Latest Activity...
Hold the pickles! 🥒 Did you know that today is Burger Day 🍔?
The humble but versatile burger has so many options! Cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions--they are all possibilities to build your favorite burger! Just like OwnerRez allows users to assemble all the tools needed to create a successful vacation rental business. Learn about all the juicy new features included in our August 25th release with 6 updates, including beefy (yep, we said it!) Custom Field and Damage Protection updates!
The highly-asked-for and much-anticipated feature to allow owners/PMs to capture files (e.g., driver's licenses) from guests is now available! With this release, there are now 3 types of Custom Fields:
OwnerRez users can now configure a custom field booking type file format to accomplish asking guests to upload files during quote acceptance or signing of legal/renter agreement.
To add or edit Custom Fields, navigate to Settings > Workflow & Devices > Custom Field Definitions.
On the Custom Field Definitions page, users can accomplish the following.
In the example below, we're going to create a required Booking Field Definition for Guest IDs. Note that we chose File for the file format. Click on Save.
For more information read the Custom Fields and Capture additional fields on booking and agreement signing support articles.
Properties listed on Airbnb, including API connected Airbnb properties, support shared spaces and rooms should reflect whether it is a private or shared space. OwnerRez Users can now define rooms or spaces in their properties as private or shared.
To indicate whether your spaces are shared or private, navigate to Properties > Specific Property > Rooms > Change.
Select whether each room or Space is Private or Shared by selecting the appropriate radio button.
Click Save at the top of the page to save your selections.
For more information see our Airbnb Photos, Rooms & Accessibility Amenities support article.
OwnerRez's Damage Protection Coverage provides protection paid for on a booking-by-booking basis against accidental damage a guest might do while at your property. It's directly integrated into OwnerRez and powered by RentalGuardian®. Damage Protection updates include new contract requirements, signature and billing all in one place. Users can also opt-out or exclude specific channels.
In addition to Security Deposits, Damage Protection Coverage is one more layer of protection for Vacation Rental Owners and Property Managers. However, it should be noted that it is no substitute for Homeowners Insurance (HOI).
OwnerRez has overhauled and clarified the Damage Protection Coverage enrollment process to now include the following information right on the OR enrollment page.
Users can select which properties to add Damage Protection to but the main requirement is that all of your bookings and properties must be included in the damage protection program. You cannot choose to turn coverage off and on for certain properties or guests.
While OwnerRez recommends that users include all channel bookings, users have the ability to opt out or exclude specific channels by selecting which channels to exclude from Damage Protection with the express understanding that you as an owner/PM are at the mercy of these channels and whether the guest admits to the damage.
Navigate to the Damage Protection Coverage area by going to Settings > Financial > Damage Protection.
During the Damage Protection Coverage enrollment process, users can accomplish the following.
Nobody likes a surprise bill! OwnerRez Damage Protection charges are transparent and straightforward so there are no surprises. The list of all affected bookings, along with the amount owed now, will display when users click on Show Affected Bookings. This allows users to make an informed financial decision when applying Damage Protection Coverage before clicking on the Accept Agreement and Charges.
The full amount owed, $394 in the case above, will be charged immediately when users click on Accept Agreement and Charges.
View Damage Protection Policies
But how do find individual Damage Protection Policies? Users can view individual Damage Protection Policies by clicking on the Insurance section of individual bookings and selecting the Damage Protection tab.
On the Damage Protection tab, users will see the following.
For more information, see our Damage Protection Overview support article.
Lynnbrook was a long-time preferred payment processor with OwnerRez, and we still have a lot of users using Lynnbrook Classic. During the 2020 Pandemic, Lynnbrook stepped back, stopped onboarding new OwnerRez customers, and took the opportunity to retool and come back better than ever as Lynnbrook Group. Existing OwnerRez users continued using the classic integration method, but all new onboarding ceased. In the ensuing time, Lynnbrook Group created a new technology platform that users can now:
To learn more, see our Lynnbrook Group support article.
Send Confirmation to Guest After Manually Finalizing a Quote. In some cases, the Messages on booking quotes displayed Guest Notifications as "Not sent" even if it was sent. This bug has been corrected and the send confirmation to guests will now display after manually finalizing a quote.
Security Deposits Can be Deposited Elsewhere. Whether a Refundable Damage Deposit (RDD) is kept or released, OwnerRez copies and allows the Security Deposit Payment to be deposited elsewhere. Refundable Damage Deposits (RDD) are included in the Deposit Batch Update results. Booking transactions now display "marked deposited" for Security Deposit Payments even if the Security Deposit Payment is deposited elsewhere.
Did you know that IBM's own Personal Computer 🖥️ (IBM 5150) was introduced 41 years ago in August 1981?
During that time, one analyst was quoted as saying that "IBM bringing out a personal computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance." A lot has changed in 41 years!
We're not so sure about elephants tap dancing but we do know that personal computers, and other devices, are not only ubiquitous but now are necessary to run your successful vacation rental business today. While you ponder all that--shuffle, ball change on through this product update detailing our August 5th release with 7 updates and August 12th release with 12 updates!
We are always rolling out new features at such a quick pace that sometimes it's hard to keep up!
To make it easier for our users, we are now using a indicator for new feature areas. These new feature indicators will automatically expire after 6 months.
Airbnb Booking Trigger Error. Airbnb Bookings were generating a change trigger rather than a booking trigger for cleaners. This has been corrected.
Allow Updating of Expiration Dates on Stripe Token Card Transactions. The system was requiring the security code (CVV) to be updated for any Stripe transaction card changes which was causing headaches for guests. While it is possible to have the guest re-enter the full credit card details, OwnerRez users can now update Stripe transaction card expiration dates without requiring the security code (CVV) to be updated.
Auto Review Submissions Action Log Added. The ReviewSubmitterService was not pushing logs or requests so they just sitting on the service host filling up the drive. Not only was this not great for scaling, but it was also difficult to locate request logs if needed. A sync action log was added for automatic review submissions so we can have greater clarity on when and what type of review is submitted.
Counts Cannot Have Decimals. We released the new Deposit Summary report and then noticed that the payment and refund count columns were showing decimal places... That doesn't make any sense, so we fixed that.
Fix Error on "View changes" After Changing a Hosted Website Template. A "View changes" link was erroneously displayed after selecting a new template. This button should not be displayed and has been removed.
Fix Portal Site Certificate Issue After Domain Name Change. Users were experiencing intermittent errors with their Portal Site Certificates after a domain name change. This has been fixed.
Fix Portal User Viewing Extra Empty Pages. We found a bug that permitted a portal user to view empty owner pages. To be clear, they could not see any details on those pages, but they could still open them. We fixed this so it redirects such requests back to a "you don't have access to that" page.
Fix Quote Conversation View. Quotes stated that they were "sent" in the conversation view even if they weren't actually sent. We have updated the language to state that quotes are "created" as an indicator to users that the created quote has not yet been sent.
Guest Conversation Email History Error. Sometimes users encountered that when going to a Guest Conversation, it wasn't rendering the body of the triggered message after expanding it, and instead displayed "Couldn't find that! A EmailBody does not exist for this ID". But later after the guest conversation page had sat for a long while and the page refreshed, the conversation loaded were fine. This bug has been fixed.
In Period Custom Column Percentage. The percent in the period column was rounding to 0 decimals rather than the desired 2 decimals. This has been corrected and the Owner remittance in the In Period custom column percentage was corrected to round to 2 decimals.
Not a Number (NaN) Error When Setting Rates. A user received "Not a Number (NaN)" error when setting rates. We have added an additional check to resolve this issue.
Retry Converge Payments That Fail. On rare occasions, payments processed by Converge failed without any explanation. After discussing the problem in-depth with Converge support, we decided to implement a single retry in these cases. We'll continue to keep an eye on it. Contact the OwnerRez Help Team if you continue to see this problem.
Search Widget Form Property Search Results Error. OwnerRez developers recently became aware of a bug that occurs when you change the multi-property search criteria after having navigated to the second (or further) page. The results display the revised matching property count but don't show any properties in-page if the results are less than what fits back on the first page. This bug has been fixed to always go back to page one when submitting a search widget form.
Security Deposit Transaction Set to 0 days Before Arrival Should be Visible. If you have a Security Deposit Transaction property rule set to 0 days before arrival, either a hold or recurring saving deposit (RSD) property, the security deposit wasn't showing on guest booking transactions. This has been fixed and Security Deposit Transactions set to 0 days before arrival will display on guest booking transactions.
Trim Extra Spaces Around Names in Billing Information. Additional spaces can lead to card transaction errors. We have trimmed both leading and trailing whitespaces off first and last name billing information.
Tweak Reports Date Range Picker. The reports' date range picker was finicky so we unlinked the calendars. This allows them to move them independently and selected dates are now clearly displayed at the bottom of the Date Range Picker.
Vrbo Property Mapping Error for Request to Book Property Override. Properties should be able to be included on the Vrbo channel if it is set with property overrides for Request to Book for both Vrbo and Airbnb, even though the same property is listed on Airbnb which takes Instant Bookings. This property mapping error has now been remedied.
WordPress Bathroom Count Fixed. We "fixed" the bathroom math for hosted websites, but in doing so broke the auto-mapped bath count on the v1 API result used by WordPress. This has been fixed and the auto-mapped WordPress bathroom math count breakdown is now correct.
I'm afraid we don't generally state ETAs of future developments, but, you can watch our Blog for product announcements.
Portal access tab isn't visible on mobile. The only way to access it on mobile is to click the "invite staff" button and then under the warning displayed click the link to go to portal. Just FYI.
Hi Tim - we see what's going on, thanks for letting us know. We'll get a fix out as soon as we can!
Portal access tab isn't visible on mobile. The only way to access it on mobile is to click the "invite staff" button and then under the warning displayed click the link to go to portal. Just FYI.
As of yesterday, Portal Access is now free for all and has been moved to a new Team Access area under the account menu. We also dropped Zapier integration (invite only) and a large Property Descriptions overhaul that allows overrides per channel.
It appears the name of this company/solution has changed to Duve.
Hi Melanie,
This is Adam from StayFi. Guests that log into WiFi will be synced into OwnerRez, but currently they will not be associated to the current booking at that property. But we do have that improvement on our roadmap, we don't have a timeline for when this will be completed, but we do plan on implementing it in the near future.
I am using Stayfi and integrated with Ownerrez and am happy with both. With the integration between the two, will Ownerrez import contacts received via Stayfi back into a reservation for future inclusion with that particular booking? Or will those contacts stay with Stayfi?
That is unfortunate. I am not seeing a strong argument to raise the subscription fees beyond 80% when the inflation levels are at 10-20% increase. Unfortunately the rental prices have only gone up by 10% on average and expecting anything more to offset inflationary adjustments are not possible in the hotel industry. The supply vs demand trends are still the same while offering hoteling services.
Expecting software based services ( that is what i see ownerez category) to keep going higher when dollar becoming stronger is counter intuitive. I expect OR to find cheaper software hosting and development options. I will start exploring other options.
Thanks.
Sad, really sad! I can see some other comments which I re-state. I chose OR for its great features but when I made my evaluations of the different system, I did not consider those that were almost twice the actual price. In that spehere of providers, I am certain that I will find a better-fitting provider among the top-rated ones. OR is great and assistance too but for what I need, if has some shortcomings too (it varies upon each one's needs of course) and to my eye is not worth the new pricing, especially that what I can see from the 2023 plans, the most improvements I was expecting / hoping for and already listed are not listed.
Yes it takes a lot of time to adopt a new management software but I didi it last year in favour of OR and it looks like I will have to do it again next year... Sad!
I’ll add this feature request in the appropriate section as well but I have seven properties all co-located under the same roof. I’d like a shopping cart option where a guest can book 2 or more suites at the same time and only have one contract and one payment. I’m aware of the ability to bundle units and use mutual blocking but with seven suites that would become very tedious to setup and very expensive.
Yes, great point. By "rare" I mean that the major OTAs (Air, Trip, Vrbo) all standardized on first and second/final payment structure years ago so the industry kind of followed that. Back in the day, HomeAway and Vrbo had a "how much do you require up front" and "when is the final balance due". But yes you are 100% correct that homeowners need better options than that, particularly for big properties like lodges or large beach homes where the cost may be 15 or 20k per stay.
PS. Air only recently allowed a second payment. For a long time, it was just pay-in-full up front!
Paul,
I think maybe it is rare in the VR industry for professionally managed properties, but I think among individually owned VRs it is more common to offer more than 50/50 payments. I would expect larger PMs not to have much flexibility by nature, but for the "mom and pop" owners I think flexibility (not just on payments) is more common. As I said, I don't know what % of your customers are of the "privately owned and operated" VR type vs those that are operated by property managers at a larger scale, but I'm guessing the latter make up the majority of your customers and thus have the product geared more towards their needs.
Tim, I agree with you on the payment schedule issue. It's been kicked around internally for a long time. You are correct about that being one of the older pressing issues. I think it hasn't seen more attention because it's rare in the VR industry. The first/second payment schedule is broadly used. Thank you for reminding us.
Hi Luis,
Thanks for your continued feedback and ideas. Re: training course:
could be addressed via a training course
I agree, and we started our webinar series for this reason to great success. We do a weekly demo webinar, have Live Q&A webinars and monthly partner webinars.
In terms of deep-dive or third-party training, we already have a number of affiliates that do third-party training, but we've been slow to endorse or recommend those as our philosophy is to be careful about where we direct users. If we don't know what is being said (which could be wrong!) we don't want to endorse the trainer.
I noticed earlier your comment here and had to address it:
Owner Rez seems to have very different growth objectives....
Yes, that is correct - very different growth objectives indeed. 😊 We don't believe in growth at all costs, we're not seeking to sell out or merge. We are happy with our model, have zero debt and zero outside investors, and we plan to keep it that way. We're here because we want to be here, in this industry, building this software with our team.
Hi Mark,
Regarding the live phone calls:
What is frustrating is that I/users cannot just pick up the phone and talk to someone then and there. Sometimes I require an immediate response, and a call back days later, when I might be out, doesn't cut it.
The reason we don't do this is because it would not add anything in terms of quality. You would get an immediate voice but not a quality answer. OwnerRez is a wide and deep software platform (8 verticals) with many different support areas and many thousands of customers. If we staffed a live call center that answered immediately, all you would get is a friendly immediate voice asking for a time we could schedule a time to put you in touch with our Tier 2-4 or engagement specialists who can walk through a 15-30 minute call about the issue.
Backing up, our focus in support is providing correct thorough answers, as well as go over other issues/questions you might have while on the phone. Hiring more bodies would not immediately help that. It can take 6 months to a year of training and ramp-up before our customer success team is able to provide deep knowledge about individual accounts and give valuable help. And we would still have to schedule calls out because of tickets requesting calls and time zone issues
Across the software industry, this is pretty common. Even huge companies like Intuit don't really provide great live support. You get a live voice, yes, but it can take 30 minutes on hold or a scheduled call-back if your question is anything beyond a very routine issue (eg. how do I pay my invoice). Try asking an actual accounting question like why your balance sheet is off....
I'm not trying to be defensive here but show a peak behind the curtain. More videos and support docs are part of the solution as well, and we are working towards that as well.
To be sure, we are continuing to staff up our Engagement team so that the time between your request and the live phone call is shorter. It used to be "in a few days or later this week" but has recently gotten down to a day or two typically. We are working towards making it same day or next day at latest. At some point, we might be at the point where there is enough slack in the Engagement team to be able to answer live.
I see a lot of complaints here, which were probably expected, so thank you for giving us a forum to communicate our frustrations. It goes a long way to adding to the feeling that Owner Rez is a good partner in our businesses.
That said, It seems like some of the complaints about "not needing XYZ" or n"not happy to pay for XYZ widget/integration/plugin" could be addressed via a training course. I have used these to great success in other software companies. How it works is by making a course that helps all of us owners be more successful, and at the same time, addresses the #1 issues that the price increase brings being that many people are upset and may want to leave. Considering the time it takes to set up owner rez I bet the churn rate is not too high... but no one else in the industry has their own training course so it would help you to stand out and honestly make us a lot more dedicated when everyone understands why they do need that "XYZ" thing that right now they do not want to pay for.
Feel free to email me for more details if you would like to see some examples of how we have saved other software companies and helped them 10X their growth.
I have been paying for QuickBooks integration for 6 months and it has NEVER worked. Is anyone on this blog actually having success with this feature? I have asked several times for help and Owner Rez support has refused to help. I was actually told that “we are not accountants so we can’t help with QuickBooks” I don’t need help with QuickBooks I need help with syncing QB with OR… What good is a software if it doesn’t help you with accounting? Also, how can you charge someone for a premium feature and not help them use it. FOR SIX MONTHS!?
I'm out of here. This is ridiculous!!! Smoobu, Hospitable... all better "bang for the buck" now. OwnerRez will slowly lose a lot of people and a lot of money.
I would like to have Quickbooks integration included in the normal subscription, as opposed to an additional fee.
Paul, you write:"We actually do have a fulltime Engagement Team that does in-person phone and video calls every day of the week. Send in an email and we'll get you on the call-back schedule for sometime this week or early next. Our Engagement Team is expanding and we look forward to doing a lot more phone/video support in the future."
I think that you are missing the point. What is frustrating is that I/users cannot just pick up the phone and talk to someone then and there. Sometimes I require an immediate response, and a call back days later, when I might be out, doesn't cut it. Therefore I always use email and the response time is pretty good; but knowing that someone will pick up the phone if I feel that the matter is urgent enough to warrent a call, would be refreshing.
Ken,
1. With regard to the rent, yes you can combine the rental lines but you can't combine any other fees INTO the rental line. You can only group surcharges together, discounts together and rents together (and taxes)....but you can't combine different categories. I think a lot of people have a number of "per stay" fees that they would like to wrap up into the rent total but that cannot be easily added to a nightly rate. Cleaning fees being the primary one. My cleaning fee is $150 whether 1 night or 14 nights so I need it to be added as a per stay surcharge but I don't want to display it.
2. Multiple payments only exist as a manual workaround.....and one that requires the guest to agree to terms that you are then going to change. I don't want to tell my guests, "yeah the agreement says you have to pay the entire balance in one lump some but after you agree I will change it to two payments." No, that's not reasonable. Owners should be able to have multiple payment options....whether they choose to split it into 4 payments, or a $500 deposit and then 2 payments of 50% each. That's what OR should offer and what many people have been asking for since about 2017. Also, OR offers no ability to set dates that payments are due, only dates based on the stay. Many seasonal rentals will have a payment due by say January 1st, then the balance 60 days prior, or even on a second set date. Right now that's not an option so I have to manually send out payment reminders in November.
@Nona - you can control your Premium Features here:
https://app.ownerrez.com/account/billing/premium
@Tim it is possible to set up multiple payments for an individual booking, has been for a long while:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/multiple-payments
And, you can indeed combine the various Rent entries onto one line - that's controlled in your Pricing Preferences under "How Guests See Charges":
https://app.ownerrez.com/settings/pricing
Paul,
As others have mentioned, I just have one duplex that equates to 3 listings (A,B A&B) so I'm looking at a significant increase in cost. I started at $22.99, then last year it jumped to $42, now next spring it will be $88!
Perhaps most egregious is the pricing for the Wordpress plugin. I can't begin to understand how that pricing is reasonable....everyone might as well have the full hosted website feature for $5 more. $18 a month for a calendar widget and booking form? I'd love to hear the justification for that.
Primarily my complaint about missing features is the multiple payments (n payments as you guys called them) and the ability to create payment schedules and set due dates. It has been on the roadmap for probably 4+ years now and it seems like a pretty common practice in the industry.
Another missing feature is the ability to "bundle" all the surcharges/fees into one "price". With all the media attention on cleaning fees and other fees being charged it would be nice if on quotes and bookings there was the option to just display everything as "rent" rather than breaking it down. I know you can manually do this on quotes but it would be a useful and time saving feature. At a minimum I don't want my quotes to default to this giant mess that I have to edit each time. I can't imagine people wanting to send out a quote that looks like this....
| Item | Description | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | 2 nights (5/10, 5/11) during Spring 2023 at $750.00 per night | 1,500.00 | $1,500.00 |
| Rent | 2 nights (5/12, 5/13) during Spring 2023 at $850.00 per weekend night | 1,700.00 | $1,700.00 |
| Surcharge | Cleaning Fee | 300.00 | $300.00 |
| Surcharge | Refundable Damage Deposit | 500.00 | $500.00 |
How about the option to combine select charges into a simple "Rent" line...
| Item | Description | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | 4 nights: 5/10/2023 - 5/14/2023 | 3,500.00 | $3,500.00 |
| Surcharge | Refundable Damage Deposit | 500.00 | $500.00 |
I barely book with VRBO so that integration isn't worth my time and it seems from owner reports that the AirBnB API integrations are still not perfect. AirBnB via iCal is working fine so I'm not sure I want to deal with switching to API if it potentially brings me headaches. I'm not convinced that any of the newer features are of use/interest to me and it seems like a lot development work is spent on integrating partners that I have no use for. I read through the blog and it is new integration after new integration....mostly of services I've never heard of. Meanwhile I'm stuck here waiting for improvements to basic functionality.
How do I remove PM?
Reading through these comments above, I would like to 2nd the opinion that yo should offer yearly pricing discounts. Rentals are my side gig, but software consulting is part of my main consulting business. Owner Rez seems to have very different growth objectives than most software companies, but traditionally, ANY TIME my clients call me and tell me that they need a bunch of cash for development, I recommend offering yearly pricing as the fastest way to get all your money upfront so it is available to be used for growth. Ultimately, a webinar that pitched owner rez to the rental owner audience and had a special one-time offer for a discount on your first yearly subscription could very well lead to the sort of revenue growth needed to support your development goals. This is how I have grown software companies in the past that did not have access to VC funding or did not want to take on more debt. Ultimately, getting owner Rez more exposure could help since I was lucky to stumble on this platform since I had never heard of it spoken about on any podcast or social media.
I have been on this platform for a month and spent a TON of time setting this platform up. If I had any idea that my bill would almost double I would have NEVER signed up to begin with. The decision to switch to a different platform that is far more intuitive will not be nearly as difficult after finding out that Ill be spending $600 more next year...
