General Help and Questions

Latest Activity...

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:18 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

In that sense, no payment is guaranteed. Even if the guest hands you cash, they can sue you in small claims court and get the court to side with them in which case you're going to end up handing the cash back. With credit cards, you are guaranteed (on an approval) that the funds are available and the bank really will transfer them to you. ACH doesn't return any approval on funds.

Commission Not Calculating On Some Properties 1 reply

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:14 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

Hi Stephanie,

There are several reasons why a booking isn't showing up on a statement. Here are several reasons:

- The booking may be outside the range of the statement.

- The booking may not have any commission generated. Check the booking's PM tab.

- The guest may not have paid anything. If the booking has no recorded payments, the booking won't be picked up for a statement because you were never actually paid any money by the guest. You can't remit money to an owner that you were never paid.

- The payments on the booking may be "in the future" mean that the date of payment is beyond the date of the statement. If this is the case, the booking won't be picked up for statements since you haven't been paid yet.

If none of those are the reason, give me the booking # in question and the statement date you're running.

A Compound property that is also individual properties 4 replies

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:12 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

Remember that each of the combinations has its own calendar syncing. So you're still syncing calendars between OR property (eg. Duplex Right Side) and the Airbnb listing for that.

A Compound property that is also individual properties 4 replies

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:11 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

Yes it will. Many owners/hosts do this. Just add a listing for each combination:

Duplex Left Side - sleeps 3
Duplex Right Side - sleeps 3
Duplex Upstairs - sleeps 4
Upstairs and Left Side - sleeps 7
Upstairs and Right Side - sleeps 7
Whole House - sleeps 10!

That's 6 listings. And with the calendars properly working, and the mutual block-off in place in OwnerRez, the entire thing will work seamlessly.

Cleaning Schedule 7 replies

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:09 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

At the moment, no. The field is empty until something is manually entered.

surcharge - minimum? 4 replies

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:08 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

Then the booking criteria should work for that. Set booking criteria to number of guests >= 4 on the surcharge.

PayPal 7 replies

Paul W
Jun 13, 2019 9:07 AM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

Yes, but if PayPal is not offered as an option, would you refuse to buy from that vendor rather than use a credit card? Unlikely, particularly with a vacation rental that you want that is available and covers the amenities you're looking for.

Alternatives to WorldPay 6 replies

Floridaloha
Jun 13, 2019 7:40 AM
Member for 10 years 56 posts

Thank you, Chris. I've been out of the loop for too long and will try to catch up. Thank you very much! It's great to know that I have alternatives to WorldPay (and pay and pay and pay!)

Nancy

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

JTVRs
Jun 12, 2019 8:38 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

There does seem to be a question. Apparently however a wire transfer cannot be reversed easily. But they are not so easy.

https://www.thebalance.com/tips-on-ach-reversals-315439

"Wire Transfers
Wire transfers are different from ACH payments, and they generally cannot be reversed. Wire transfers happen more or less immediately, with the funds leaving your account and arriving at their destination on the same day. They are often available for withdrawal immediately, which makes it even harder to recover funds."

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

Chris Hynes
Jun 12, 2019 4:11 PM
OR Team Member Member for 13 years 1406 posts

FYI, ACH has a 60 day period where guests can do a chargeback (for ACH it's called "reversal" and there is no dispute process -- the money will simply be yanked from your account and you'll have to take the guest to small claims court to recover), so it's not a panacea unless you're only allowing it for far futures bookings.

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

JTVRs
Jun 12, 2019 4:06 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

understood, but I find ACH preferable when possible, as credit cards are not guaranteed if an unscrupulous person tries a flippant chargeback. If someone's cash payment doesn't clear, then they lose their booking!

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

BlueMtnCabins
Jun 12, 2019 1:48 PM
Member for 9 years 1197 posts

What he means is that OR/ Lynnbrook can authorize card transactions virtually instantly - you will know right away whether it approved or declined. By contrast, ACH may take days to finally clear or it may come back with NSF 2-3 days later.

Commission Not Calculating On Some Properties 1 reply

Stephanie W
Jun 12, 2019 4:50 AM
Member for 7 years 1 post

When we are running our owner statements there are a few properties where commission isn't calculating in the statement. I can pull a summary and it's there, it's just not showing. I looked at all of the settings and I cannot figure out why this is happening.

A Compound property that is also individual properties 4 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 10:43 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

A question though, will an AB/Compound Property also work on Airbnb, Booking.com. VRBO and TripAdvisor if I set up on the OR calendar, or is it only for direct bookings?

A Compound property that is also individual properties 4 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 10:41 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

Never mind - I remembered "AB" and found article

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/combined-properties-blockoff-lockoff

A Compound property that is also individual properties 4 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 10:40 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

Sorry to reask, I looked at subject lines of many forum threads and cannot find it

I have a duplex - can be rented together or as two individual units.

Where is that set up again?

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 8:24 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

Credit cards are not "guaranteed". There is a growing incidence of chargebacks - friendly fraud - where people stay and claim that it wasn't their card or the VR was deficient for one of a variety of reasons. They chargeback, which of course can cost you everything. And ding your business and cause you grief trying to fight it.

And of course, the credit card fee.

Alternatives to WorldPay 6 replies

Chris Hynes
Jun 11, 2019 8:03 PM
OR Team Member Member for 13 years 1406 posts

Yep, we've added a lot more over the years. Here's the full list: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/payment-methods

Alternatives to WorldPay 6 replies

Floridaloha
Jun 11, 2019 7:29 PM
Member for 10 years 56 posts

Paul, can I connect these (or any others I might find) with my website quote and booking form like I did with Worldpay?

Alternatives to WorldPay 6 replies

Floridaloha
Jun 11, 2019 7:25 PM
Member for 10 years 56 posts

JTVRs, I know about all of these of course, I’ve been renting my place out for 21 years. This wasn’t my question. I need to integrate whatever alternative payment system with the OwnerRez quote and booking form on my website, and when I signed up for Ownerrez a number of years ago, we only had a couple of bank choices to select from. None of these other options were possible.

Cleaning Schedule 7 replies

TheGrandHacienda
Jun 11, 2019 6:28 PM
Member for 7 years 17 posts

Is it possible to have the field automatically default to the check out date, and then allow it to be changed as needed? Rather than manually entering the date each time?

field codes 3 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 6:23 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

The tabs with different types of field codes on the insert code threw me the first couple of times. I thought there was only an incomplete list

field codes 3 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 6:23 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

The problem is, a newer person might be trying to insert a field code but then they have to go and figure out where to define a custom code is in the interface.

surcharge - minimum? 4 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 6:15 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

The addons are for tours locally. It's not worth spending a half or full-day for one or two people. The idea is a booked group wants to take this, but I just want some way to require at least four people to make it worth my time. I don't want one person to book and then I have to explain to him I can't do the tour.

PayPal 7 replies

JTVRs
Jun 11, 2019 6:11 PM
Member for 7 years 385 posts

It is more for the type of person who doesn't like to put their credit card details online and would prefer to just pay now with PayPal. I do that a lot, for small purchases. I can't use my personal PayPal oh, because I am using an LLC and that would be commingling funds and could ruin the limited liability

amenities 5 replies

Paul W
Jun 11, 2019 5:40 PM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

What matters most is the amenities that make the top filters. Even if "playground" was a listed amenity on the channels, the top (front page, search) filters don't reference it, and don't reference 75% of all the other amenities, so there's no way for guests to narrow down the list based on that. In other words, they can't say "show me only houses with playgrounds". So the only way anyone would know is by clicking on all 47 results and searching each page one by one.

Lynnbrook? 13 replies

Paul W
Jun 11, 2019 5:34 PM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

They can but we don't support it. ACH is a weird animal. We have looked into it a number of times. The problem is that the funds are never guaranteed like credit cards are. There can always be an "Insufficient Funds" code returned a week later by the bank. You then have to go and roll back the payment in the software. There are automated ways of doing this, depending on the ACH vendor that is used, but it's a bit messy so we've stayed away from it thus far. You certainly wouldn't want to use it for last minute bookings.

Cleaning Schedule 7 replies

Paul W
Jun 11, 2019 5:30 PM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

Go to the booking > Info page > Change button and fill in a cleaning date.

Alternatives to WorldPay 6 replies

Paul W
Jun 11, 2019 5:29 PM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

If you have very little direct traffic, look into using Stripe or Braintree which give you a ~3% rate but no monthly or annual fees.

PayPal 7 replies

Paul W
Jun 11, 2019 5:26 PM
OR Team Member Member for 16 years 883 posts

If your users are willing to use credit cards (your not in a market where that is difficult like some countries) then it's best not to use PayPal. We wrote up an article about that here:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/paypal-versus-credit-card-processing

PayPal really offers not advantage and lots of disadvantages. The only advantage would be if you're trying to serve a rental market where CC's aren't common or people don't want to use them or it's a country that is hard to get underwritten for CC.