General Help and Questions

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Hi Michelle,

Can you tell me what the fees related to the 2.25% rate deal are?

Thanks, Pawel

A number of things are incorrect about what you just said...

First, you CAN tell HomeAway to send inquiries to more than one email address. Go into your listing on HomeAway, click the Contacts tab and use the dropdown to select "Add New Contact". Then put in your email address. They'll send the inquiries to you and OwnerRez both.

Second, you don't have to have inquiries come into the system in order to create quotes. You can create quotes manually at any time. Hover over the Quotes menu in OwnerRez and click Create New Quote. Then, you can send that quote to the guest, either by sending them the payment form link in your own email or using the quote email form, so they can accept/finalize their booking.

Does that make sense?

-Michelle

Hi Michelle,

Thank you for the update. Can I ask you to include downloads of any pictures we want to include in the body of our email?

I do try to do what you suggested. It is very hard, in some case. For example, when an email comes from HomeAway, since HA only allows you one email address, it doesn't come to my normal email, so that I could answer it from there. I have to go into OwnerRez and try to get the email, then I have to work around trying to send them the quote or not available email. I could take the email out of the HA but then if they do book, then they can't send the payment via OwnerRez. And the scheduled payments won't take place because I entered it manually. Or, am I missing something? I am trying to have it go through the OwnerRez and keep the automatic payment system do it's job. As far as I understand, that can't happen if I create the quote/inquiry myself. Thus, it has to come in through OwnerRez. At least, for now. If I was able to do that, then I can manage it the way you suggest and just have it go through my main email address and then create it myself...for now.

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

As with all updates, we are tackling small items first and then expanding. This approach allows us to evaluate what we're doing right or wrong quickly without spending 6 months to a year working on a massive feature that may not be needed.

First, we'll be working on small email changes under the covers. We're going to be storing email so that you can see what's been sent. We'll also be adding a simple set of mail merge fields, or "tags" as you call them, so the standard message bodies that are there now can be saved with something different. After that, we'll be setting up a template structure so that you can craft multiple bodies for each type of email form. After that, we'll be expanding to HTML messages (or "rich text") so that you can have your own font and colors and such.

Of course, this could change as we move through the process based on the success or failure of the updates.

You may want to use OwnerRez in parallel with your own email program. In other words, respond to inquiries as you normally would, inside your own Gmail or Hotmail email program, and then use OwnerRez to generate quotes and accept payments. So you talk to the guest and get them to the point where they want to book. At that point, create a manual quote in OwnerRez and send them the link (either copy/paste the payment link into your email or use the quote email form at that point). We have a number of users that do this because they want to maintain their own email style.

-Michelle

"After that, THE VERY NEXT sprint is all email related. Major major email changes coming.

- Michelle"

Hi Michelle,

Can you give me some examples of the changes in email you are working on? I am really struggling here with the way it is now.

Also, I know you can't give me a date, but can you give me a ballpark as to the date you would LIKE to implement the above sprint?

Thanks,
Claudia

I agree with everything David just said. You guys are great!

Claudia

Thanks for the (as always) super quick response. In the interim I will take it out of the contract as it is causing confusion (which I already did). Please let me know when the display issue is fixed.

I am always amazed at the super fast responses to issues and how the product continues to develop and make owning a vacation rental easier!

Keep up the awesome work!

David

Dave, I was going to come back with this. I thought that might be what you were looking at. That's a display issue with the quote - which we've flagged to fix ASAP - but the actual final PDF that's being generated has the right dates in it. So if you were to go ahead and finish accepting that quote, turning it into a booking, you'd see that the final PDF has the right dates in it. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. ~Sam

I just took a look at a test quote I did for July 9 and 10th and the dates in the contract are being populated as:

Arrival Date: May 30, 2012
Depature date: May 31, 2012

Here is a link to the quote:

https://app.ownerrez.com/forms/quotes/c65bde3ad9fe42b18061322babbd28db

David

Sam,

I took it out last night since I had a guest notify me that the dates in the contract were wrong. I did a test quote to myself and saw the same behavior - I will put it back in right now as another test.

David

Thanks for the heads up, Claudia. That really helps. I'm looking into one other possibility right now.

Sam, I went back and looked at my contracts and I have the inserts for booking dates. They are fine on my end.

Maybe the insert used is "Booking Date" and not the other "Booking" inserts.

Claudia

Dave, we couldn't reproduce the problem so I took a look at the renter agreements in your account. You have two renter agreements, one of which is being used. I don't see anywhere in that renter agreement where you have the 'BookingArrivalDate' or 'BookingDepartureDate' fields inserted. Can you be clearer about what field is failing? I also tested those fields on my end and didn't notice them acting incorrectly. ~Sam

Hi David,

We're looking into this now to see if we can reproduce what you are seeing on our end.

-Michelle

If I use the insert field Booking arrival date and Booking Departure date in the contract,the form is date that is displayed is not the actual booking date, but the date that the form is completed by (I think) that date + x days (x= the number of days of the stay). It would be nice to be able to put the correct date in the contract. Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,
David

If you're referring to software fees, yes. Any bookings that are paid for via a merchant account we set up (whether the payments are credit card or e-check) will be free.

-Michelle

When you integrate Echeck using Sage, will it be free for us owners, since it would be done via Sage?

Claudia

Our software is 100% web based. It makes no difference what type of computer you access our software from. You can use PC or Mac, and we support IE, FireFox, Chrome and Safari browsers.

It's like your online banking. You just login, from any browser, and it's all there.

-Michelle

I presently have a PC laptop. I have working with that with OwnerRez with the PC. I entered all my information on there. If I bought a Mac laptop would there be an issues with the old information? Would I have to reenter everything or it is fine to just ocntinue?

Thanks,
Claudia

Sage does offer e-check, yes, but our software doesn't integrate with it so guests wouldn't be able to pay that way, not until we hooked that up. As far as the fees goes, I'd have to check with our merchant services guy and get back to you. I do know that e-check fees are generally a lot less than credit card fees. I believe they're in the 1% range but that's a total guess.

-Michelle

What are Sage's Echeck fees? Do they do that? Or is it only Credit Cards?

Thanks,
Claudia

Hi Michelle,

So how would I do this -
Inquiry comes into your system
1) system creates a quote
2) I accept the values and send it - but can I modify it to delete the rental agreement link and then if they say they want to rent I send them my normal rental agreement - I can always have wording on the rental agreement link to say something to the effect the rental agreement will be sent via email if ready to book.
3) they send the agreement back and how do I send them the payment link??
or are you saying I do my manual work up front(quote email) and then when I have the rental agreement then I send the quote generated that will include the rental agreement (which will be a blank page or asking them to review the emailed version) and then pay the bill at the bottom or wherever the link is - no problem if they accept the rental agreement (that is blank) at that point.

I am trying to envision how I would be able to work with your system. This is a biggie for me. I have no problem with even just providing the rental agreement values/cost in that page but I need the actual agreement signed and faxed first.

Thanks, Silvia

Yes exactly. The owner-submitted reviews. Not perfect but something to get the HomeAway sites working for now.

-Michelle

Michelle,

Are you be talking about the reviews owners could put in? Except it's from the renter? I guess this could work if you somehow stated in the review it was submitting via owner Rez? Not quite helping with the rating system as you mentioned but it's something. I guess first could try to have the guest send it via their channels and if not review appears then send them the request to do it via your system and then upload it that way.

Silvia.

Gotcha. Because I know that I saw it other times.

Claudia

Actually, it seems like we missed an edge case. It DOES show pets if you have all three - adults, children and pets. It does NOT show pets if you only have adults and pets. We'll make sure to correct that.

-Michelle

Doesn't show if pet is included.

Claudia

Third party alerts are sent whenever a booking is first created, when the dates are updated (if they are) and when the booking is deleted/canceled.

I believe the pet tally is shown IF pets are included. It doesn't show a pet tally if there aren't any. I'll check to make sure.

-Michelle

I am not sure who these go to, but I send this out to my housekeeper. However, the email goes out, even when I am waiting for a check. Things happen when the potential guests decided they are not renting, after all. This letter went out already. What happens? When it is canceled, does another letter go out to the housekeeper stating it was canceled?

Also, it does not include PET. The tally is only number of people. Can you include PET, so that the housekeeper knows their will be extra cleaning involved?