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Hi BlueMtnCabins,

We don't have a signup form. We'll be announcing additional channels directly. The direct channel integrations already in place are able to be connected if you have a channel (eg. Booking.com, CanadaStays, TripAdvisor) account in place. Go to Settings > Channels > Connect to get started. TripAdvisor is in active development right now and will be over the next couple months. Content/rate/availability/rule pushing is out and working. The booking part is in active development.

>>>> The promise of being on "hundreds" of channels rings hollow. The key is to be on the big 5 or 10 channels in your area and the rest are a distraction. More channels means more work and more things that can go wrong -- even with a channel manager you still end up running around doing little one-off fixes. <<<<

I SO AGREE. A VR owner being on Booking.com, HA family, TA family, AirBnB... Is full usage of these not going to bring you 95+% of the bookings? I follow their forums some and the constant problems and complaints. Communications that were lost, misunderstanding, new features, double bookings, wrangling with CS over problems or reviews...

So trying to get 5% more bookings and the potential complexities/problems of 50 more little sites? If you are on BringFido, aren't they likely also to select the Pet friendly places on the major OTAs? Doesn't the LGBQT market really strongly use the major OTAs more than MisterBnB? You are already getting a lot of the specialty market in the big OTAs. Besides, some of those small sites (like BedAndBreakfast.com) will probably be absorbed anyway.

I would only really be interested in additional things like PPC type ads or Social Media campaigns that bring people to my site without introducing breakable functionality between me and the customer.

Where is sign up form?

sounds great

Sounds great! I'll be waiting anxiously for the ability to push rates to AirBNB and VRBO

You may have wondered why it's been so quiet around here recently. We've been hard at work on a huge new feature: direct channel integration!

We've had two-way iCal sync and inquiry parsing for years, which provides the basic availability updates and inquiry quoting and auto response.

Direct channel integration has so much more potential: updating channels with rates, listing description, amenities, photos, receiving bookings with full financial and guest information, two way messaging with guests... and the list goes on from there.

In typical OwnerRez fashion, we evaluated the third party channel manager options and ended up developing our own direct channel sync engine which powers all of these integrations. There are four reasons we chose to build it ourselves instead of teaming up with a channel manager partner to save time:

1. We directly control and are responsible for the integration with each channel. This means that we can deliver our trademark power and reliability rather than having to play telephone through a third party to get to the channel.
2. Channel managers are EXPENSIVE! Some charge 3-5% of the gross booking total on top of the already large commissions that each channel charges. As vacation rental owners ourselves, we know how steep of a price that is. They justify it by saying, "just build it into your rates", but that means your booking volumes go down. Building direct integrations takes longer but lets us price on a simple per-property flat rate (see below).
3. Many channels require a minimum of 5 properties to access any direct integration. For smaller folks, we've developed a channel bridge tool that links into the same channel sync engine but bypasses the 5 property limit.
4. The promise of being on "hundreds" of channels rings hollow. The key is to be on the big 5 or 10 channels in your area and the rest are a distraction. More channels means more work and more things that can go wrong -- even with a channel manager you still end up running around doing little one-off fixes... and you end up being limited in pricing and policy decisions to what is supported by the lowest common denominator channel.

You've seen a lot of "coming soon" language on OwnerRez this year, and we recently centralized the direct and synced channels into a main Channels area. All of that is currently free while we're in beta. Synced channels (iCal and inquiry parsing) will always be included with the base OwnerRez subscription. As of 1 December, direct and channel bridge channel integrations will become a premium feature, which will cost $9.99/mo for the first two properties and $1/mo for each property after that.

Here's what the premium channels feature will include as of 1 December:

• Booking.com rates and availability push and booking and credit card processing integration
• TripAdvisor listing content (description, photos, amenities), rates and availability push, booking import, and inquiry import
• CanadaStays listing content, rates and availability push and booking import
• VRBO/HomeAway channel bridge booking download with full charges, payments, and guest contact info
• Airbnb channel bridge booking download with full charges, payments, and guest info

As a bonus for our customers, whether you've new or have been with us for years (those of you around since 2009, thanks for making this all possible!) we're waving the $9.99 fee for the first year for anyone who signs up by 1 December. You'll just pay a flat $1/mo per property for premium channels until December 2019.

We've got great plans for more channels and more channel related feature throughout the rest of the year and into 2019.

As vacation rental owners ourselves we're salivating over the possiblities and can't wait to get all of this stuff done! The current roadmap starts with booking.com content push, then into VRBO/HomeAway and Airbnb content push (both via channel bridge for everyone and direct integrations for 5+ property users). After that we'll branch out into additional channels like Expedia and Agoda, and then fully integrate seamless messaging through all sources (channel direct, SMS, email, phone, etc).

Don't miss this OwnerRez-sponsored opportunity!

Our friends Tyann Marcink and Alanna Schroeder teach the VR Mastered #vacationrentalbootcamp only once a year. This year it is in Santa Cruz, California in October.

Here's a little note from Tyann and Alanna:

Are you new?
Seasoned?
Uninspired?

Looking for a weekend getaway with like-minded individuals, or simply ready to make your short-term rental business soar?

It's time to level up your vacation rental and short-term rental business!

Join us in Santa Cruz this October for the highly anticipated exclusive #vacationrentalbootcamp.

5 days
4 experts
1 amazing location

When we say EXCLUSIVE, we mean it!

Seats are limited to 20 attendees so that each and every one of you gets valuable hands-on instruction that is not possible at large events.

Boot camp is learning AND doing, a laptop and your attention are required!

Boot camp is not for the complacent host, owner, or manager, satisfied right where they are.

Boot camp will stretch your limits of knowledge, inundating you with ideas, skills, and processes that will one day become second nature to your workflow.

We will cover:

• Social media
• Photography
• Videography
• Graphic design
• Best practices
• Workflow
• Guest experience
• Hospitality skills
• Headlines and descriptions
• Email newsletters
• Facebook pages
• Facebook ads
• Instagram
• And much more

The four experts are names you have seen everywhere:

• Alanna Schroeder of The Distinguished Guest
• Tyann Marcink of Marcink Designs (and The Bank Haus)
• Conrad O'Connell of Build Up Bookings
• Jessica Vozel of Guest Hook

See the full agenda on VRMastered.com

VR Mastered Santa Cruz

Dates:
October 4-8, 2018

Location:
Paradox Hotel
Santa Cruz, California

Price includes instruction, several meals, flash drive of templates and goodies, hands-on help, and more.

Does not include transportation, lodging, some meals, and the optional tour. We do have special pre-negotiated room rates for VR Mastered attendees at the host hotel.

Pack your flip flops and sunglasses - we will see you soon!

Alanna & Tyann
VR Mastered | #vacationrentalbootcamp
Follow on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

So... this might be a sensitive question ... but what is the consensus of the best gateway to use? Does anyone have any favorites? Right now I am using Sage (I think a long time ago when I joined Ownerrez I was able to use it free if I used Sage payments). if you go on their 'virtual terminal', it is pretty much that... a old terminal dump bolted onto a web page ... it seems like. I want to change my bank account that receives $ but the interface is so poor, there is no guidance on how to do that. I am wondering if there is a better gateway out there? Maybe one that has an interface that is not 1980's style? Anyone have any preferences?

This post is pretty old -- we're up to 20 gateways now: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/payment-methods -- is yours any of those?

If not, which gateway is it? Sometimes a processor will support other gateways like Authorize.Net or eProcessing Network and/or they have different named gateways.

I have a gateway but it is not listed. Can I still use this or do I have to set up a new account with one of the 11 accounts you list?

Diana

We just released a new update for Triggers that adds several powerful features and lays the groundwork for new criteria. Here's what's new:

• Payment Status criteria
• Send before triggers the first time criteria matches
• Send create triggers on VRBO reservation import
• Trigger forecast
• Renter Agreement Signed trigger event
• Exclude Listing Site/Property/Season criteria

Payment Status criteria

We've had a Paid in Full trigger event for awhile, and that works well for some situations. However, there were a lot of situations where you wanted to send the email on a certain date but only if the booking was paid in full. There were other cases where the booking got flagged as paid in full but wasn't -- like some listing site transaction imports.

The new Payment Status criteria handles those situations by allowing you to create a days before arrival trigger but only send it if the booking matches the paid in full criteria.

Combined with the next item -- send before triggers the first time criteria matches -- you can make a property details email that will go out a certain number of days before arrival, but only if the booking is paid in full. And if the booking were to be paid in full after that time it would send later rather than fizzling out.

Definitions:

• Zero Booking Total: the total of the booking charges is $0. This can happen for bookings where you're not tracking an amount in OwnerRez, such as ones from listing sites, donated bookings, friends and family, etc. Using this criteria you can target those booking as well as the paid in full bookings.
• Zero Paid: There is an amount due on the booking, but no payments.
• Partially Paid: There is an amount due on the booking and some payments, but it's not paid in full.
• Paid in Full: The booking has charges and they have been fully paid.

Send before triggers the first time criteria matches

In the past, date based triggers have always only executed once, on the day they are due. If they don't match the criteria for whatever reason on that day, or the booking is a last minute booking that was made after that day, the trigger is never sent.

We added a new option to run the first time criteria matches on before date events. This is the new default. This option will send the first time that the criteria matches between the initial day and the event day (i.e. arrival or departure). It'll only send once, but will have a chance to send after the initial day.

For example, if you have a trigger with this option enabled, for a welcome email template set to go out 14 days before arrival and a booking was made 10 days before arrival, the trigger would be sent the next day after the booking was made (9 days before arrival). Without this option, the trigger would never be sent because 14 days before arrival criteria would never match the booking.

Another example combined with the Payment Status criteria above. With a trigger set for Payment Status: Paid In Full, to go out 20 days before arrival, and send the first time the criteria matches. If the guest misses the last payment and doesn't make it until 15 days before arrival, that trigger would now be sent 14 days before arrival rather than fizzling out and never being sent.

Send create triggers on HomeAway/VRBO reservation import

Airbnb includes a proxy email address on their iCal feed, which our Calendar Import handles. This lets you set up a trigger for a request for contact info and renter agreement signature that goes out automatically.

HomeAway/VRBO does not include the email address in their iCal feed. Instead, we have an Import Bookings from HomeAway/VRBO function under Tools > Import/Export that populates the guest contact info.

We just added an option to send create triggers and/or booking confirmation emails when importing that file. You could always do that by hand before, but this will automatically send those emails when the guest email address is populated during the reservation import process.

Trigger Forecast

You've always been able to see the status of triggers on a booking by booking basis to see what's been sent, what will be sent later, and what can't be sent because criteria doesn't match, it was skipped, etc. But there was never a way to get a bird's eye view on what triggers were doing in the system and the overall emails that would be sent.

That changes today. While developing these changes, we started to build an internal debugging tool to check and make sure that all triggers were configured properly. We realized that it would be very useful for everyone, so we polished it up and added it to this release! To access it, go to Settings > Email Triggers and click the Forecast button.

This opens up the Forecast grid, which shows all triggers that may go out in future, when they will go out, or why they won't go out. You can click into any booking, template, or trigger to make changes.

You use the Batch button to do bulk skips or un-skips of triggers. The Filter button will winnow down the list to a specific template, trigger, property etc. and only view triggers sent for those specific options.

Renter Agreement Signed trigger event

We've had a trigger on renter agreement signed for a few months, but haven't announced it yet. This dovetails nicely with the option to send create triggers on HomeAway/VRBO reservation import. You can now create a request for contact info and renter agreement signature, send that out on booking create for Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO, then create an additional booking completed template and send it out when the renter agreement has actually been signed.

Exclude Listing Site/Property/Season criteria

We've had these criteria on triggers for awhile, but there were only two options: All or Specific. Many times you want to target everything but a couple of listing sites or properties. So we split the criteria options for all of these to "All", "Everything but" and "Only". That lets you target everything you used to (All is the same as the old All, Only is the same as the old Specific). The new "Everything but" lets you target everything but a few listing sites, properties, seasons, etc.

This is currently available on Triggers and Taxes but will be applied to other items like Rates and Surcharges over time as well.

Go to the Transactions tab of the booking, find the scheduled payment and click on it in the list. Then you can delete it from there.

Ho do I cancel a scheduled payment?

Yep! Use the preview link you get from the request e-Signature button on the Legal tab of the booking and you can see what it looks like.

Everything that would be required on a quote checkout on the contact info page is also required on the signing link page. The only time it's not required is after the booking has arrived, to make sure the guest doesn't go back and change things later.

When the guest gets the link to the rental agreement, are they forced to fill in address, custom fields etc?

I have been having Airbnb guests send me mailng address, list of guest names and other info that would go into my custom fields during a normal booking. Then I send them a link to the rental agreement to sign, marking them as having paid by CC other.

I've setup email trigger a week before arrival asking for a credit card for security deposit since I can't or don't collect it at signing.

Its really nice information for accounting transaction. Thank you for sharing this information. It is useful information for us.
Here, Our best support team are available anytime for solving accounting problems.
Please visit our website and freely call to us 1-866-296-8224
https://www.axpertadvisor.com/

id love vrbo and fb imports- watching for that!

That's very cool with the scenes and other ZWave devices -- I may have to check into that for my own house! :-)

If you want to shoot an email to help@ownerreservations.com with the API details, I'll have a look and see what we can do. Does it take username/password or something more complex like OAuth?

I have a Vera system as well. I have a Vera Edge for each of my rental properties and one for our own home. It is a great system and incredibly robust (it never really fails). The nice thing about it, is that it controls most other ZWave devices (such as wall switches, dimmers, thermostats, etc). There is a fairly active community who write add-ins for it, so now my zwave system also controls my pool (heater, lights, filter, etc). You can also do a lot with scenes. (ie. I have it such that if it is nighttime and you come home, when you open the lock, many lights in the house turn on). Also my yard lights go on based on the sunset time of each day, so they are never on too early or late. It is pretty easily controllable using a regular browser from anywhere in the world and the best part is that there are no subscription fees. If anyone wants some advice on it, feel free to contact me as I have a few years of experience with them.

As far as the door locks go, there is an API that will allow you to read and write to the lock. There is some significant security to reach this API through the web, but it is certainly do-able.

You can create multiple lock pins. As per the custom field in OREZ,, this is exactly what I do. Mind you, I am finding it onerous to continually create new pin codes for each guest and manage that process. I get lazy and start re-using pin codes and then update them in OREZ on the custom booking field.

If you guys are looking to use someone as a 'guinny pig', I am happy to offer my services. You can use my home lock (accessible through the web as well) as long as you do not lock me out! Ha Ha

Yep, the payment data import is only as good as the data HomeAway provides. It sounds like they've improved it over time, so it might be worth reviewing their sheet again to see if its right.

If you have alternate payments, though, it doesn't have any usable information other than the guest fee -- which we have a separate option to import.

The reservation import is separate from the payment import and updates the contact info only, not any charges/payments, so you can pick and choose which is useful to you.

Thank you, I do not use them, but folks on HA forum said multiple times that HA payments download spreadsheet is wrong. so wonder what it would do if imported. I never used theirs, i enter everything manually also because their ss is not clear on what has been paid and what is outstanding. the new mess they have reportedly created iwth damage deposit that they now hold, but reportedly it is still included in spreadsheet as if it was deposited to owner. .

We're now well into Fall, with the nights longer and the mornings crisper. Leaves are changing to brilliant colors, or perhaps already have. The perfect time for our monthly Gallimaufry.

Gallimaufry (n): A collection or hodgepodge of things with no apparent unifying theme.

Previous gallimaufries: June, July/August, September.

We've already announced Vacation Rental Tools, with TripAdvisor reviews download and import reviews from Excel. If you missed it, go read up on that and try it out!

New listing sites

• Florida Rentals
• Cottages in Canada, French - We've supported Cottages in Canada for awhile, but we just added support for parsing inquiries in French

Quote overlay for Ribbon

We added an overlay for the ribbon view that lets you view all quotes or open quotes. This gives you a visual indication of what periods are in demand and helps inform discounts, minimum stay rules etc.

Numbers & Imports

Building on our experience with the Airbnb transaction history import, we've added two new imports for HomeAway/VRBO: reservations and payment data. No longer will you have to copy/paste contact info or add numbers by hand. Instead, grab the export from HomeAway/VRBO, upload it into OwnerRez and everything will be merged and updated.

We also fleshed out the financial section for this so you can track payment fees and guest/host fees and roll up totals on reports. If you're a property manager, you can also track fees as non commissionable amounts and expense them back to the owner.

• HomeAway/VRBO reservation import
• HomeAway/VRBO transaction import
• Add fee tracking to payments and refunds
• Add net rollup fields for bookings and surface on reports
• Split listing site fees to host fees and guest fees
• Add host fee to rent in Airbnb transaction import, factor into payments
• Apply non commissionable amount and linked expense on rent if PM mode on airbnb import

 

PM & Portal Access

We revamped the owner statements and portal access with a new Owner Revenue view and permission that shows commission and owner relevant amounts rather than full guest amounts. We also fleshed out the other permissions, added capabilities to move/delete blocked off time, and added header/footer theme templates and PDF download for statements.

• Add owner revenue statement view with full commission tracking
• Add owner statement header/footer templates (Theming section)
• Add owner statement PDF download button
• Add owner statement merge fields
• Put block reason/title on popover behind portal access permissions
• Add separate financial permission to give levels of access to view financial info on overview and statements
• Honor add notes permission for creating blocks
• Add move/delete block functionality on portal with permission

iCal import

• Add option for importing only bookings. Default airbnb to true.
• Add option for warn on cancel, always cancel if not
• Add option for setting booking pending flag on create
• Add option for skipping create triggers
• Allow IncludePastBookings on edit
• Don't send email on past bookings
• Store related booking ids on calendar sync issue and display links in email
• Collect emails on sync and only send if no exception
• Reactivate canceled bookings instead of adding new if uid and dates match

Widgets & Hosted Sites

• Add option on hosted single home page to show overview
• Add option on hosted single photos page to show slider
• Minify widget resources
• Add message directing guest to send an inquiry when rates aren't found on the booking widget
• Show errors immediately for quote without occupancy
• Don't show holiday circle on booked multi month calendar days
• Don't autopopulate departure date on book widget
• Fix issue with zoomed in browser cutting off widget sizing

Everything else...

• Add agreement selection to quote rules to select specific renter agreement
• Allow checkout with no payment without going pending
• Clarify how confirmation required works
• Add form messages for checkout custom fields
• Overhaul booking overview page
• Add listing site criteria to tax
• Add min nights column on seasons grid
• Show existing custom field values on agreement sign
• Expand multiline custom fields on checkout
• Use standard date format for inquiry email subjects
• Add French synonyms on inquiry parser
• Add booking Created, Arrival and Departure as date-based fields to surcharge criteria
• Add paid in full booking trigger event
• Add nights summary field to booking summary report
• Add option for showing canceled bookings on booking detail
• Add cleaning date to stay reports
• Fix total paid column on booking export, add refunded column
• Add phone, state, country to search
• Search all phones/emails/addresses on a guest not just the first
• Show all phone/email on search results
• Wire in booked type for OwnerRez iCal feeds
• Link call log from call center dialer
• Embed search in call center dialer on call connect
• Show proper description on outgoing call dialog

I am looking to update my system. Probably using Wink and then schlage or kwikset lock. I will probably use my guests last 4 digits of their telephone number(I think that is an option) for lock access so its something they easily remember. From what I have read that maybe the easiest option. Then create a template where you can add those numbers with the insert field. Possibly having one where you can select their last 4 digits of their phone number. It would be nice to be able to bypass me creating the code each time, and have OwnerRez do that for me, but not sure how that would work.

This has now been released.

There is a new Owner Revenue view of the owner statements, with a Financials permission in the portal access user configuration that lets you control which is accessible. That also applies to the booking view as well.

For the header/footer, there is a new Owner Statements header/footer configuration in Settings > Theming. That allows you to pull owner name, email, etc, as well as statement date. The header/footer will display while printing an owner statement only. There's also a new Download PDF button that includes the header/footer as well.

Yes to the later.

How does that work without being confusing, though?

If you show the guest pays but don't show how it breaks down to the owner amount and commission, the owner is going to ask why the guest paid * 45% is different from what you're taking as commission. Same thing with hiding taxes.

Or are you suggesting to hide all that and never show guest amount/payments at all. Instead show just those 3 values:

Total Owner Revenue: sum of items that aren't tax and aren't 100% commission
PM Comm = sum of commission on items that aren't 100% commission
Net Owner Earnings: total owner - commission

In my opinion the owner statement needs to show amounts that only relate to them.

If we use this Guest charges example:

Rent – 800.00 (PM Comm 45%)
Cleaning Fee – 100.00 (PM Comm 100%) NOT owner related revenue
Pet Fee – 100.00 (PM Comm 45%)
Taxes – 130.00
Guesst Pays – 1130.00

Owner Related Revenue (Owner Statement reporting)

Rent – 800.00 (PM Comm 45%)
Pet Fee – 100.00 (PM Comm 45%)

Total Owner Revenue - 900.00
PM Comm - 405.00

Net Owner Earnings - 495.00

Guest Charges

Item Description Rate Amount Commission
Rent 7 nights during Base Rates at Week rate 800.00 800.00 45%
Surcharge Cleaning Fee 80.00 80.00 100%
Surcharge Pet Fee 100.00 100.00 45%
Tax HST 13% 127.40

Hmm, that's a good point on financials. Maybe we need two levels for that, full financials and owner only. What items make sense to show under Owner Only? There are a lot of numbers so it needs to be simple and not confusing. The detailed items are already available on the owner statement Full Amounts view, so perhaps we could display some of those items instead?

Or maybe the Earnings Breakdown and Payout Breakdown on the PM tab of the booking, like:

Earnings Breakdown
Total Amount:
$1,830.98
Taxes:
$170.98
PM Commission:
$182.60
Owner Payout:
$1,477.40
Payout Breakdown
Guest Balance:
$1,830.98 (100%)
Can Be Remitted:
$1,477.40
Already Remitted:
$1,477.40 (Statement 1/31/2017 and Statement 9/30/2017)
Payout Balance:
$0.00

Great idea on the owner statement header/footer customizations! We'll look into it -- should be able to add that in the theming section like you can do for email templates, legal agreements

Wow, lot's of upgrades. Love it. Just beginning to dig in on some of these.

I have a couple of questions/suggestions in regard to the Owner Portal Access.

For the Booking Calendar:

When displaying financials inside of the booking calendar, the total charges shown here reflect all charges to the guest. This will cause confusion with owners as they may expect their earnings to be based on the total dollars shown. This is incorrect as it includes fees they are not entitled to earnings on such as taxes and cleaning fee.

Is it possible to display only the charges that the owners have a share in?


For the Owner Statements:

Is it possible to modify the owner statement header area to include more information? The reason for this is, it can then fully replace our owner statements and stand as a formal document for the owner’s records.

Here is an image of what I mean. https://ibb.co/dwsp86