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I used to email Michele, in the beginning and then she brought the forum up. I then decided that it was best to put it on the forum, so that everyone (owners, etc.) can see what is being discussed and they can also chime in and say what they would like to see, giving you a better idea of what owners are looking for.
Others are satified and others seem to be asking for a lot (Me). Hope you don't mind the comments. I know what I have problems with currently, sending everything manually, and what I would like to see to make my job (and other owners) easier.
Claudia
You're the lone voice of the pack, Claudia! Most users have had very few questions. They either understand the features right off, or they don't and go away quickly because of our limited documentation. The ones that do have questions tend to ask by email or contact form. But hey, the squeaky wheel gets the grease! Those that ask get more attention then those that don't. ~Sam
Getting phone numbers is on the dev roadmap as is requiring them to provide the guest list (name, age of each guest). That will be a part of that contact page in the near future.
I know what you mean about the responsible person - making that clear. Keep in mind that you can always adjust your renter agreement to make that clear, which they then have to sign on the following page. So they'll be agreeing to it one or another. I'm not sure how it would best to make the contact name page clearer, but we'll think about the implications of that.
-Michelle
If I could make a suggestion and a comment....
Under "The quote acceptance process now asks for the point of contact":
Can you add CELLPHONE Number, to be filled out?
Also, the Main Person Responsible For Your Group concerns me. ME PERSONALLY, I would like wording to include that THAT said person is staying at the house. In other words, not a Parent being responsible (via damages) but not being at the house with 18 year olds celebrating their PROM night. You know what I mean?
I have had several phone calls about the above senerio and I don't want any part of it! The person RESPONISBLE is a person that is 25 years old and above and is STAYING at the house, during the enter checkin throught checkout dates.
I don't know if there can be an option to select this under properties, if others don't mind it.
Where is everyone in their comments? I seem to be the only one, since I joined. Would love to hear from others and what they feel about all these comments being made. Do they agree with me? Don't agree?
Thanks,
Claudia
Thursday morning, we released an update that was based entirely on user feedback. Here are the highlights...
Inquiries can now be manually marked as answered or unanswered
Sometimes, you get an inquiry from the same person twice because they're considering different booking scenarios. You've already responded to them offline but don't want the second inquiry showing as "Unanswered" on the grid and you don't want to delete it. Now you can set the answered status manually.
Diners Club and JCB are now accepted card types
International travelers, particularly from Asia, tend to use JCB and Diners Club more often than American and European travelers. Some owners have merchant accounts that already accept Diners Club and JCB but, previously, the system didn't include that option. Now it does. If you have a credit card payment method, you can configure it in the system to accept Diners Club and JCB. Remember, your merchant account provider has to actually support Diners Club and JCB in order to turn those settings on in OwnerRez. If you're not sure, call your provider.
You can now specify a fixed amount for the first payment
The guest's first payment has always been based on a percentage (1-100%) of the total charges. Now, you can require a fixed amount instead. If the fixed amount is greater than the total charges, the guest is required to pay the entire booking up front.
We added 'Nights', 'Adults', 'Children' and 'Pets' columns to the grids
It's nice to be able to see how many people are coming and how long the guest is staying without having to click through to the booking, quote or inquiry record. Previously, you could see how long the guest was staying by looking at the date columns, but we've added a 'Nights' column to make it easier. To be clear, these columns were added to all three grids - bookings, quotes and inquiries. You can sort these columns, like all the others, by clicking on the header.
Quotes no longer require both first and last name
Not all inquiries are sent in with a first and last name. Some listing sites don't separate the name into two fields, and inquiries end up coming in with only the first name. This used to create a conflict with quotes because quotes required both first and last names. Not any longer. Now you can create quotes, either manually or from an inquiry, with only a first or last name. One of them is required, but not both.
The quote acceptance process now asks for the point of contact
Previously, if a quote was prepared for a person not in charge of the group - a spouse, for instance - the booking would end up with the same name. There was no place for the guest to change the name and email address to the person responsible for the group. A new page has been added to the quote acceptance process, one step prior to the renter agreement, asking the guest to confirm the name of the person in charge. In the future, we'll be expanding this page to ask for phone numbers and the guest list (should you want your guests to provide that information).
Updated wording
In more than a dozen places, mostly on email templates, we changed the wording to clarify language that may not apply to certain guests or bookings. For instance, not all guests pay with credit cards so clauses that are specific to credit card payments are now prefaced with "If payment is made by credit card...".
You can now specify the release days for security deposits at the quote level
If you know in advance that you're not going to release the security deposit on a specific booking for a period of time that is out of the ordinary, you can now customize that at the quote level. Previously, the release days setting only existed at the property level. As most users already know, the 'release days' only refers to the days the system waits before sending you an email reminder. The system never automatically releases the security deposit with your direct confirmation.
Two updates ago, we snuck in a tiny new feature - the ability to set a company name on your profile. Very few users have found and made use of this field so I wanted to call attention to it.
If you open your profile, you'll notice the new field.
Once you enter a company name, you can begin using it in your renter agreements by selecting either one of the following fields:
The first only inserts your company name. The second will attempt to insert your company name but, if missing, will insert your full (first and last) name instead.
If supplied, you'll notice that your company name also shows as your main profile name instead of your first/last.
In the future, we'll have more uses for the company name, particularly in our upcoming work with custom email bodies. In the meantime, run over to your profile and make sure your company name is entered.
Yes, exactly (un-cancel).
OK, sounds good.
Claudia
Understand perfectly. You're basically wanting an un-cancel button that reactivates the booking. There's no way to do that right now. Canceled bookings remain canceled and cannot be un-canceled, but we've seen this need before and have it on the list to do. ~Sam
Great job, Sam. Can't wait for the new goodies to come. :)
"If the guest sends a check payment but is a few days late, and you still want to book them, no need to worry. It's very simple. Either create a new booking and enter their payment manually, or send them a new quote to accept. If you send them a new quote, after they've accepted it, you'll enter their check payment at that point."
This above statement concerns me, however. I would want to keep the original booking, with dates, and rental agreements and not inconvenience the guest to go through the process over again. For the future, could the original booking be RE-OPENED (BOOKED) and then continue with recording the check? Or, perhaps the EXPIRATION date be changed on the booking, to re-open automatically? Not sure what would work, but you understand what I am trying to say?
Thanks,
Claudia
Payments by check is a great way of giving your guests a non-electronic way of paying for their booking while still using the public quote acceptance forms. Previously, if a guest wanted to pay by check, you had to create a manual booking and enter manual payments. You had to tell them where to send the check and hold their hand throughout the process. Now, OwnerRez will do all that for you.
Let's take a look at the nuts and bolts
Open up your payment methods in your account area. Click the 'Add Payment Method' button and then click 'Add Check'.
You're presented with a number of fields that are all (hopefully) self-explanatory. These fields are the information the guest will see during the quote acceptance process - information that tells them who to make the check out to, what address to send it to, additional instructions and how long you'll wait to receive the payment before the booking is canceled.
What are the Acceptance Rules?
Below the basic information fields at the top, you'll notice an 'Acceptance Rules' section with some checkboxes.
Basically, there are two governing questions that affect all check payments:
If the guest's check payment never shows up in the mail, how long are you willing to wait before canceling their booking?
Obviously, you're not going to wait forever. OwnerRez will watch your pending bookings and automatically cancel them if a payment isn't entered by the number of days you specify. By default, the form will pre-fill the number of days to 14 since two weeks is a decent amount of time for a check to be sent in the mail and then deposited into your bank account. If 14 days is too long or too short for your management preferences, simply change it to something different.
How close to the arrival date are you willing to accept a check payment?
If a guest inquires about an upcoming weekend, only four or five days ahead, obviously you don't want them sending a check payment because it wouldn't arrive, and clear with your bank, in time. You would want to insist that they use a credit card. OwnerRez can do this too. By specifying the minimum number of days allowed before arrival, the 'pay by check' option is removed from their quote and they have to use a credit card to accept it. By default, the form will pre-fill the number of days to 45 since a month and a half is ample time for you to rebook the dates if the guest's payment falls through. Don't accept our opinion though - change it to whatever you want!
Select the properties you want to include
Below the 'Other Instructions' field, you'll notice a 'Use On Properties' section and your list of properties will be showing. This allows you to specify which of your properties you want this specific check payment method to be used on.
By default, the form will pre-select all properties that do not have a check payment method already associated with them. Most of the time, this is what you'll want since payments for all properties go to the same place and involve the same instructions. However, some owners have different corporations set up for different properties so this allows those owners to tailor specific instructions for each property.
As with credit card payment methods, each of your properties is limited to having one check payment method. If your property already has a check payment method in place and you include it on a new check payment method, the new one will replace the old one. This is a hard and fast requirement of the system so as to avoid confusion when the guest is paying. We don't want to show the guest two or three different sets of check instructions on one quote.
Changes to the booking workflow
In a previous post, I showed some pictures of how the quote acceptance process changes when multiple payment methods (credit card, check, etc.) are available.
If the guest chooses to pay by check, and finishes the quote acceptance process, the subsequent booking workflow changes to accommodate their lack of payment.
First, the success message in the quote acceptance process once again reminds them to send their check immediately and provides another copy of your address and instructions.
Then, the confirmation email they receive contains a bright red warning that their booking is pending and payment must be received or it will be canceled.
The booking shows up as 'pending' in the system, everywhere you see it, so that bookings without payment always stand out.
Each day, OwnerRez automatically checks each pending booking to see if it is past its due date. Along the way, it sends occasional reminders to both you and the guest so no one forgets. The reminders are sent once every five days, from the moment the booking was created, and on the day before it is due.
Finally, if the booking is still pending after the due date has passed, OwnerRez automatically cancels the booking and sends an email to both you and the guest with an explanation.
What if the guest's payment arrives after their booking is canceled?!
If the guest sends a check payment but is a few days late, and you still want to book them, no need to worry. It's very simple. Either create a new booking and enter their payment manually, or send them a new quote to accept. If you send them a new quote, after they've accepted it, you'll enter their check payment at that point.
The second payment
Currently, our system does not remind the guest about their second payment if they pay by check. This is because OwnerRez monitors and collects Scheduled Payments which are all credit card based. You cannot create a Scheduled Payment for checks - there would be nothing for the system to collect.
In the near future, we'll be releasing a new Scheduled Reminders feature that will allow you to send out reminder emails at various intervals as well as an overhaul of our 'second payment' payment form. Once this is released, the system will automatically schedule reminders for guests who pay by check.
For the time being, please watch your bookings that are check based and make sure to collect the second payment and security deposit.
Lots more to come!
We've only barely begun the overhaul of our payment methods, payment forms and check features. There are tons of changes waiting to be worked on and released. We'll be adding PayPal (regular, non-gateway) and Google Wallet integration as well. Our goal is to provide you and your guests as many ways of collecting payments as possible in as easy a way as possible.
Great job, Sam! You guys are developing a great system. :)
Claudia
In the last post, we mentioned that OwnerRez now supports multiple payment methods per account. Let's take a look at the details.
Go to the Account menu and look at the Payment Methods box on the bottom right.
You'll see a description of the payment method you're currently using as well as some options to view all payment methods and add more. If you've recently filled out a merchant account application, you'll see that too. Click the 'View my payment methods' link and you'll see a new page showing a grid of your methods.
If this is the first time you're seeing this area, your account will only show one payment method since that's all you could use before.
Click the 'Add Payment Method' button to see a list of the possible payment methods you can add to your account.
In addition to a new design, you'll notice that there are now two extra payment methods showing - Sage Payments and manual checks.
Sage Payments is a provider of merchant accounts, and they operate their own internet gateway. In layman's terms, that means that they do online credit card processing. If you use our application to create a new merchant account, you'll end up using Sage Payments as the gateway. And now, anyone with a Sage Payments account, no matter where it was created, can hook it up to their OwnerRez account in just a few quick seconds.
The other new payment method - manual checks - is where we spent a good hunk of development time over the past few months. A lot of users told us that they wanted their guests to be able to accept a quote yet send payments by mail. This created ramifications throughout the app, and we'll explore those issues in the next few days.
For now, I want to continue discussing payment methods in the abstract.
Pull up an open quote and click on the Payment Form tab. As you'll see, the payment form looks updated - different text, different buttons, cleaner mid-section. Notice at the bottom that it shows the guest how they can pay in clear, cold language. If you have both a credit card and check payment method added to the property, it'll show both as payment options.
If you click through the next legal page and continue to the billing page, you'll notice that the guest is presented with both payment methods and can select the one he wants.
As I mentioned previously, there are ramifications if the guests pays by check because a check may never show up. I'll discuss those ramifications in the next few days. If you're curious now, take a peek at the Pending State fields under the General Info tab of a booking.
In the coming months, we'll be adding PayPal and Google Wallet (formerly called Google Checkout) as payment methods, and you'll be able to add those to your properties as well. We already support PayPal's Payments Pro gateway, but we'll be adding support for regular PayPal where the guest will be directed to PayPal's website to pay privately. We're also working on credit card integration for FirstData and Stripe.
If there's a payment method you'd like to see added, please let us know. Because of the work we've done over the past several months, it is now much easier to plug in support for new payment methods, and we look forward to doing just that.
Great! Thanks, Claudia
Hi Claudia,
That's most likely happening (you're not seeing the check payment method) because the arrival date of your quote is too close. Remember, the check payment method has a rule that restricts it from being used if the arrival date is too close.
To see what I mean, go edit your check payment method to make the arrival-date rule much smaller (say 15 days) and make sure the quote arrival date is more than 15 days from now. Then refresh the public quote acceptance form and you should see the check payment method appear.
The guest always has the option of choosing whichever payment method they prefer.
-Michelle
You're very welcome. ~Sam
I would like to thank you and everyone that works for OwnerRez. You guys are doing a GREAT JOB!!!
I went in to a previous outstanding quote and sent an email to myself again (I am the customer). When I went to accept and saw the T&C on the first page and went to the second page, I did not see an option to pay via check. Is this because it was a previously quoted transaction? Do I have to enter another bogus quote, to see the pay by check option?
Maybe it has to do with one of the explanations above, which I didn't understand fully. Can the guest have the option of either paying via credit card or paying via check, during the acceptance of the transactions? I don't know which way they will pay, when I send the quote.
One of my townhouses, most are paid via credit card and some by check. My other townhouse is mostly by check and some by credit card.
Claudia
Monday evening, we released a large update that wrapped up four months of development. Here at OwnerRez, we dislike sitting on development for months at a time. Our goal is to release at least one update every three weeks. As Michelle mentioned, this update took a lot more time because of all the areas of the application that it affected.
You can look at the technical details on the update page, but here's a quick breakdown of the big stuff.
Accounts can now have multiple payment methods
Look at your account overview page, and you'll notice that the text is different in the payment methods section. Click through to view your payment methods and you'll notice that the area has been completely redesigned. If you click the 'Add Payment Method' button, you'll get options for adding more payment methods.
There is no limit to the number of payment methods you can have in your account. Suppose you want to have a unique merchant account for each of your properties so that the guest sees the name of the property on their credit card statement. You can now do that. Simply set up integration for each of your merchant accounts and select which properties each one is used for. The system will not allow a property to be linked to more than one payment method of the same type (check, credit card, etc.). I'll be covering this area in more detail in the next few days.
Guests can now accept a quote while paying by check
As you dig around in the new payment methods area, you'll notice that 'check' is now an option. While the system always supported recording manual payments as check or cash, we now allow the guest to accept and finalize their quotes while picking payment by check.
Building this functionality created myriad ramifications throughout the application. Checks necessitate rules. How many days will you (the owner) wait on the payment to arrive before the booking should be canceled? How far in advance of the arrival date do you want check payments to be available? Can you tweak how long a booking is pending, or remove it altogether for guests you trust? Over the next few days, I'll explain these issues and how OwnerRez satisfies them.
Pending bookings and auto-cancellation
The new payment by check feature created the need for a 'pending' status on bookings which we opened up as a feature on all bookings. You can now set bookings to be pending for a certain number of days, or until a specific date, which will automatically remind the guest to send a payment. The pending status is linked to the booking's payments such that when any payment is recorded, the pending status is automatically removed. Likewise, it is not possible to set the booking as pending if the booking has at least one payment recorded. You can also remove it yourself under the General Info tab. More on this to come.
Quote acceptance forms have been overhauled
The next time you look at the payment form for a quote, you'll notice that the design has changed. While the design is not drastically different, you'll notice that some text has been moved around, the buttons have changed, the pages are faster and your payment methods are more prominently displayed.
We'll be making more changes to this area in coming development sprints. We've long considered these forms to be too dry and uninviting (you guys have pointed that out too!), and we know they need more dressing for your properties. We'll be adding a nice header across the top that shows an image of your property, your property name, other information you want to include and a link to your website. During this update, we overhauled the page architecture to prepare for those coming changes.
New legal agreement page during the quote acceptance process
Users have long pointed out that having a simple checkbox for agreeing to the Terms and Conditions - and not calling out the legal agreement in a more obvious way - is a bad approach. We agreed with you, and now it's been changed.
Now, when the guest accepts their quote, the very first page they see is the legal agreement, prominently displayed with a warning of what they are agreeing to, the date/time, their public IP address and a box for them to enter their name. This is a much clearer way of putting the legal agreement in their face and forcing them to understand their responsibilities. Also, as the first page of the acceptance process, it allows them to jump out quickly if they disagree with something before wasting time entering their billing info.
Sage Payments integration for all users
We've added credit card integration for another gateway - Sage Payments. Those of you that created a merchant account with us already use this gateway, and nothing has changed for you except that you can now see the integration details under your payment methods.
In the past, we've been approached by users that already have a Sage Payments merchant account, created elsewhere, that wanted to use it with OwnerRez. You can now do that. Simply go to your payment methods, click the 'Add Payment Method' button and select Sage Payments. You should have your M_ID and M_KEY integration codes already on-hand, sent to you from Sage at some previous time. If can't find them, contact Sage directly and they'll tell you what they are.
In addition to these major changes, we also fixed, updated and enhanced dozens of minor things. For instance, you can now specify your Company Name on your profile and then insert that as a mail merge field into your legal agreement.
As we continue to push out releases, please tell us how your personal management style is made easier or harder by what we're doing. Each owner has unique ways of managing their properties. Feedback is key!
Good morning everyone! Having received a few "what's going on?" emails in the past few weeks, I wanted to throw up a quick post about what the OwnerRez team has been up to in the first quarter 2012.
The dev team has been working hard to overhaul the payment settings area (now called payment methods) so that there is a great deal more flexibility. We're going to be supporting PayPal, Google Wallet and payment by check so we needed to take the time to rebuild some things to handle those changes. For instance, if you want to accept credit cards, PayPal or checks on some of your properties but not all, there needs to be a way to easily customize that.
We overhauled the quote acceptance and payment forms because of the changes to the payment settings and because of some underlying performance issues we wanted to correct. Later this year, owners will be able to add header info about their property and images and links so that the guest has more of a visual cue about the property. These sorts of images and links will be added to inquiry and quote emails as well.
There have been numerous other minor changes and enhancements as well, some of which were related to the above changes and some that were requested by users.
Sorry for the quietness over the past few months (it's been aggravating for us too!), but the changes we've been working on couldn't be released in piecemeal.
We'll have a release out, and a lot of blog posts talking about it, in the next few weeks.
I noticed an article in USA Today that I wanted to share with everyone.
Our travel insurance partner, Travel Guard, talks about the victims of the recent Costa Concordia accident and how they're helping the passengers that purchased policies:
"While thousands of evacuated Concordia passengers waited for Costa Cruise Lines to offer assistance, the insurance company helped its customers with their individual requests to relay messages back home, replace ID (for those who left their passports on the ship) and get quickly on flights back home"
They also point out other benefits the passengers will receive if necessary:
"If any of the Travel Guard customers on Concordia had been injured, reimbursement of medical expenses and emergency medical evacuation would have kicked in, Mueller says. The policy also includes $10,000 accidental death and dismemberment insurance."
I'm glad to see Travel Guard leading the way and taking care of their customers with gusto. This is the kind of customer service we expect from the vendors we partner with.
Remind your guests how important travel insurance can be!
We just released an update that changed how renter agreements are signed. The update involved two major areas:
Many of you have already noticed these changes and have asked some great questions. Here's a breakdown of everything that happened.
Removing archiving from the quote acceptance process
Previously, when a guest submitted the quote acceptance form, they had to wait while the renter agreement was digitally signed, turned into a PDF and archived with our storage provider. This all happened synchronously as one of several steps before they got a confirmation. In fact, about 75% of the time involved this part of the process. All told, the guest had to sit and wait a good 5-8 seconds on average for the booking to be finalized.
While the process worked well and didn't cause any specific problems, we've disliked how long it took. Also, as more vacation rental owners use OwnerRez and the rate of quotes and bookings increases, we are constantly looking for ways we can gain speed as we scale up.
With this update, we've removed the renter agreement steps out of the process entirely. Now, when a guest accepts the quote, the process goes right to the final steps of collecting the payment and saving the booking record. A few minutes later, after the guest has left, the renter agreement is signed, PDF'd and archived by a separate background processes.
This change greatly increased the speed of quote acceptance and removes potential obstacles from a scaling point of view as OwnerRez continues to grow.
Signing renter agreements manually
Being able to have guests sign renter agreements manually (i.e. not as a part of the quote acceptance process but in a separate single form) has always been a highly-requested feature by OwnerRez users.
This is for an obvious reason: if you create a manual booking, there is never an automatic point where the guest has to sign an agreement. Also, sometimes you need a guest to sign a new agreement after you've made updates.
Well, now you can. You can send the guest a link which will open a public form with options to sign the renter agreement. You can even do this for bookings that have a renter agreement signed and archived already.
Let's see it in action.
Navigate to one of your bookings and click on the Legal tab. If the booking already has a signed renter agreement in place, the page will show you the details with an option, as before, to open the archived PDF.
If the booking was created manually, you'll see a blank form telling you that no agreement has been signed.
Regardless of which version you see, at the bottom of the page there will be an "Email a link to the guest" option. Click on that link and an email form will open.
A default message will be pre-filled for you, but you have the option of changing the message just like every other email form in the system.
You'll notice that the default message includes a link to a public form that the guest can use to sign their agreement. If you wish to see what the guest will see, open that link in your own browser. You'll notice that the public form is very similar in design and layout to all the other OwnerRez public forms.
Underneath the renter agreement body, the guest is presented with several fields that show them what they're signing. They are then free to sign the agreement as they choose.
Once the guest has submitted the form, the signing, PDF'ing and archiving process is exactly the same as the quote acceptance process. After a few minutes, the background process will finalize everything and you (and the guest) will receive confirmation emails.
We have a number of ideas in the pipeline about how to improve the renter agreement process even more - such as allowing you to upload files that the guest faxes/emails to you - but we're also interested in your feedback.
Please let us know what you like or dislike about these changes and what you'd like to see in the future.
We recently added inquiry integration for ArrangeYourVacation.com. Here's how you get your ArrangeYourVacation.com inquiries show up in OwnerRez.
I've covered how to find your @inquiryspot.com email addresses in OwnerRez in previous blog posts so I'll skip over that part and get right to the meat.
First, login to your ArrangeYourVacation.com account.
After logging in, click on the big "Rentals" icon right in the middle of the page. This will take you to a list of your properties. Click on the "Edit Rental" link on the property you want to integrate.
Once the property details load, you'll see a row of links for the different property attributes you can change. Click on the "Contacts" link over on the right.
ArrangeYourVacation.com allows you to send your inquiries to multiple contacts. Make sure that at least one contact uses the @inquiryspot.com email address so that inquiries get sent to OwnerRez.
And as always, be sure to send a test inquiry to yourself by opening your property listing on ArrangeYourVacation.com and filling out the inquiry form. When it arrives in OwnerRez, you'll know the integration is complete.
We recently added inquiry integration for GetAwayDigs.com, so I wanted to take a few minutes to explain how to make your GetAwayDigs.com inquiries show up in OwnerRez.
Several previous blog posts explained how to find your @inquiryspot.com email addresses in OwnerRez so we'll skip over that part and get right to the meat.
First, login to your GetAwayDigs.com account.
After logging in, you'll see your properties listed on the GetAwayDigs.com control panel homepage. You may have to scroll down a bit to see the properties. Click on the "Basic Info" link for the property you want to integrate.
Scroll to the bottom of the property details page, and you'll see a Contact Information section. Put your @inquiryspot.com email address in the "Email" field.
Clicking the "Next" button will save your changes.
As always, be sure to send a test inquiry to yourself by opening your property listing on GetAwayDigs.com and filling out the inquiry form. When it arrives in OwnerRez, you'll know the integration is complete.
FreeVacationRentalSite.com is another listing site that we recently added inquiry integration for. Here is a quick walkthrough on how to make your FreeVacationRentalSite.com inquiries show up in OwnerRez.
I'll assume you already know how to find the @inquiryspot.com email address for each of your properties in OwnerRez. If not, look at the last several blog posts.
First, head on over to FreeVacationRentalSite.com and login.
After logging in, you'll see your properties listed on the FreeVacationRentalSite.com control panel homepage. Click on the property that you want to integrate.
Scroll to the bottom of the property details page, and you'll see a Contact Information section. Click the "Edit Contact Info" button.
You'll see a "Contact Email" field which contains the email address that FreeVacationRentalSite.com sends inquiries to for this property. Put your @inquiryspot.com email address in that field.
Remember to click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom right of the form.
And as always, be sure to send a test inquiry to yourself by opening your property listing on FreeVacationRentalSite.com and filling out the inquiry form. When it arrives in OwnerRez, you'll know the integration is complete.
VacationRentalPeople.com is another listing site that we recently added inquiry integration for. Here is a quick walkthrough on how to make your VacationRentalPeople.com inquiries show up in OwnerRez.
First, open the instruction page in the inquiry area. This will show you your assigned @inquiryspot.com email address for each of your properties in OwnerRez.
Next, login to your VacationRentalPeople.com account.
After logging in, you'll see your properties listed on the VacationRentalPeople.com control panel homepage. On the right side of each property, you'll see a list of links that you can use to edit the details for that property. Click on the link labeled "Edit Your Contact Information Property Address and map" for the property you want to integrate.
At the top, you'll see several contact options. Make sure the "Allow them to contact me by email" option is checked. Then put your @inquiryspot.com email address in the field next to it.
Last, click the 'Save and Finish' button at the top right of the page.
As always, be sure to send a test inquiry to yourself by opening your property listing on vacationRentalPeople.com and filling out the inquiry form. When it arrives in OwnerRez, you'll know the integration is complete.
We recently added inquiry support for five more listing sites. Here is a quick walkthrough on how to make your VRWD inquiries show up in OwnerRez.
First, open the instruction page in the inquiry area. This will show you your assigned @inquiryspot.com email address for each of your properties in OwnerRez.
Then, head over to VRWD and login.
After logging in, you'll see your properties listed on the VRWD control panel homepage. Click on the Details button for the property you want to integrate.
In the property details, you'll see an 'Email' field which contains the email address that VRWD sends inquiries to for this property. Put your @inquiryspot.com email address in that field.
Then click the 'Update Your Listing' button at the bottom of the page to save the new email address.
As always, be sure to send a test inquiry to yourself by opening your property listing on VRWD and filling out the inquiry form. When it arrives in OwnerRez, you'll know the integration is complete.
If you need to integrate all your properties, you'll need to go property-by-property updating each one at a time. There is no way to update multiple properties at one time.
Our inquiry management feature, released in August, has had enormous success. We've processed several thousand emails and greatly reduced the amount of time it takes for owners to respond to inquiries.
Yesterday, we released an update that integrates with five more listing sites. If you have a listing on any of the below websites, OwnerRez can now parse the incoming inquiry emails for you automatically.
New listing sites:
Over the next few days, I'll be posting specific information on how to integrate OwnerRez with each of these sites. Most owners can probably figure it out on their own by using the inquiry instructions page.
I've never heard of these sites! Who cares about these listings?
One of the themes behind OwnerRez has always been owner independence. Instead of building our software around a few major brands in the industry (e.g. HomeAway), our integration strategy is to allow for a broad range of different scenarios.
We're aware that these sites don't get the same type of traffic that the bigger ones currently do, but a) most of these sites are free so it'll cost you little-to-nothing to go add your listing, b) some of these sites get better traffic in specific areas where the bigger ones don't, and c) these sites may grow in popularity over time.
What other listing sites do you use that you'd like us to integrate with?
What other inquiry features can we add to make your life easier? Thing we're already working on:
In addition to changing charge types, we've also changed phone types. The phone types list is scattered throughout the interface, from the control panel to the public guest forms, so you'll see these changes in quite a few places.
The old list of phone types was much bigger:
Our reason for consolidating the list down to the new values was very straightforward: we like simple pragmatic options.
The old list was copied from some CRM system that one of the developers used a year ago, and it's been a source of humor and target for derision ever since. Who the heck uses an ISDN modem anymore, and - more importantly - why would you care about recording that number?
A simple query of the database showed that, across many thousands of bookings, no one used most of the types. So we consolidated.
All 'Company' and 'Business' types were merged into 'Work'. All weird types were removed. The list is now clean and simple.
We've changed the charge types that you see throughout the interface to use different values.
"Charge types" is the drop-down list that displays on each line item on the editable charge grid. These "types" allow you to categorize each line item. If you open the charges on a quote or booking, you'll notice the new list of charge types.
The old list of charge types was a bit bigger:
'Cleaning Fee' and 'Processing Fee' were removed because the new custom surcharges feature makes them obsolete. Since you can now have any kind of surcharge you want, it doesn't make sense to call out cleaning and processing as specific charge types. Instead a new 'Surcharge' type covers all of them.
'Discount' was also removed because we determined that it doesn't make sense from an accounting standpoint to use it as a type. Integrating with QuickBooks and other accounting software is a big part of our To-Do list so we think about the accounting implications of everything we do. While discounts are definitely a big part of the booking process, from an accounting standpoint, they are merely a reversal or credit of some other rent or surcharge that was previously billed. In other words, the concept of a "discount" doesn't exist unless the guest is charged something else which the discount applies to. A free booking cannot be discounted because there is no charge on which the discount would apply. The type of charge should always reflect how the item will be accounted financially. Is the charge rent, in which case it is taxable? Is it a cleaning charge that isn't taxable? A "discount" should always be accounted for in the same way that the charge it is discounting is. So if you're discounting the overall rent, the discount line item would have a 'Rent' type with some description like "Discount for last minute booking" with a negative rate.
Very happy to see this new feature, and it works great. Thanks!
Many of you have probably already noticed that the charges grid (in both the booking and quote areas) has a new style and some new features. While we were working on the new custom surcharges and taxes feature, we spent some time updating the charges grids to make editing faster and more convenient.
Open an existing quote or booking, click on the Charges tab, click on the 'Change' button and you'll see how it looks.
The grid itself is wider so there's more room to see everything.
The delete button, on each row, has been moved to the far right which is a more intuitive place for it to be.
A new 'add row' button has been added to the far left of each row which allows you to quickly add in-line rows directly above the row you click on. This enables you to insert new line items in the middle without having to manually re-order all the line items below it.
The reset links are now at the bottom of the form where they take up less room and are easier to read.
These updates were made on both quote charges and booking charges. There are other features we'd like to add to these grids, but we wanted to make some quick improvements first and push out an update so that owners can begin using them right away.
