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Hi Michelle,
You raise excellent points. I'm moving from a very manual process to a nearly automated one with your solution, and have to re-think the process. The way that I do things today, if someone wants to rent 6 months from now, to "lock in" their rental I have them sign the rental agreement and send it back to me. Those who aren't interested won't sign and return the agreement. They then pay 1/2 60 days prior, and the balance + security 30 days prior. It's all done through checks. Since people can cancel with rentals so far off in the future, I didn't want to hold money unnecessarily.
That's today. And if I have bookings already in 2013 that I need to enter, with that current practice in place, I don't want to shift gears on those renters. Moving forward, I can probably just change my policy to work the way the tool works- because as you say if the benefit of this site is that people can book directly, without interacting with me as they do now, how do they "lock in" their rental. Could that be however by just providing a credit card to be put on file, as that is how it works with on-line hotel bookings?
On another note, I just received notice that my trial is ending soon... if I need more time to experiment with bookings/etc. to understand the process/tool before committing is there a way to extend by another 15-30 days?
Hi Jon,
Unfortunately, there isn't a way to set the billing settings to not collect a payment up front. If you enable the 'check' payment method, your guests could accept and finalize the quote using that, and then you could cancel the pending state. When someone accepts a quote with check payment, the system puts the booking into a [x] days 'pending' state until their payment arrives. That would sorta kinda get you what you wanted but it would probably be confusing.
I can push this to the dev team as a feature request, but I'm not sure it would be approved. I have, personally, never heard of an owner that didn't require a payment up front to hold the booking.
I'm curious... If guests were able to select dates from your website and book directly, without interacting with you or receiving a quote, would you let anyone do that without submitting a payment? I'm thinking longterm for when our website/booking integration is finished how this type of policy might affect that. I suppose you could limit a no-payment booking to just the people you sent quotes to.
-Michelle
I setup my rate structure, and experimented with various additional surcharge options, and I believe this can work so far.
For Billing Settings, is there a way to revise the first payment due date?. Today I do not require up front payment, because I have people who can book several months in advance but I do not want to collect any money until 60 days in advance for first payment, 30 days in advance for balance (plus security deposit at that time).
Any suggestions?
I was thinking perhaps of changing my policy to work with OwnerRez.
We are planning on integrating with regular PayPal - the thing that takes the user away to the PayPal website for credit card information and then brings them back - but that is not yet scheduled for development.
For the time being, you could use the Other Instructions field on the check payment method to tell the guest that they can pay you by PayPal. Maybe something like:
"As an alternative to check, you may send a PayPal payment to myemail@domain.com for the amount that is due. Please include your full name and the booking # with the payment so we know which guest is paying."
Then when the payment from PayPal arrives, you would simply enter the manual payment in OwnerRez under their booking and the pending status would disappear.
Thanks Michelle, you nailed it once again!! By the way, if I'm using regular PayPal, is there any way of having that as an option for payment methods versus the other PayPal Pro options, and then I could have something else other than checks flagged for payment methods?
There are several reasons that could be happening. Here are the two most common:
1) You only have a check payment type configured and the rules on the check method are making it so the check option is not showing up on the quote since the arrival date on the booking is too close to the current date.
For instance, your check payment method is configured to only allows checks for bookings that are more than 30 days away, but the quote is for a booking that is sooner than that.
If the only payment method you have configured it check and check is being restricted by the booking dates, then nothing will show and the guest will be instructed to "contact you directly for payment".
To make the check method show up, set the rules to be more lenient on the number of days.
2) You don't have any payment methods set for the property of the quote in question. If you view your payment methods, they will show which payment methods are set for which properties.
Do either of these sound right?
-Michelle
Got it, thanks Michelle. Another question of a different subject if that is okay. I sent a quote to a person that inquired on my listing, and when they got it, they went to go through the motions of accepting by reading the rental agreement etc, but there was no button on the bottom for them to accept/electronically accept. Can you tell me how to rectify this?
Hi Roger and Kelly,
I'm glad you figured out the quote issues. Please let me know what trouble you're having with the rental agreement.
You mentioned "inserting" the rental agreement. Where are you trying to put it?
In the quote acceptance process (ie. where the guest sees their quote and accepts/pays) the renter agreement is shown to them as part of the workflow. It shows up there based on what you've entered for the property.
You can edit it by opening the property and clicking on the Legal tab. From there, you can edit the default one we provide or upload your own. There are a set of mail-merge fields that you can insert so as to pull names and values from your property without having to hardcode a unique agreement for every property.
Hope this helps,
-Michelle
I have the quote issue figured out now, but having trouble inserting/editing my rental agreement.
Why won't my actual quote summary and "view more details & accept/finalize" blue buttons get added onto my quote reply template when I reply back to an inquiry?
Hi Glenn,
This has been confirmed on our end. It has been flagged as a bug and escalated for fixing. Thanks for the feedback.
-Michelle
No ETA yet. We're in the middle of a large overhaul to the settings, properties and general design. After that is completed, we'll have a lot better ETA for some of the recently-promised changes.
Any idea when the public calendar form changes might be available
Thank for the quick response. Actually I found out the source of the problem. The renters had not put any people in the renter party. I resolved this by going to the inquiry and checking against the source. I manually added two guests (adults) and saved the inquiry. I was then able to generate a quote.
Thus - small bug - if the inquiry comes in with no guests on it then when you click the create quote, nothing happens. A better behaviour might be a pop-up message indicating the quote cannot be created with no guests.
Anyhow problem solved.
Cheers.
Glenn, I just ran a couple of inquiry/quote simulations. Everything seems normal. Are you on a certain browser or device that could be causing it? If you send over the inquiry ID, I can take a deeper look. The support people are out of the office, but you'll hear something in the morning if I can't figure it out for you tonight.
Hi, trying to respond to a new inquiry and suddenly when I click the quote button, nothing happens. I have tried on a few different computers.
Glenn
Thank you, Michelle.
Hi Damon,
To embed the OwnerRez calendar into your own website, open a property and click on the Widgets tab. That will walk you through the steps.
We are also planning on adding some public calendar forms that you can link to (or provide links to in an email) which are full pages like the quotes that you send out. Those will have more options and allow your guests to see multiple properties on the same calendar.
-Michelle
I like this.
What are your public calendar forms?
Damon
Hi Marinas Edge,
The quote body does include a message to that effect already. You'll notice in the gray area below the charges, it says:
"This quote does not put a hold on the dates requested. The dates will not be reserved until this quote is accepted"
And it's called out in bold.
That's the default quote email. You are able to change that email to say whatever you want. You could call it out ABOVE the charges area if you preferred to make it more obvious.
If our public calendar forms are done by then, the preempted quote will definitely have a link to it so the guest can peruse what is available.
-Michelle
Thanks for the responses. It seems like a proactive message in the quote would go a long way in preserving the relationship. "This quote is not a guaranteed reservation until the deposit is received. Due to incredible demand we recommend booking as soon as you receive this quote to ensure your spot."
Also, on the technology side a simple notification in the quote generation process saying this quote overlaps with another quote (click here).
thoughts?
<< We are working on some upgrades to the preempted view where the guest will be able to see your other properties that are available for the same dates range and/or email you (the owner) when preemption occurs. >>
Hi Michelle,
Don't forget to include a way for them to go to the calendar, of that same property, and see if they are interested in switching their dates to ones that are open.
Claudia
Hi Damon,
Our system ensures that no one can book the same (or overlapping) dates. You can send out as many quotes as you want for whatever dates you want.
When a quote is booked where there are other open quotes for the same (or overlapping) dates, those quotes automatically flip to "Preempted" status.
Guests are not able to accept or finalize preempted quotes.
As an example, here's a live example of an open quote that the guest sees:
https://app.ownerrez.com/forms/quotes/c4493365b01c453aaa6c4eba1d1c9d97
If that quote were to go into "Preempted" status, it would then look like this:
https://app.ownerrez.com/forms/quotes/67fe14fc904a4086bd435c68e8e89915
We are working on some upgrades to the preempted view where the guest will be able to see your other properties that are available for the same dates range and/or email you (the owner) when preemption occurs.
In the Quotes menu, you can filter by open, expired, preempted and booked status.
Hope this helps,
-Michelle
Given that quotes aren't displayed on the calendar, how do I ensure that I don't offer multiple quotes for the same person and the same date?
Stated differently, if I send out overlapping dates and one person books, what will happen when the other person tries to book?
Any best practices?
Damon
Hi Claudia,
We're working on something we call "global settings". It's basically taking all the property level settings - the options you change and set at the property level - and moving them to the account level. That way you can change settings in one place and have it affect all properties.
This has become more and more necessary as we've worked with owners that don't understand where the settings are and/or have multiple properties. Most owners with 3 or more properties don't have different rates, taxes, billing settings, leases, etc for each property. All or most of their properties have similar settings.
You'll still be able to set settings at the property and quote levels.
This wasn't something we planned, but there are some changes we'd like to make to the system in 2013 that require us having settings at the global/account level. It was getting too difficult to ignore.
Upcoming roadmap:
- Reporting
- Expanding inquiry workflow
- Adding payment options and reminders
- Expanding payment forms
- Templates for security deposit emails and the booking confirmation email
- QuickBooks integration
- Inquiry widgets and generic inquiry email parsing
- Updating design throughout UI
As always, these are subject to change at any time.
Hope this helps,
-Michelle
Hi Michele,
Could you please tell me what the next sprints will be involving and when they are expected?
Thanks,
Claudia
Yes this helps, will try this out! Thank you!
Hi Jon,
I believe our rate settings can accomodate that type of structure. Open your property in OwnerRez and click on the Rates tab. Then do the following:
1) Created a rate period if you haven't already
2) Once you have a rate period, click to view it
3) Add a charge type
4) Under the Charge Type dropdown, select "Single Night"
5) Set the Rate field to the amount you charge PER NIGHT for the 2-4 night stays
6) Finish the other options and Save
That will take care of 2-4 night stays. To handle the 5+ night stays, do the following:
1) Open the rate period and click to add another charge type
2) Under the Charge Type dropdown, select "Week"
3) Set the Rate field to the amount you charge FOR THE ENTIRE STAY of 5 nights
4) Change the Included Nights field to 5
5) Uncheck the "Calculate the rate for extra nights by using other charge types" field
6) Another field will appear below it called "Use Custom Rate" where you'll fill in your PER NIGHT rate for everything after 5.
4) Finish the other options and Save
On the cleaning, we don't have an option to add it some of the time, but you could add it to every booking and then manually remove it on the ones where it isn't charged.
To do that, click the Add-Ons tab and add a Surcharge for "Cleaning Fee" with the amount (or percentage, which you can enter as well).
Then, when a new quote is created, simply click Charges and take off that line item if you don't want it to be included. It's very fast to edit/remove charges from a quote or booking.
Hope this helps,
-Michelle
I just ran across this site, referenced from a Yahoo Vacation Owners forum. It looks very promising, with a reasonable pricing structure and features. A few questions:
1. Our current rates provide a discount for 5+ nights of rental (one rate for 2-4 nights, min. 2 nights, and another for 5+ nights). We don't care if it's weekdays or weekends. Is there a way for ownerez to accommodate this structure?
2. Currently we charge more for cleaning based on # of days (one flat rate for 2-4 nights, one for 5-10 nights). Is there a way to handle this?
Perhaps it's time to change the way we do billings, if what we're doing is pretty non-standard...but it has worked for us.
Hi skikirkwood,
The 'Tax' line items calculate against all taxable line items ABOVE them. So in order to have the current tax line items update, insert the new row of charges ABOVE them. Or you can add more tax line items below the new charges.
The charge grid is very editable. You can insert/remove rows anywhere you want. The 'Taxable' flag only signals tax lines below to calculate on those rows. The tax lines can be anywhere on the grid.
The guest does NOT receive a new email automatically for the new charge. We don't do that because we don't know if that's your intention. Often, the owner only wants to adjust the charges (fixing typos, moving line items around) without alerting the guest.
You can certainly send them a manual email on your own, explaining the new charges.
You can also collect a payment by clicking on the Payments tab (under their booking) and clicking the "Collect New Payment" button. Any credit card they've used in the past will be on file for a quick collection.
-Michelle
