both people, speaking on condition of anonymity, citing sensitivity over the matter.
M3 did not respond immediately Thursday to emails or calls from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The company has posted some vaguely worded statements on its website in recent days, including one on Wednesday that it had begun testing accounting software, but “There are steps we must complete before we can publish and restore access to users.”
Another M3 post to clients raised the possibility that its software had been hacked.
“When was the unauthorized access detected? The investigation is ongoing. Upon detection we shut down all connections to begin the investigation. Updates will continue on a regular basis as we have them as to the details of the incident,” it said in a Monday post to clients.
A frustration for M3 clients has been a lack of clear communication of what happened or what clients should do, said the affected hotelier who spoke with the AJC.
M3 works with hotel management firms that represent multiple brands, according to its website.
There are more than 56,000 hotels in the U.S., according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
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