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I'm glad I haven't activated the QuickBooks integration yet after reading this. I think I'll hold off until some of these problems are addressed.

Would really like this feature. Been searching for a way to put dates on hold until a guest completes a quote.

Not the entire financial structure of OwnerRez, but of how our financial structure is synced to QB. The financial structure on our side is pretty solid and we don't have any plans to redo it (other than some things like security deposits which are actively in development). The issue is what is synced to QB and in what order and what all needs to be built around it.

Thanks for the detailed follow-up. Much appreciated.

A quick note on this part:

This is unique to Vrbo and using calendar import (iCal) to bring in bookings. If you connected the Vrbo channel integration, this would stop happening as all new bookings would come in with the guest's full name in addition to many other great things.

But you're right in general about it creating new customer names. That's something that needs to be fixed.

Happy Fourth of July -
I am going to restate Dori123
"it is frustrating to see features and updates being rolled out regularly in other parts of the system while the QB integration gets none, and is an extra cost each month"
I signed up for OR thinking that the QB integration would work. It was disappointing to find out, after the fact, how unfinished the product was.
In your reply to Dori123 you admit that the entire financial structure of OR needs to be redone. I am not sure if that is 100% true and as big an obstacle as you say. You just need to relabel all funds that OR receives, prior to the tenant departure date, as a Tenant Deposit - Current Liability. You then add code to create an exportable journal entry that moves the Deposit into the appropriate revenue and expense accounts. That's the way accountants would do this. You don't actually earn the revenue until you deliver the property and complete the lease.
The crux of the issue is paying for an integration that does not actually work properly and causes issues on the reconciliation end. I have had to hire an expensive accountant (Ximplifi) to deal with this as it is too difficult and time-consuming for me given my other responsibilities.
My suggestion to you:
Reduce the charge for this incomplete feature until you can complete the required work and offer true integration. Then raise the price back up to compensate OR for the work you have done.
I hope these thoughts help.

Thanks for the candid response, Paul.

The issues that this integration creates rather than solves for me are:

1. OR sends taxes through as a line item rather than a tax. This is problematic because I use QB -- not OR -- to track the taxes I need to pay. So I have to back out each of the tax line items on every invoice and enter them into QB correctly, as taxes. I think most small business owners use QB as the "final word" on finances, not OR.

I know you guys suggest a work-around for this, but I don't want to change the way I log taxes in QB to accommodate OR in the short term, especially if OR has a goal of overhauling to plug into QB tax functionality on down the line.

2. When I have a refund, OR zeros out or changes the line items in the original invoice. This doesn't work because it does not allow me to track the money I receive and the money I refund. In other words, I end up with an invoice in QB that says "Rent $0.00," but what I need is an invoice that says "Rent $1,000," which matches to a $1,0000 deposit, then a separate Refund for $1,000 that matches to a withdrawl of $1,000. These are a pain to fix; sounds like you are aware of this from your reply.

I don't like that OR auto-updates invoices after they were created, without a warning or any message notifying the user of the change. Any time OR attempts to change a historical record, there needs to be a warning of what is changing and an option to leave it be.

3. I get orphaned customer names. Each time a reservation is created, I get an customer created in QB as "first name." Once I run the Channel Bridge, a separate customer is created for "first name, last name." So I have to go through and merge all of the "first name" customers with their matching "first name, last name" customers.

4. Each time OR updates the customer record in QB, it wipes away the changes I have made to that customer in QB. Again, this happens without warning and without notification. For example, when a customer record is created in QB (for an invoice, for example), I update the "sub-customer" type so that I can run reports by property. Once the payment is recorded, OR updates QB again and erases the sub-type that I changed. So I have to go in and do it again. This is true not just for customer sub-types, but for all data on the customer record. Any changes you make on the QB side -- even in those fields that do not exist on the OR side -- will get updated back to the original OR record or to the QB default, which may be null.

I agree that a huge overhaul of the integration is needed and I'm glad it's on the radar. Of course, I'd like to see it become more of a priority, especially because I am paying extra for this integration (in my case, the QB integration costs about 50% of the monthly OR system charge).

I am particularly frustrated because I changed my accounting over to QB Online specifically for this integration. So I went from paying $0/month for my QB desktop to $40/month for the QB Online package, plus an additional $15/month to OR. So I am now paying $55/month instead of $0/month and getting functionality that takes as much time to clean up as it did to manually input the data to my QB desktop version.

Given the current state of things, is it possible to include the QB integration for free, since it is admittedly not a robust integration yet? Or at the very minimum, lower the QB pricing?

Seems to me this would be a win for you guys, as you'd get more people to use it and therefore would get a lot more feedback on how to design the future integration. It would also encourage those of us who are early adopters to stick with it.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Thank you. I will watch but I am more interested in chargeback protection option. I would think that there would be some switch to enable that as it is the merchant who needs chargeback protection, not the buyer.

Thanks for the direct and honest feedback, Dori123. You're not alone. Many many OR users have asked about the QuickBooks integration. We have planned and designed but had to sit on them over time as other things have gotten in the way.

There are basically two types of QB updates:

1) A big overhaul that needs to be done that will change the entire process for how OwnerRez bookings/payments go to QuickBooks. Instead of invoices and payments, money will be held in liability and then realized through sales receipts at the time of booking. Several accountants have worked with us to form a better process around this and cover more bases. It's a much better method, but requires a lot of work that we simply have never started. No ETA on this.

2) A lot of small tweaks that could make the current "classic" sync method work better. We do roll out tweaks now and then, but you're right that it could be a lot better.

One of the problems that delays QuickBooks updates is that we see other accounting things that need to be changed first. For instance, to fully handle QuickBooks "to the penny" reconciliation, we need to add the concept of "Deposits" to OwnerRez so that you can trace payments that come in bundled together and have fees take out. Then those Deposits would get pushed to QuickBook as deposits on that side and your bank transactions would match to the penny. But we haven't built the Deposit concept in OwnerRez yet, so obviously we can't do the QuickBooks portion.

We are tracking a number of tweaks to the classic sync method (#2 above) and look forward to getting more out before end of Q3.

If you could boil down your issues to the main ones, what would help you right now overcome your QuickBooks problems?

Hi BlueMtnCabins,

Thanks for sharing this. I'm not quite sure what the answer is - I'd recommend reaching out to PayPal for clarity.

OwnerRez integrates with the "Express Checkout" integration method that PayPal has support for like 2 decades now, but that's just an integration style. It's a way of attaching our "shopping cart" to theirs and directing users to login to their PayPal accounts to create a payment and then navigate back to our "shopping cart" to finalize.

What the actual type of payment is under the covers - PayPal Credit, Rewards, digital debit - is not really known by OwnerRez. We simply get a "shopping cart" authorization and then finalize it by telling PayPal "go ahead and collect that payment now" when you get to the final part of the booking confirmation. What the customer selected for their payment is not really something we control or see.

May best guess would be that it has to do with what the customer enters on the PayPal side - a credit card directly or if they're using one of the credit/Venmo/PayPal "balance" methods to pay. But again, you should contact PayPal directly and ask about this.

I agree 100%. I use the integration. It needs more work.

I feel like the lone requester of features related to QB. Surely other users are running into some of the same issues as I am... I *think* the OR team is working on this integration but it is frustrating to see features and updates being rolled out regularly in other parts of the system while the QB integration gets none, and is an extra cost each month. I'm considering dumping the integration because it creates as many problem s as it solves, but I keep thinking the fixes will come out as soon as I disable it. I'd love to hear an update on the QB roadmap and how that's progressing. Thanks!

The fix went out this morning.

Happy Fourth!

Saw this in email .
"What are the upcoming pricing changes for merchants in the U.S.?
Effective August 2, 2021, we’ll be making changes to our published rates in the United States to better align our pricing with the value that our products and services provide to merchants. Our goal is to be transparent and upfront with our customers about the changes. These changes only apply to our U.S. users and will primarily apply to our merchants, although some changes will apply to consumers as well. Notice of such changes was posted on our Policy Updates page on June 18, 2021. "
snip
"PayPal Digital Payments: For PayPal payment products (such as PayPal Checkout, Pay with Venmo, PayPal Credit, Pay in 4, PayPal Pay with Rewards, Checkout with crypto), which include Seller Protection on eligible transactions, the rate for online transactions will be 3.49% + $0.49* per transaction.

​In-person Payments: PayPal and Venmo QR code: For PayPal and Venmo QR code transactions over $10, the rate is 1.90% + $0.10, and for such transactions $10 and under, the rate is 2.40% + $0.05.

​In-person Payments: PayPal Zettle: Effective June 30, 2021, for PayPal Zettle card present transactions, the rate will be  2.29% + $0.09. For PayPal and Venmo QR code transactions accepted through the PayPal Zettle app, the rate will be  2.29% + $0.09. For Zettle manual card entry transactions, the rate will be  3.49% + $0.09.

Credit and Debit Card payments: Online credit and debit card transactions will be 2.59% + $0.49* per transaction without Chargeback Protection, or 2.99% + $0.49 with Chargeback Protection."

Do our transaction fall under credit/debit or digital? Thoughts on "chargeback protection"?

Hmm. Yes, Airbnb is a bit different because everything is done as a special offer. Currently it is using the base rates, assuming you'll be adjusting. But it does make more sense to calculate with the rate adjustment and then you can adjust from that amount if needed.

We'll get a fix in place for that.

Forgive me, I only get an Airbnb inquiry once in 6 months. So not very familiar. had an inquiry come in. It suggest "create and send quote" via channel as "special offer". My channel setting is to upcharge 10% on Airbnb. But when quote (as "special offer") was created, it did not look like it had 10% upcharge. I ran a "channel rate tester" and that showed correct amount with upcharge. "Special offer" quote:
Rent 5 nights 2,706.00 $2,706.00
Surcharge Cleaning Fee 190.00 $190.00
Total: $2,896.00

Channel Rate tester for same dates:
Rent 5 nights 2,976.60 $2,976.60
Surcharge Cleaning Fee 209.00 $209.00
Total $3,185.60

quite a difference!

Ok. In this case, It’d be nice to just have all 12 months there bc the “Last 12 Months view” is going to be most important for most owners/property managers and there’s currently no way for me to manually make a “Last 12 Months Report” and put it in the dashboard for my owner’s to view when they log in.
^^^
Just a suggestion, since I am both an owner & a property manager. One of my owner’s today asked if a 12 Month View could be easily accessed.

The owner dashboard shows the current month with the next and previous 5 months. December isn't currently in that range, which is why it isn't shown.

Once it gets to July, then December will be within the 5 month range so it will then show up.

Awesome, Ken. I just emailed them with the screenshot. :)

Oh, looks like you've never written in to the Helpdesk before - the form is just a front-end to its email address:

help@ownerreservations.com

Ken, can you provide a link or instructions on how to "write in to the Helpdesk with the URL and a screenshot?" I have not found any form within Owner Rez that allows you to attach a screen shot.
Here's the link to the URL:
https://app.ownerrez.com/portal/ownerdashboard

Hmm, we're not able to duplicate this. Can you write in to the Helpdesk with the URL you're looking at, and a screenshot?

Hey OwnerRez Fam! First off, I LOVE the software and the ability to search out/create my own solutions within here via the "search function." However, I've come across a mini-glitch that I'm unable solve which is the following:
In the Owner's Dashboard (that shows all financials for a property when an owner of mine logs in), the month of December doesn't show up. The columns run January-November and the last column shows the annual. I'd really like for December to show up as well so my different owners can log-in and view accurate financial data (not just 11 months of it).
^^^
Beyond that, the Dashboard looks PHENOMENAL and I'm thankful for the great software and value OwnerRez provides! :)

Great thank you.

When a voting thread is merged into another voting thread, the votes are automatically combined. Non-voting threads don't have votes to combine, which is why I posted a note - anyone who was watching this thread now knows where to go to vote up the feature.

https://www.alignpay.com/

Can you please add the votes for the other 2 threads that were closed for the same request to this item.

You'll want to vote up this suggestion:

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/trigger-for-exact-day-of-week-trash-reminders

You'll want to vote up this suggestion:

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/trigger-for-exact-day-of-week-trash-reminders