General Help and Questions

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Yep, it's never good to have a third party in charge of the damage deposit. I've seen people doing exactly what you describe with stating the secdep in the house rules and it works well.

Sending the link should work as long as you go into the booking Rules and enable the secdep there. That's probably what's tripping it up right now -- you have the secdep off for the property, so the booking Rules default to that. But you can change that on a booking by booking basis.

Set it to "automatically reserve a security deposit" even though it won't actually be automatic in this case, and fill out the details. Leave "Security Deposit Reminder" set to "do not send an email reminder" because you'll be sending your own 3 days before arrival.

Once you do that, the security deposit link will be enabled for the booking and you can send it to the guest.

Did the security deposit release go through successfully as normal?

Usually it is the same day you release the security deposit, but the actual removal of the hold is up to the originating bank that issue the guest credit card. We've found that banks tend to be worse about releasing holds on debit cards, unfortunately.

Some times if the guest contacts their bank they'll be able to speed up the release process by noticing you've released on your end and dropping it off the account manually.

VRBO/Ha started to hold security deposits (i.e they charge the renter sec dep but they do not deposit it into owner's account). I do not like that arrangement at all. I like to be in control of deposit instead of (potentially) having to prove damages to HA in order to collect from deposit.
So I was entertaining the following idea.
1. set up VRBO with "security deposit not required".
2. Disclose in VRBO listing that sec dep will be required by a cc and will be collected 3 days prior to arrival.
3. VRBO booking is imported to OR
4. be able to send the sec dep link to the renter 3 days prior to arrival and have them submit their CC info for the sec dep amount. I don' want to have to handle their CC myself

I have done some testing and it seems I am unable to set up a link for sec deposit UNLESS I enter guest's card number. But i want to have THEM enter the card number when they receive a link.

P.S. I do not collect sec dep in a form of CC auth for my OR bookings - I have it as a nontaxable "surcharge" that I later refund. So i do not have sec dep enabled globally.

So is there anything i am doing wrong here? That is preventing me form being able to send them a link where they can enter their CC for sec dep hold?
TIA

How long does it usually take for the security deposit release to clear? I've had a couple people who paid with debit cards follow up about the deposit. I have SecureNet for the process.

thanks,
-JJ

Huh, that's a great idea! Like you mentioned, we already trigger the events in GA.

Could add some custom vars in there for Arrival and Departure, would that work?

is there any way to track in stats which dates users are queriying inquiry/book widgets for? We can already see in GA when user is using a booking/inquiry widget of which property. It's be great if we can also see what dates they plugged in. TIA.

Yes , that is what I did - put "undersigned" instead of name. Thanks a lot!

No, you can reference the guest name in the agreement, but the signing name isn't known until after the agreement is rendered.

Instead, it's stamped at the top and the bottom with their name and signature (see below). Can you reference the signatory, undersigned, etc.?

Eventually we'll add something where you can break the agreement into sections and require initialing of each one separately, but that's a more complex process to have multiple sections, sign, then stitch them back together.

Yep, the hotfix did the blanking. Have a look at the sign link for that booking now. The name will now be blank and you'll see the additional signing note at the bottom. That way when Sam Spade goes to sign, he'll have to put in his name or get an error. He could still put in the wrong name on purpose, but won't do it by accident.

Here's an example:

Good call on the blanking of the signing name -- we just pushed up a hotfix to do that and add a signature message.

The checkout fields are collected before the renter agreement, just for that reason -- so they can be included in the agreement.

We don't have a way to validate number of people on checkout, other than adding a required field where they type the number of guests again -- that may actually be the best way. Add a field called "confirm number of guests", require it, and then check that against the number of guests on the quote.

Problem with an actual number that would go into the guests field is that many amounts are based on number of guests with guest fees etc. But if you're checking the confirm field, you can then update the charges to match and send them another sign link from the booking.

The legal agreement prepopulates with the contact name from the contact info checkout step. Are they missing that and then just clicking next...next...next? I suppose I could see that, but what about the other side -- do you validate that the signing name matches the contact name or the billing name, and if so, what if they're different.

On the same note, I have a lot of situations when one person inquires but another member of the partywants to pay and be the signer of rental agreement. But the legal agreement form pre populates original inquirer's name . Is there any way to make that blank and require the signer to type in their name? Thanks

Cool. Noticed you're making some fields for other things like State and Phone. Most of those should be already collected at checkout - it's usually the guest list you need the custom field for.

To see how checkout looks for the guest, first go to Settings > Payment Methods and add one so you can go through checkout. A check method is is easy, and you can turn it off later if you don't want to take checks. Then go to Quotes and create a test one. Use the Payment Form link and that will take you to the checkout that the guest will see.

Got it - Thank you!

The code is what you'll pick in the Insert Field dialog to reference it in the legal agreement. The name is the human readable label.on The code is for the merge engine to reference. Put something like GUESTLIST - you'll see how it works once you get to the Insert Field step..

Thank you! What should I put in the Merge Code box?

Here's an article on adding fields to checkout: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/capture-additional-fields-on-checkout-quote-acceptance

In this case, make it a "rich text" type (which will make it multi line) and make it required. In the field description, tell the guest to enter name and age, one per line.

Then go to the renter agreement ( legal agreements section in settings) and use the Insert Field button to add it.

I've uploaded my rental agreement, and would like to add custom fields for guests to complete prior to signing the agreement. (For example, I require the names and ages of all guests in the house). Could someone walk me through this process? Thanks so much!

yes to reviews too. I have them saved as text and I manually add to website but that is not the best way. will the new widget also allow guest to enter a review?

Thanks for the vote on the reviews! That helps us prioritize things to do.

I don't have a set date for you yet, but I can tell you that it's moving up the to-do list in priority.

Yep, that's a setting on the widget. Set Adult Term to "Adult" instead of "Guest":

Can you change the booking widget to read "Adults" and "Children" Instead of "Guests" and "Children"

Multiple guests have 4 adults and 4 kids but when they read "Guests" they put 8 and "Children" 4 so it comes to me as 12 total guests, which is not what they intended.

I would like to see a way to store reviews from guests in each reservation record in ownerez and then have a widget to display these on my web page.

I used to display the VRBO reviews using their widget on my webpage but I'm getting fed up with Homeaway and don't want to direct people to their sites because of the fees they charge guests.

Any idea when this review feature may become available?

Maria

Took a few tries but it is working now. Thanks so much for your quick reply! Much appreciated.

This usually happens when you paste the code into the Visual tab instead of the Text tab -- it ends up displaying the code on the page instead of executing the code and rendering the widget.

Just switching to the Text tab won't fix it because the code is broken from pasting into the Visual tab.

To solve the problem:
- Switch to the Text tab
- Delete everything in the Text box
- Copy/paste a fresh version of the embed code from OwnerRez into the Text box