General Help and Questions
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Removing Registration Expiration Date on Home Page 3 replies
It sounds like the OP is asking how to remove the registration expiration date -- not the registration number...
Possible bug when deleting Custom Field 3 replies
Thank you.
Removing Registration Expiration Date on Home Page 3 replies
One of our Dev's mentioned one another option in case you would rather not delete the registration number from the property description (even though it is only there for the hosted website feed). You might be able to add a little CSS.
> #registration,#registration + dl { display: none !important;}
Possible bug when deleting Custom Field 3 replies
A bug fix went in today to ensure the correct error message is displayed when users attempt to delete custom fields, discounts, and surcharges that are in use.
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
Ah! That is not very intuitive at all so good work finding that, Alece! And thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. :)
But this is EXACTLY what I was talking about in the first post!
I am constantly referring to that email history screen! It used to be one click to get to it. Now it's buried FOUR clicks away!
What research with users said this was a good idea?
Meanwhile the Messages section of the page is blank! So frustrating...
I would swap that email history for the unused Messages section any day!
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
Ah! That is not very intuitive at all so good work finding that, Alece! And thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction. :)
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
Hey Megan. I found it within the booking overview here: Messages > History > Email (same for SMS, Airbnb, etc.)
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
Where is the email history now (used to be top yellow bar, far right)--where you see all emails that have been sent, if they are delivered and if they've been opened?
Minimum stay settings not transmitting to booking.com 7 replies
99 times out of 100, the problem is due to having 'Additional Rate plans' in Booking.com (BDC)
Booking.com (BDC) Additional Rate Plans are not compatible with API integration. Each property can only connect to one BDC rate plan.
Using multiple rate plans becomes problematic, even though they can be 'based on the standard rate', because none of the property or rate rules are carried from OwnerRez to those plans. This can result in bookings that ignore your minimum night stay rules and your overall booking window, etc. Even if you think you've set the rules for additional rate plans in BDC, the results can still be unpredictable.
We strongly recommend not using additional rate plans in BDC. You can delete the extra ones in BDC Extranet > Rates & Availability > Rate Plans
Here is a support document on the subject to provide more detail
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/bookingcom-api-rates-settings#additional-rate-plans
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
If no labels/indicators show a different time for check-in or check-out, then the booking is the normal check-in/check-out time.
The new design is highly dynamic. More indicators show at the top if things are not "normal".
For instance, here is a booking where the guest has late checkout. Notice that there is a "Late Checkout" tag up top and the "1 pm" time is shown in red above that.
So your staff should consider the booking "normal" check-in and check-out if there is nothing that says otherwise.
Much more coming to this design by the way! This was the first of several updates. The first goal was to migrate the old yellow page to the new layout we are using app-wide, and make it mobile-friendly. We will be prioritizing message, tasks, notes, and other things above the fold in the near future.
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
I hope they continue refining the new look. On a laptop there is SO MUCH "white space". It needs to be tightened up, IMHO.
I'll have to get used to the guest's contact info being sent to the bottom right corner.
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
I am struggling with the new Booking Overview. I and my cleaners aren't able to see check in and check out times that used to be on the overview page. Now we have to click "change/move" every time we want to see this information? My cleaners have view only. This is serious problem for me. Maybe I'll learn to like this change someday, but right now I hate it!
Help with Website 1 reply
Hello,
I looked around and searched but couldn't find what I was looking for. I am setting up my website through ownerrez and want to add links to VRBO, Airbnb etc to my home page in case a guest wants to book through them instead of direct through my website. For the life of me I can't figure out how to do this. Does someone know how to do this or to direct me to a tutorial on how to do it, would be amazing.
Thank you for your help
Wendy
The New Booking Overview Page 11 replies
Just took a look at the New Booking Overview Page.
You asked for comments/suggestions...
You really need to focus on reducing clicking around OwnerRez screens everywhere, and this layout, while improved, doesn't do that.
An example to make the point:
You have a 'Change/Move' button over on the top right side of the screen. Why?
If I want to change the check-in time, I should be able to just click on the Check-In time and change it! Same with the property, date of arrival... basically anything on the screen. Click on what I want to change and change it.
But instead, it's click on the 'Change/Move' button, click in a field to change, change it, click save, go back to the overview screen... too many clicks and screens! This bad design pervades OwnerRez.
Another example:
When one wants to change Charges, which always should have been right on the summary screen, one shouldn't have to click to get there, but you do. So you click on Charges, but can you make changes on the Charges screen? No! You have to click 'Change' before you can do anything! Why? Why doesn't charges just go to the screen that one can make changes on without an extra step in between? What is gained by all of this extra clicking?
And the ridiculous being forced to move things up and down on the charges screen, and it affecting what is taxable and what isn't, is just such amateurish, horrible UI design! If an item is taxable, it's taxable! You don't have whether the tax is applied based on where it appears on the screen! Silly! The display should automatically order itself based on what is being displayed! Rental charges at the top, discounts on rental charges (if any), (with a Rental Charges sub-total GD it!!!!!!!), then optional items (also with a sub-total), other charges, and finally taxes. EVERY display of charges should follow the pattern, and there should be no need to move things around! Clicky, clicky, click, drag, click, drag, click, click, drag, drag, click. And the DRAG buttons only work every other time on a Mac! After using them once, without an intervening click on the screen, the drag buttons don't work! Horrible, bad design! (Sorry, I'm passionate about this stuff!)
And then... after all that, click Save. And THEN click to go back to the 'summary' screen! No! The financials should be visible on the main booking screen, they are fundamentally important, and should be editable right there! Like everything else on the page! Get rid of the buttons! Get rid of the clicks! Get rid of the dragging!
One may think me ungrateful, but your customers really shouldn't be expected to be excited that this page design has finally caught up to what it should have been like/capable-of twenty years ago. So much farther to go!
Change your mindset from your users are 'monitoring' what's happening in some remote listing site's booking data somewhere, to 'Our users are doing and administering their bookings right here! Let's make it simple and easy and as time-saving as possible.' Hiding everything and providing access to edit/change it behind multiple screens with multiple clicks is NOT providing a good experience!
While your users always appreciate your efforts to improve things, if those efforts are misdirected because you're focused on the wrong things and antiquated design, changes which don't solve obvious problems become a source of frustration, rather than something to celebrate.
Did you ASK what changes your customers wanted to the Summary page before you expended the programming efforts to change it? Or just assume you knew?
"We're going to be updating the Booking Summary page! What changes would you like to see? Check out the preliminary design here <link provided>. Let us know what you think..." I didn't see that email, and I CARE about this stuff because I have to fight my way through (read that as waste my time with) this stuff every day!
If you feel you would not or don't get enough feedback to bother asking, bear in mind that there are features in the feature request forum that YOU indicated you were working on delivering SEVEN YEARS ago, and they're still not out. This results in many of your customers losing faith that their feedback is being paid attention to, and when that happens, they won't provide you with any.
Consolidate! Make information editable at first view. Get rid of the buttons and additional pages wherever possible. Eliminate every unnecessary click. Let those fundamentals guide you.
Minimum stay settings not transmitting to booking.com 7 replies
How did you fix this issues?
One Night Discount 8 replies
The challenge here is the nightly rate... Fridays and Saturdays will typically have a higher nightly rate than a Tue or Wednesday and OwnerRez is just a single rent total so you really dont have a way to say discount = to the lowest of the nightly rates... IE if Wed is 100, Thur is 115, Friday is 170 and Saturday is 170 - there is no way first of all to know what the nightly rates are because the booking will have a rent line of $555. (I suppose you could look at the spot rate for each of the days)
There is the new option on a January release to include
- Add new {BNRENTT} booking nightly rent field code in table format
- Add new {BNRENTL} booking nightly rent field code in list format
to emails which could theoretically show it to you and then you could manually add whatever discount you wanted to give. There is no automagical way of doing this that I am aware of and have wanted to for quite sometime. I would actually like to see each individual night with a rolled up subtotal. It would make calculating the Average Daily Rate so much more accurate... In my example above ADR currently is 555/4 = 138.75 but in reality if I was doing a weekend to weekend or day to day comparison of Average Daily Rates this year over last or this month over last I would be losing 31.25 of ADR for Friday and Saturday or gaining 38.75 for Wed or 23.75 for Thursday for this specific booking. Is it the end of the world... NO. Would it be nice to have - for us YES.
Bottom line... you gotta pick your battles... we solved the one night off by analyzing prior period bookings and then coming up with a percentage and we restrict them by date... Bookings between date and date get 18% off if > 3 nights... a lot of leg work to do a promotion. You also want to make sure you are not double dipping.. If you use a pricing/rate management tool to manage your rates remember that you could be giving an additional discount on top of what has already been determined to be the optimal rate for the dates...
FAQ Import 2 replies
Hey Steve,
I see you posted a Feature Request here, so I wanted to share that for visibility to anyone who runs across this thread.
https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/requests/enhanced-ai-knowledge-ingestion-csv-document-parsing
Thanks for writing that up!
New & Overwhelmed - a few questions 1 reply
Hi there,
I have two properties on AirB and just set-up OR to take direct bookings on my website (www.stillwoodvt.com). I have a few, possibly moronic, questions. Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
1. Checking Out
The payment & add-on/surcharges page doesn't have any way for someone to cancel or go back, or navigate back to a page on my website (unless they know to click the back button the browser). This has already caused a hiccup for two guests. I'm assuming there's no way for me to change this page because it's pure OR, but if anyone has found a way around it, please let me know.
2. Rental Agreement
I am thinking that I don't need a rental agreement in addition to the house rules, guest instructions, etc. etc. (I am subscribed to the Damages policy). I realize it's adding a little risk to me, but I also worry that it might be off-putting to guests who are used to AirB. Please let me know if you think this is an absolute must.
3. SMS Messaging
Is anyone using the SMS messaging feature (additional fee) and if so, do you like it? Will it integrate with my mobile so I can receive messages on my phone? I am really missing the messaging feature/all communications in-app, that AirB has and finding the OR guest communications a little clunky. I don't understand why the INBOX in the OR app isn't for OR messaging but am likely missing something obvious.
4. Quote Feature
I've also disabled the quote feature as plan to just automatically take bookings - any big issue doing this that I'm missing?
5. Widgets
Am I missing something? It appears that guests cannot click and make a reservation on ANY of the calendar/availability widgets. The only widget that allows that is the booking widget. Ideally, I'd like to also be able to display a calendar that is clickable.
Sorry this is so long and thanks again for any help!
Cheers,
Lulu
Removing Registration Expiration Date on Home Page 3 replies
Hi Jen!
If you don't want the registration number displayed on your hosted website, you can remove it from the property description. That section on your hosted website should then disappear since there's no information. We don't push this to the big channels, like Airbnb and Vrbo. If you'd like to remove it, you can go to Properties > click on your property name > go to Description > click the pencil icon to edit it. From there, you can remove the content you've inserted into the Registration Number section and save the changes.
Direct Booking Communication: E-Mails, Notifications, Alerts, and Co-Hosts 24 replies
Hi Sean,
I'm afraid there is no ETA I can provide, but we understand the demand and very much look forward to the development ahead. It's a large undertaking and we want to make sure we deliver a quality feature, not a rushed job that doesn't fit the needs of our users.
Please Put things BACK! New Confirm & Pay Form creates an ongoing BIG problem I was unaware of! 4 replies
following
Payment Processors 1 reply
We had a webinar last year discussing many options and various configurations of Payment Processors connecting to OwnerRez, which can be seen here:
https://www.ownerrez.com/webinar-focus-session-payment-methods?autoplay
This page contains a list of our available Processors and Gateways, categorized as Recommended, Integrated, and Supported:
https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/payment-processing-gateways-list
Airbnb Service Fee & Monthly Taxes 0 replies
In my county we pay monthly on the previous month's stay taxes. Are you submitting your monthly taxes with the 15.5% (or whatever percentage you use) host fee in the rent? I have my rent and surcharges adjusted to a 22% increase for Airbnb bookings. When I run a tax report or tax detail report, the taxable charges include the rent before the airbnb service fee (expense) is taken out. Should I manually subtract each airbnb fee from the rent on every reservation rent line and then report that? As of now it looks like I'd be paying taxes on a $174 Airbnb service fee that neither I nor the owner received. Chatgpt said,
"That 22% markup is taxable because it’s baked into guest-paid rent.
So if you raised your rate to offset Airbnb fees, taxes are still due on the full charged amount.
Example:
| Base Direct Rate | $1,000 |
| Airbnb Markup | +$220 |
| Airbnb Host Fee | -$174 |
Tax is still filed on $1,220 (plus cleaning etc.), not the net."
Which is exactly what I'm saying... I should be subtracting that from rent before reporting taxes, or am I as lost as I feel?
Issues with payments, support ticketing and photo gallery. 2 replies
Hi Maarten, so sorry you're encountering issues. If you are unable to use the Contact Us here on the website, you can always send an email directly to help@ownerrez.com to reach us directly.
Issues with payments, support ticketing and photo gallery. 2 replies
Still hoping for this to be resolved...
Customising the colour of the blue ‘price’ box in the Book Now widget for external websites 1 reply
Hello!
Does anyone know if there’s a way to customise the colour of the blue ‘price’ box that appears once you’ve added dates to the BOOK NOW box please?
If it can be achieved with CSS, I’d dearly love to know the code please. I’m on an external website (Squarespace).
I also wonder if it’s possible to remove the ‘see details’ drop down in this same box, as it doesn’t really add anything in my case.
Many thanks in anticipation.
Suzy
Payment Processors 1 reply
Hello,
Does anyone use payment processors other than stripe and lynnbrook? If so, what do you use and why?
Thanks,
Brigid
Issues with payments, support ticketing and photo gallery. 2 replies
Is any one else having issues with payments, support ticketing and photo gallery?
It started with photo gallery, I've been going back and forth with Support but it has not been resolved yet.
As of yesterday, an important high season booking could not pay by credit card. Neither can I when I do a test transaction.
And when I tried to open a support ticket for this, I got an error as well....
Direct Booking Communication: E-Mails, Notifications, Alerts, and Co-Hosts 24 replies
I was wondering if there are any updates on the progress for the Direct Booking Threads, as it has been almost 1 year since you communicated "later this year".
"We are discussing what it looks like to have direct booking threads come into the new Inbox (and we already have plans to bring email into the Inbox later this year). Both of those would help communicate with your direct booking guests."
charging a processing fee only for those that use a credit card 4 replies
This feature is badly needed. We should be able to auto trigger a CC fee if the guest chooses that form of payment.