General Help and Questions

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We are, yes. We are right on the edge of a bunch of trigger and email template work (eg. changing all email sending to be proper trigger events across the board). We're also adding SMS templates, quote-based triggers and more. Did you notice that triggers now have a little "adjacent days" criteria check on them? That lets you target people with an open night before or after their stay and send them an email asking if they want to buy it at a discount. Lots in the pipe line right for triggers and templates. We've done do much work on PM, ADP, Call Center and Hosting over the summer that those other areas have gone a little stale. ~Sam

Going to try setting this up again from scratch.

I created a season, 2/18/17 thru 2/27/17, with a min night stay of 5 nights.

When I do rate testing, the system is allowing me to book less than the mininimum 5 nights during that season. I don't understand.

Here is a screencast: https://youtu.be/TrOvDvjhgIU

Thanks.

I guess I'm just a super user :) Love the email templates!!!! Are you planning on giving the ability to do triggers for people that have inquired but not booked any time soon :) I'd love to automate my booking pipeline even more!

I wanted to talk about the damage protection insurance part as well, since you mentioned it.

You are absolutely correct that VRBO and some of the other players in the industry have VERY BAD products. We hear this a lot. Not only are the premiums expensive but they set up the claim process to deny everything unless you have a lot of admitted guilt by the guest and a 3 inch stack of receipts. It's really pretty much a scam.

A few months ago, we developed a partnership with Travel Guard/AIG and developed a product that works very very well. It's aimed to cover every booking WITHOUT the guest knowing about it because guests that know about damage protection tend to treat property with a cavalier/wild attitude (since they know damage is covered).

What happens is - if you sign up for it - all of your bookings are covered by default. When you create a booking in our system, a damage protection policy is issued automatically. The cost per booking and coverages are as follows:
The guest is not told about this. If you want to increase the cost of your rates or add a surcharge to cover it, you can, but the protection is between you and Travel Guard/AIG.

The claim process is very straightforward. It doesn't matter if the guest admits that they damaged it or not. It doesn't even matter if you know WHICH guest damaged it. If you make the claim within 14 days of damage and pay for it within 60 days (the replacement/fix cost) you will be reimbursed. The process is hassle free and does not depend on guests acknowledging blame.

In addition, we recommend that you still do a security hold on every booking. Security holds on the credit card give the guests incentive to behave (since their money is on the line) and it provides a double wall of protection against damage.

Security deposits (for damage which are done as "holds" on the credit card) are a great feature in our system, and we have a lot of great automation built around that process.

The charges that you see on the quote are not part of the security deposit. The security deposit (or "security hold" which is a better of thinking about it) is part of the process that the guest agrees to when viewing and accepting the quote. For instance, here is a sample quote that the guest sees. I've arrow'd the part about the security deposit. (click to open bigger view)
All of this is dynamic based on your settings and options in your account.

You create rules (property > rules) about how you want the security deposits to be held. For instance, when it's taken, for how much, etc. our system the automatically places a hold on the guest's credit card (or authorized PayPal transaction) for that amount. After the booking is over, we send you an email each day until the security deposit is released. It's very simple to release - one click. If you want to collect on it, that is simple to do as well.

There are a variety of emails that are sent to the guest as well during this process. For instance, here's a plain vanilla "receipt" style email that is sent to the guest when the security deposit is reserved by the system. (click to open bigger view)
If the credit card failed, there is a email template for that as well as when it's released and other things.

Hi again!

We do not have our own internal credit card processing. We feel that it's better to integrate with other systems and offer variety so that users can shop and get different rates. We have developed integration for many other industry-standard systems. We support virtually all the leading systems.

Currently we support 16 credit card processors. We also support PayPal (you can use this along side credit card processing so that the guest can choose either).

You can also add "check" and "custom instruction" payment methods so that the guest can still book but send you a check in the mail.

This support articles shows our payment methods:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/payment-methods

Or you can go to Settings > Payment Methods in the app.

If you're looking to get set up quickly, we recommend using Braintree Payments or Stripe. They have instant-on applications online that can you get you started quickly. Once you set up your account, you can plug that right into our system, and it's seamless from then on.

Hi!

We can definitely convert the PDF file for you and get a renter agreement set up for you in the system.

Our renter agreement actually uses a text based system so that you can fully customize it online. The DOCX upload just converts to that after you upload it.

We do also so that you can embed field codes so that the final (signed) renter agreement for each guest signs is unique to them with their information.

For instance, here's what our renter agreement looks like in the editor:
I circled a couple of field codes so that you can see what I mean. We have a lot of field codes for all the common booking-related type of information you may want your renter agreement to include. Some of the field codes (it's a big list):
The bottom line is that we whatever format your current renter agreement is in, we have to copy it into our text editor so that you can prepare it to be used.

The signed agreement is then converted to a signed PDF that is stored for each bookings.

Does that make sense?

Send us an email ticket with your PDF agreement you want to start with, and we'll convert that for you. If you can't find our contact page, you can also email help@ownerreservations.com directly to create a ticket.

I do not see the security deposit in the quote. How is that handled?

I had a bad experience vith vrbo insurance where the did not pay the claim because the renter said it was broke when they got there Even thou my terms and conditions says they must report any broken item within 4 hours of check in. CSA insurance sucks when it comes to protecting the property owner. The renter is from out of state and I would have to file a small claims case in another state.

Does your service include credit card processing or do I need another company to process the cc on my own website. www.pcb-beach-condos.com

I have seen in your ads that you say your system will accept terms and conditions in pdf. Yet when you go to upload it only wants docx How do I convert my pdf file to docx?

@Marinas Edge: found and fixed! You had so many custom email templates that the bottom of the "switch to template" drop-down was getting cut off. I guess we never tested with that many. If you go back to the email editor and refresh, it should show the whole list now.

When clicking "Email" from a booking and selecting "Compose new email" I don't see the template I just created (it's called "after stay email).

Please advise.

Todd, you can also find canceled bookings under the general search as well. If you know the name (or any part of it) enter it up top in the search box.

That returns all records that match and shows a "[CANCELED]" indicator on any that are canceled.

Hi Todd,

Go to the Bookings menu, then change the view to "List" view.
You'll see a grid of all your bookings. You can sort, page and filter the grid.

Under each column header, there is a filter option. Look for the filter option under the Total column. Click that filter and change it to Any Status or Only Canceled.
That will show you a list that includes canceled bookings.

HI I THINK I MAY OF ACCIDENTALLY CANCELLED OR DELETED A WRONG BOOKING, HOW DO I SEE A LIST OF CANCELLED BOOKINGS N THE WEBSITE, I SAW AN EARLIER THREAD OF GOING TO BOOKINGS AND THEN TO A GRID OF SOME SORT BUT I CANT FIGURE OUT WHAT THAT MEAN. CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO SEE A LIST OF ALL CANCELELD OR DELETED BOOKINGS. THANKS

You caught us during an update deployment last night. This problem affected quote charge editing only, not booking charges. It's now fixed.

Let me know if it works on your end.

just created a quote for a potential renter. When I attempt to adjust the rental rate, I get a server error. Please let me know when resolved. Thanks.

Looks like Google Sites doesn't allow iframes in their HTML box: https://support.google.com/sites/answer/2500646?hl=en - Our widgets use an iframe to embed the content in your site, so they won't work in the HTML box.

It looks like they do have a way to write a custom "Gadget" (https://developers.google.com/google-apps/sites/gadgets/site_gadgets) that would allow you to embed, if you know HTML/javascript etc, but no drag and drop way.

We do support a bunch of other site builders, for example Wordpress, WiX, Weebly, etc. -- basically anything that allows you to embed HTML. There are guides for all of those here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/recommended-reading/sites-widgets

Anyone use Google Sites for their website? Since I now maintain an unrelated website on Google Sites, I was going to create my rental website on that platform. But, I cannot get the widgets to work there.

cheers,
-JJ

Try entering a negative expense? I believe that will work, but can't swear to it. So under the top PM menu, click expenses, record expend and set the amount to negative. Then do an owner statement (preview only) and see if the negative expense shows up. You can also enter expenses on the booking directly. If PM menu is turned on, open any booking and click the expenses tab. Just a thought...

Hi All, There are times we receive money on behalf of the property owner for incidentals (i.e.. Electricity consumed by the renter) How do you credit this amount to the specific property?

Thank you - I just had to shrink size to be able to go to the bottom of the page and select.

There should be a "Last Month" value near the bottom of the period selector. That's a bit confusing with some being called "Previous 3 months" and then that being "Last Month", so I'll see if we can tighten that up.

Also, at the very bottom of the period selector there is "Custom Range" -- that'll allow you to put in whatever range you want.

For tax and payments
On Period to select
Would like to select a From and To Date
I file tax by the month - usually the end of the month - not due until
the 22nd of the next - but have been away 3 weeks - which throws the
report into the next month.
On the drop down, am not able to select month - to get last month only.
Can select previous 3 months -- but not previous month.
This is what I used - generated a complete report - copied to Excel sheet
and deleted first two months-- could not do that for the tax report though.

Yep, it is highly requested.

Were you able to get the main rates view filtered by property? That should help, at least. You can also sort that table by season as well, to see the rates in chronological order -- to do this, click on the Season column header.

Hope you can get that individual rates table developed soon! I'm cross-eyed trying to check my rates on 4 different properties. There has got to be an easier way! So far, love everything else about your site but the inability to see my rates, in chronological order, for each individual house is a joy killer!

I wanted to follow-up this...

There is definitely a way to add automatic discounts for certain lengths of stay.

Let's take Paul's exact example:

1) customer stays 4 nights, a discount of 10% per stay is given
2) customer stays 5 nights, a discount of 12% per stay is given

Go to Surcharges & Discounts (under Settings), click Create and then fill it in like so:

1) Set the type to Discount
2) Set the name to "4 night stay discount"
3) Set the amount type to Percent and the amount to 10%
4) Set applies to Per Stay
5) Under Criteria, change Bookings to Specific Bookings
6) Set the booking criteria to 'Number of Nights' is 'equal to' and set the value to 4 nights

It should look like this:
Then Save!

Then add another for 5 nights or 6 nights or whatever you want. You could also make a range of them so that the same discount applies to greater than 4 nights but less than 7. Play with the criteria a bit until you get what you want.

Always use Tools > Rate Tester to make sure your rates are coming out correctly. I just tested this and I see it working like so:

Hey Ella,

When I was attempting to implement something that I thought would work I ran into snags as can be seen in this thread: https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/general-help/pricing-help

Since, I haven't revisited the issue because the setup was becoming consuming...

When I get it setup to what I think works, I'll definitely share. :)

Hi Paul,
Could you let us know how you achieved it? That would be helpful :)
Ella

It does and thanks for the reply.

I'll play around with it a bit more. Cheers...