Hi Paul,
I'm new to the Quickbooks Ownerez integration, and I have some questions.
I have turned the Airbnb transaction sync on, but I'm API integrated with Airbnb. In Ownerez, my future Airbnb bookings are shown as paid. It looks like it shows the date that Airbnb collected the payment. Also, in my Quickbooks, the invoices show as paid ( when the quest submitted the payment, " I'm assuming) even though I'm not getting the money until the customer checks in. I'm doing something wrong. Please help
Since OR doesn’t follow proper accounting practices that is the way that the software is designed to work. In the current implementation it is considered paid because the customer has paid it and when it is deposited in your bank by AirBnB it will be processed as a deposit by OR.
If GAAP accounting processes were followed those funds should be put in an “undeposited funds” asset account that would represent all the funds that AirBnB is holding on your behalf. It doesn’t help that QB doesn’t support more than on Undeposited Funds type account so one has to create other types of accounts as Undeposited Funds and if so can’t use the Deposit feature of Quickbooks.
I have requested several times that we setup a committee of users that have expertise in accounting and finance so we can create a solid roadmap for the QB integration.
The new deposits feature has been rolled out which is great to see effort but unfortunately it seems to have lack of forethought and planning from an Accounting perspective - not sure who is providing the guidance to product development but I believe that the implementation could be better. Especially for advanced users that have multiple currencies and multiple payment methods. Maybe OR core customer is the Mom and Pop so it doesn’t matter
Having said that, to do proper GAAP accounting is not a straightforward thing and there has to be a balance between practicality, QB capabilities, and Accounting accuracy and that is the reason that these trade offs should include input from a working group.
Ocean Zen, thank you for responding. I do need to follow GAAP. How would I turn off the Automatic Airbnb Payments? I can't show that I have " received money," even though I may not get the money for a year.
I used to use BNBTally, and I did not have any of these problems. Do you have a step-by-step guide for the proper workflow between Ownerez invoices and deposits and QuickBooks? I want to make sure that my Undeposited funds/ Clearing Asset account reflects the proper balance.
Hey Ocean Zen,
I've read your post, and I agree with you for the most part. I say "most" because there are some things that I don't understand, most likely because I don't have the accounting knowledge to parse those parts out. If you don't mind, could you please clarify some of these things for me?
...In the current implementation it is considered paid because the customer has paid it and when it is deposited in your bank by AirBnB it will be processed as a deposit by OR.
If GAAP accounting processes were followed those funds should be put in an “undeposited funds” asset account that would represent all the funds that AirBnB is holding on your behalf
Am i wrong in saying this is actually how it currently works? On my (granted, pretty simple setup) the invoice payment uses "undeposited funds" and the date on the payment is day or two (maybe) before the date when the funds hit my banking account. during normal year, not a big deal. if is going to cross to next year (i run my business on cash basis) than i will have a problem, but i do check for that manually.
"... those funds should be put in an "undeposited funds" asset account that would represent all the funds AirBnb is holding on your behalf"...i believe that is how it works right now. for me, "undeposited funds" hold all the funds for all the OTA's are holding on my behalf
It doesn’t help that QB doesn’t support more than on Undeposited Funds type account so one has to create other types of accounts as Undeposited Funds and if so can’t use the Deposit feature of Quickbooks.
This one went over my head...more than one "Undeposited Funds" type account? is that even something that QBO supports? not sure what is the use case here assuming i even understood correctly what you said
I have requested several times that we setup a committee of users that have expertise in accounting and finance so we can create a solid roadmap for the QB integration.
Yup, i do recall that time and i completely agree with you. Not sure what is OR doing about this. I do see improvements to QBO integration, but, with all dues respect, the way those improvements work do seems to point to a lack of accounting expertise as you have pointed out many times.
The new deposits feature has been rolled out which is great to see effort but unfortunately it seems to have lack of forethought and planning from an Accounting perspective - not sure who is providing the guidance to product development but I believe that the implementation could be better. Especially for advanced users that have multiple currencies and multiple payment methods. Maybe OR core customer is the Mom and Pop so it doesn’t matter
Agree on the first part. I'm one of those "Mom and Pop" and the new deposits feature is not working for me. I'm not even sure what exactly is the use case OR thought about when they implemented this. The rest of your points here, not sure i'm parsing. i understand the words, i'm just not sure what are you referring to. (the multiple currencies and multiple payment methods part)
For me, the biggest pain point is that i need to manually match the invoice payments to banking transaction so i can add the missing expenses and run validations (check the invoice and payment dates to make sure they do not cross into next year or the other way around, adding CC charges, or AirBNB charge..so on). i was hoping the new deposit feature will help me here, but the OR gods decided (why???) to not allow me to use COGS for expenses in deposits. seriously...
Alin
BnBTally is the best accounting implementation for AirBnB (and VRBO if you are not on a PMS) that I have found. It becomes a little more complicated when you have a merchant account and are processing your own CC.
Since the deposit feature didn’t exist until now I setup my system to process similar to BnBTally syncing with Stripe and my Bank Feed. It’s not perfect as OR doesn’t open up the financial data in their API. I can try to put together a post of how I do it in the next few weeks. Would love to get better support from OR for improved accounting.
Hi Alin,
Sorry for the slow reply. see responses in line
Hey Ocean Zen,
I've read your post, and I agree with you for the most part. I say "most" because there are some things that I don't understand, most likely because I don't have the accounting knowledge to parse those parts out. If you don't mind, could you please clarify some of these things for me?
...In the current implementation it is considered paid because the customer has paid it and when it is deposited in your bank by AirBnB it will be processed as a deposit by OR.
If GAAP accounting processes were followed those funds should be put in an “undeposited funds” asset account that would represent all the funds that AirBnB is holding on your behalf
Am i wrong in saying this is actually how it currently works? On my (granted, pretty simple setup) the invoice payment uses "undeposited funds" and the date on the payment is day or two (maybe) before the date when the funds hit my banking account. during normal year, not a big deal. if is going to cross to next year (i run my business on cash basis) than i will have a problem, but i do check for that manually.
"... those funds should be put in an "undeposited funds" asset account that would represent all the funds AirBnb is holding on your behalf"...i believe that is how it works right now. for me, "undeposited funds" hold all the funds for all the OTA's are holding on my behalf
Yes, that is how it works if you only have AirBnB, however if you use VRBO or any other platform that requires you to use your own Credit Card processor then it becomes more complicated and you need to have more than one "Undeposited Funds" account (one for each payment processor to make reconciliation manageable). Unfortunately the single Undeposited Funds account is a QB limitation but there are work arounds and OR should pick one and support it. Another layer of complexity is Multi-Currency if you have properties in different countries. Without laying out a framework and development plan for all of these OR continue to make point or patch fixes/improvements that further lock the system into a short sighted solution that then becomes too much to work fix.
It doesn’t help that QB doesn’t support more than on Undeposited Funds type account so one has to create other types of accounts as Undeposited Funds and if so can’t use the Deposit feature of Quickbooks.
This one went over my head...more than one "Undeposited Funds" type account? is that even something that QBO supports? not sure what is the use case here assuming i even understood correctly what you said
See comment above - a single Undeposited Funds is a limitation from Early Quickbooks that they haven't fixed but there are ways to work around it.
I have requested several times that we setup a committee of users that have expertise in accounting and finance so we can create a solid roadmap for the QB integration.
Yup, i do recall that time and i completely agree with you. Not sure what is OR doing about this. I do see improvements to QBO integration, but, with all dues respect, the way those improvements work do seems to point to a lack of accounting expertise as you have pointed out many times.
Yes, it is hard to understand when there are several users that have accounting expertise and are willing to help that they don't create a user group to address -- user groups to help with roadmap is a common practice at many software companies
The new deposits feature has been rolled out which is great to see effort but unfortunately it seems to have lack of forethought and planning from an Accounting perspective - not sure who is providing the guidance to product development but I believe that the implementation could be better. Especially for advanced users that have multiple currencies and multiple payment methods. Maybe OR core customer is the Mom and Pop so it doesn’t matter
Agree on the first part. I'm one of those "Mom and Pop" and the new deposits feature is not working for me. I'm not even sure what exactly is the use case OR thought about when they implemented this. The rest of your points here, not sure i'm parsing. i understand the words, i'm just not sure what are you referring to. (the multiple currencies and multiple payment methods part)
For me, the biggest pain point is that i need to manually match the invoice payments to banking transaction so i can add the missing expenses and run validations (check the invoice and payment dates to make sure they do not cross into next year or the other way around, adding CC charges, or AirBNB charge..so on). i was hoping the new deposit feature will help me here, but the OR gods decided (why???) to not allow me to use COGS for expenses in deposits. seriously...
Yes, the whole point of automation is to help with the reconciliation process... I struggle with all the above having both multi-currency and Credit Card processor account that keeps a % holdback for 60 days which makes reconciliation a nightmare
Alin
Ocean Zen,
Thanks for continuing to help other OR customers with your thoughts and advice.
For the record, we care deeply about the QB problem and, ultimately, full reconciliation. Our latest QB Deposit update was not a patch fix, but something we planned for a long time. A lot of thought and work went into it, and it was designed to get reconciliation way further down the road (at least for certain customers), and also deal with all types of deposits - Air, Stripe, and others.
Our view of the QB integration, internally, is not about trotting out a small update every now and then just to show a token amount of progress, though I know it may seem that way. It's been about resources and fixing other things first as prerequisites (eg. creating deposits in OR before creating deposit/fee syncing for QB). We have already and continue to consult with accounting professionals over strategy, but our roadmap is not wholly focused on QB either, so there are resource limitations.
While we plan to add a new style of syncing (overall - a change to how revenue is recorded that doesn't use the Invoice approach), we want to continue patching the holes in the current process as there are over a thousand users that use the current process, and we want it to be accurate and work end to end. We believe that for certain operations, the Invoice > Payment > Deposit sync method works well and should be left in place.
The next steps for us are:
Outside of those things, which are all about the current syncing process, we plan to add these:
We have also been growing our product and engineering teams heavily over the past 12 months. That will help us keep team members focused on the fast-follows for QB that are needed to move QB down the road at a faster pace.
Paul,
Thank you for your detailed response and for sharing insights into the roadmap. Having experience in investing and running software companies, I understand the challenges of communicating roadmap details, so I genuinely appreciate the transparency you’ve provided. It’s also encouraging to hear that you’re considering broader accounting synchronization solutions beyond just QuickBooks.
That said, based on prior experiences, I hope my previous comments are seen not as criticism but as a challenge for OR to continue pushing toward leadership in this area. Customer engagement, as I’m sure you know, is a sign that people care—apathy is the real concern.
I’d like to offer some additional thoughts. OR appears to be moving from more of a consumer-focused model to something that sits between consumer and enterprise software. This transition is an opportunity to leverage User Groups, a key aspect of enterprise software development, to test and refine solutions, especially in complex areas like accounting integration.
The challenge with accounting solutions, particularly in a dynamic industry like this, is that many implementations are incomplete or poorly thought out. Given the evolution of both the industry and OR’s system, I can see why these issues arise. While it’s good to know you’ve consulted accounting professionals, prior implementations haven’t instilled much confidence. However, your current roadmap seems to reflect fresh perspectives, which is promising.
To that end, I’d suggest considering the formation of a working group with 6–10 customers who have both software and accounting expertise. Reviewing a more detailed roadmap with them before committing development resources could help prevent rework and ensure the final solution is more aligned with real-world needs.
One key area needing more clarity is how you plan to handle the differentiation between Payment Method and Payment Type in the system. Currently, linking to a QuickBooks account by payment type presents limitations, as real-world cash reconciliation often hinges on payment method (i.e., AirBnB, multiple credit card processors, and Booking.com payments). Addressing this discrepancy will be crucial for improving deposit and reconciliation functionality, particularly for operators working across multiple platforms and regions. This nuance is easily missed unless someone has firsthand experience running an STR business, which is why careful consideration of your data structure is vital.
In closing, I’d like to express my gratitude for the continued investment in the engineering team and your commitment to advancing this area of the product. I look forward to seeing how the next phase of development unfolds.
With Gratitude,
Ocean Zen
Hello,
The issue has been raised that it is common that different properties will need to map deposits to separate bank accounts. I see no reason why anyone would need to map deposits to different channels. Has there been a feature request for this? Do I need to set up separate OwnerRez accounts to achieve this currently? Or is there another workaround?
Thank you.
Jory
HI Jory,
You are right. By definition, a bank deposit goes to a bank account, not a 'channel'. There is definitely a value to the idea of mapping properties to different bank accounts, or the equivalent would be to sync deposits from each individual payment account (if you have say, 2 Stripe accounts) to a different bank account. Right now, per this example, all of your Stripe accounts would have deposits sent to the same bank account. The best workaround that I have found for that is to regularly click into each 'bank deposit' before I 'balance my checkbook' in QuickBooks where I can easily switch which account it applies to. No, that is not ideal, but the time saved by the deposit sync is still far better than having to manually create every single one in QuickBooks, like I had to for many years before. I have made the need known internally. If you don't see a feature request that you think expresses your views on the subject, either add to one that you think is similar or create a new one.
It would be very helpful if the reservation number or guest name could flow through with the "new" Airbnb Host Fee into QuickBooks. As it stands, this requires quite a bit of manual work on our end. Currently the only information it pulls in is the posting date which is two days after the reservation arrival. That is confusing to both our team and our owners, and it is insufficient for accounting.
Hi Michael, thanks for the insight. I suppose this is all fine as a temporary workaround...but I just started to set that up and ran into another issue. Booking/Merchant Account site fees are sent to Quickbooks the same way. We clearly are going to need these fees split up per property, as this is how they are itemized on our taxes, but we are only able to select one account for all properties. How do you handle that?
Hi Jory. I also have one QuickBooks expense account for all channel and transaction fees. Like anything that might be difficult to break down (phone bill?), I consider it overhead. For taxes, I have properties listed on Schedule E and a Property management business on a Schedule C. The overhead items go on the Schedule C.
However, if I wanted to apply them to properties, I could run a Line Item Pivot report grouped by property.
Thanks Michael, that’s a helpful workaround! But it’s a workaround, and unfortunately doesn’t work in my situation. And regardless, it’s still unnecessary added work. I have worked with several Quickbooks integrations and it doesn’t need to be so complicated. Most integrations feed info through journal entries, not sales invoices. Is OR is trying to set up QBO to be a source of record for CRM, when it’s not meant to function as that? OR is by far the worst QBO integration I’ve ever experienced. I added a feature request. Thank you!
My experience with the Quickbooks / Airbnb integration last July was time consuming. While many property owners are on an accrual based accounting system, we are on cash. When the upgrade was automatically applied two things happened. All invoices were changed to the arrival date and a payment was automatically recorded. With OR help, we were able to understand what happened and then consulted with our accountant who explained that to change from cash to accrual requires filing documents with the IRS plus other changes that would be several thousand dollars in accounting fees. She advised that there was no reason to change to the accrual method. We spent several months changing invoice dates and reversing automatic "Receive Payments" — invoices that were not paid were recorded as paid. Two bookkeepers were unable to sort out the mess last year. In our experience, not all bookkeepers are proficient in QuickBooks Online and do not know how to correct errors. You either need a bookkeeper who is expert with the QBO or do it yourself. I’m now using the Expert Live Service on Quickbooks. When a problem comes up it is usually resolved with a 5 to 10 minutes phone call. With one property this is doable but maybe not if you have multiple properties.
My experience with the Quickbooks / Airbnb integration last July was time consuming. While many property owners are on an accrual based accounting system, we are on cash. When the upgrade was automatically applied two things happened. All invoices were changed to the arrival date and a payment was automatically recorded. With OR help, we were able to understand what happened and then consulted with our accountant who explained that to change from cash to accrual requires filing documents with the IRS plus other changes that would be several thousand dollars in accounting fees. She advised that there was no reason to change to the accrual method. We spent several months changing invoice dates and reversing automatic "Receive Payments" — invoices that were not paid were recorded as paid. Two bookkeepers were unable to sort out the mess last year. In our experience, not all bookkeepers are proficient in QuickBooks Online and do not know how to correct errors. You either need a bookkeeper who is expert with the QBO or do it yourself. I’m now using the Expert Live Service on Quickbooks. When a problem comes up it is usually resolved with a 5 to 10 minutes phone call. With one property this is doable but maybe not if you have multiple properties.
Hi Susan, how frustrating! I see you can change the invoice date in the integration to Booking date, or Booking Departure date, sounds like you need a feature request to change this to the Deposit date.
I wanted to put down some thoughts on the Accural vs Cash issue
The bottom line for me is that I think bookkeeping should align with reality.
When someone puts a deposit down on a rental on February 1st, that money is not yours. Even if you have a no-refunds policy, it is still a liability account (Guest Deposits) that you owe the guest.
When the rental is completed, you can convert that liability into rental revenue, as you have done your part of the bargain.
I think that recognizing the rental revenue on the check-in date is too soon. You still have to provide all of the accommodation.
Here is what Rezzy has to say about Accrual vs. Cash
My one quibble is to set the invoice date to the guest's arrival date.
The invoice date should be when the cash comes into the liability account (Guest Deposits).
The invoice date should not be controlling anything to do with when the revenue is recorded. It is simply the booking date.
Rezzy AI
Accrual and cash accounting are two different methods of recognizing revenue and expenses:
Accrual Accounting records transactions when they occur—when revenue is earned or expenses are incurred—regardless of when money actually changes hands. With OwnerRez's QuickBooks integration, your bookings, payments, and deposits flow into QuickBooks following accrual accounting rules. For example, if you set your invoice date to the guest's arrival date, QuickBooks won't recognize revenue until the stay begins, even if payment was received earlier. This method provides a more accurate picture of financial performance, especially for larger operations.
Cash Accounting recognizes revenue and expenses only when money actually changes hands. If you configure your invoice date to the booking created date instead, QuickBooks recognizes revenue immediately, which mirrors cash-basis reporting.
The key difference: accrual accounting matches revenue to the period when the service is provided, while cash accounting matches it to when payment is received. For vacation rental businesses using QuickBooks, OwnerRez recommends configuring your invoice date to the arrival date to align with true accrual-basis accounting and ensure your reports reflect when guests actually stay at your property.
I would like to here your thoguhts on this - hopefully OR solves all of our issues someday.
PS -
