Feature Requests

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OR has often failed to identify repeat guests, even though emails, phone numbers, etc, are the same.  Even when it does, files from the guest record (such as a picture ID) are not carried forward.

I Suggest

1) That, at the least, any new guest with any matching characteristics of a prior guest’s Full Name,  address, phone, email, or CC number, be at least presented as a possible match for us to approve or ignore, or tag for further review.   The address could help to identify a bad guests who now has their spouse or other household member make the reservation. 

2) That with any prior guest match, including through the process suggested above or through whatever algorithm is being used, that we be given the option of carrying forward prior files, tags, and notes.  

I think that tags are being currently carried forward, but have been told that files do not.   If I have stored a picture ID or other information, I prefer to retain it with the new reservation. 

Thanks! Please vote.

Charlie

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the recommendation. I have a few follow-up questions:

1) I thought AirBnB didn't allow hosts to request (or at least require) guests to sign additional rental agreements. Am I mistaken? Also, AirBnB guests are not used to having additional agreements so am concerned this will create all kind of additional work with back and forth questions

2) From your experience (or others on the forum), what type of protections would the agreement give us that would be under AirBnB control? Are you referring to guests that may squat? Other legal issues? Appreciate the insight

3) Operationally how does it work, does AirBnB allow sharing of links via their blind email once the booking is made? Is there a way to send the agreement request through the AirBnB messaging? I couldn't find on the System messages to select to send via email or AirBnB messaging

4) what is the difference between Triggers and Scheduled Email messages and when should one use one over the other?

I'm not sure of the type of example you are asking in your last paragraph. I currently don't know of any way to ask the guest for their email other than to send the contract signing request email, which I don't have set-up for AirBnB so I am not sure how I would have an example to be reviewed. All emails I have captured for AirBnB guests have been through manual requests over messaging and then copy and paste into contact. Is there another way to request the email that I can activate?

Thank you for your attention,

Manel

Yes, this is planned for the future, though I don't have an ETA.

I can't see the message if someone replied?

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Showing:  Owner View Bookings

Where it says SELECT Above it add a SELECT ALL Option so we can select all then uncheck the few we need the data for.

Right now it requires checking many boxes to be excluded which is time consuming every page where the report pulls in records that will need some excluded.

Example: PM should be paid 100% property fee, $350 cleaning and 20% of the base rent and 12% taxes
Owner should receive 80% of the base rate, 100% electric fee, $150 cleaning. 

The BEST way for the User experience is to have it right on the charges page with breakdown as a new column "Paid to" and "amount".

Charges    Change ChargesThese charges constitute the 'invoice' that the guest pays you for the booking. Anything affecting the total cost must be entered here. Before issuing refunds, these charges must be adjusted to reflect what is being refunded.

Currency: USD

Guest Channel FeesAmounts the guest paid to the listing site directly, like service fees or taxes remitted by the listing site. Record Fee Delete

Total guest fees $1,146.35

We strongly recommend having all guests e-sign our rental agreement, as that's the only legally valid and binding protection you have re the guest that doesn't involve Airbnb making all the decisions.

But if you decide not to use that protection, the system should still allow the guest to provide their email, and not make them sign the agreement.  Do you have a specific example of a booking that didn't work that way? If so, please send that in to the Helpdesk to investigate.

Would be nice to have a OR native app. Especially for guest services. Many guests seem to forget about or not read emails. App could be downloaded by guest and provide the guest info such as:

lock code
check-in/out times
address
invoice
send comm to hosts
etc.

Log-in could be email or booking number and check-in date or booking phone number

Add items if you think this would be helpful.

The feature is already a money maker, but can also take more time than needed. Would be great to configure a discount for these nights, like 20%, and have more of the work done for us automatically.

Send to guest with click link to accept our offer, then a process to authorize change of dates and auto-price.

Wishful thinking, but it can be done.

- Chuck

Any plans to develop a native app? At least for guest interaction such as the Hospitality by escapia - Guest Hospitality App for Vacation Property Managers| Escapia

This is a feature that we also need for our business. Are there any plans on the roadmap to build in this functionality?

Just found this as you were answering on this Sunday morning! That shows how infrequently we have to do this!

Thanks!

Mike - you can go into this guest's booking and click the "email to guest" button and then select whichever template you wanted to send. I do this all the time for guests who can't find my email with the request to sign rental agreement.

Emails get lost for many reasons, most commonly it's that the guest simply can't find it. They might have forgotten that they used a work email so they are looking in the wrong place, maybe they did accidentally delete it, maybe their email client groups emails together in a thread, could be any of many reasons.

Ken,

This problem has just reared it's ugly head for us. A Guest says they never received their booking with the signed renters agreement. Checking ORez shows it sent and opened, also our copy sent and opened. We NEVER delete anything from our rentals mailbox. Usually, when this happens, we just forward our copy to the guest. This instance, December 4, 22, we can find no trace of the email in our folder on our PC's or our email provider online folder or trash.

Any suggestion on how this is possible? A resend option on ORez would be very helpful right now! If fairness, this is the first time in 4+ years that we cant find our copy of a "lost" email.

EDIT"""""

Just found the way to do it! But, a "resend" option on the email history page would be the intuitive way to solve this issue.

Regards,

Mike McDonald

Hi Wendy & Manel,

Thanks for taking the time to put this together.  I appreciate the work in thinking this out, and telling other community members about it.

We fully plan to sync Deposits and Fees both (covering your first couple bullets).  It's on the dev roadmap, just a matter of time to get to that moment.  That will hopefully get us to a to-the-penny reconciliation on the QB side (ie. fully quote to cash).

The Airbnb Transactions API is done on our side but is in testing and will be a month or so before it's out live.  That will eliminate the need to do Channel Bridge for Airbnb.

Thanks for helping the community here, and we'll try to nudge other requests over to here as they pop up.

PS. I like your idea of using custom fields OR to customize how the memo/description looks in QB.  Interesting!

Hi Dory and everyone,

This is a one of the most important accounting issues we face. I have included this in the list mentioned below. I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

Hi everyone,

I have included this in the list mentioned below. I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

Dori and everyone else on the thread,

I have included this issue in a comprehensive list with which I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

Hi Dori,

I have read all of the Quickbooks related posts (I think) and want to thank you for all your involvement in the topic.  I do think that your suggestion of handling taxes with the tax lines in QB online is not the best practices approach and I am happy to explain (on a call) what best practices are and why -- not to say you can't do it the way you are doing it but we all need to come together as a community and give unified feedback to OR. As a result,

I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

Hi everyone,

I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

Hi everyone,

I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel

I would like OR to consolidate all accounting/Quickbooks related requests into this thread and work with key stakeholders to develop a roadmap. If OR doesn't do it I ask all user that have votes in other threads to please consolidate their votes here.  We need to communicate to OR how important it is to improve the financial reporting. We need to hold a virtual meeting user forum with OR to understand their issues and communicate the users need coherently.  I am an expert in the area and would be happy to facilitate and present different solutions.

The issues I think need to be addressed are listed below. I ask everyone to focus on the issue/problem rather than the solution so jointly we create a solution roadmap. If I am able to edit this post and other people reply with additional issues I will edit this and add to the list. I have tried to prioritize by pain point as I see it but this can be better prioritized in a discussion. I have also used numbers so we can refer to numbers in a discussion, if I add new points I will add them at the bottom (or as an additional sub-point) so not to change any references that are made in ensuing discussion. There they will no longer be prioritized

1. sync Credit Card fees to accounting - where supported by CC company
2. sync AirBnB/Platform fees to accounting
3. add a "Unearned Revenue"/"Customer Deposits"/"Prepayments" process to and only create the invoice (earn Revenue) upon check-in.
4. Enable more accurate/GAAP accounting processes
   1. better deal with cancelations / avoid messy manual work-arounds
   2. process refunds (ie cancellations)
5. allow users to filter which transactions sync by filtering by date, channel (as different channels may have different needs and there are some excellent tools that exist for some channels)
6. sync Credit Card company reserves currently in Adjustments - may need to have more info sync from Processor. I don't know how OR deals when the balance of the reserve is deposited (I am fairly new to OR and have not had a reserve deposited yet). I will update this line when I have a Reserve post
7. Allow for Guests to be sub-customers. ideally a choice of subs of Channel or Properties - both meet different needs and raise new issues such as should a repeat customer under a new channel or another property be duplicated, but good to discuss. This goes back to developing a "Best Practices" for VR accounting (including Property Management), establishing the philosophy/approach first and then coding to the approach - clearly PM needs to link customer to one or more property
8. Channel Bridge and Accounting integration - other solutions get full financial information from AirBnB without a channel bridge process - update / fix approach
   1. this should also fix Orphaned customers - also may be related to the prepayments / correct time of invoices issue
9. Improve Property Management Accounting (I haven't turned on PM yet so I am not personally familiar with all the issues but want to start a list):
   1. Sync commissions and allow for different models of Property Management business models and corresponding accounting
   2. sync Property Management Expenses to Quickbooks
   3. Proper trust accounting or at least track liabilities and current assets accounts for amounts owed or to be received from Owners - this info can be used for proper trust accounting and managing cash transfers in QB
10. allow to use OR Fields to customize Memos in QB transactions and/or QB custom fields
11. Facilitate integrations with other 3rd party tools like Stessa
12. Add ability to Sync Booking Tags to QB Invoices - If OR Tags on Bookings (Invoices in QB) matches a QB Tag then sync Tag with QB Invoice - Possibly in future use the upcoming auto-Tag feature to assign tags to Bookings and sync to QB

Please let me know any other issues that need to be addressed

Deleted and consolidated into one message above

This is a request that should be made of Stessa. OR has an open API and this integration would benefit STESSAs business model. I would use this but I would much prefer a wholistic approach to a accounting solution. I have several suggestions and it would be great if OR would hold a virtual user’s forum to set a course for an accounting solution that aligns with ORs business model and allows users to continue to scale their business in OR.

I am a financial professional and could add a lot of input to this discussion and I am sure there are a lot of other users that could do the same. A solid accounting solution could really differentiate OR.

Further, there are several requests on this forum relating to accounting and or QuickBooks, and if they were all consolidated into one, I am sure this would be one of the highest vote getting issues. Can I request OR to consolidate these all into one, and as mentioned above, please create some sort of organized discussion with everybody involved. 

I am going to open a new ticket, called Fix Accounting/Quickbooks - develop Roadmap , and ask that OR group all the accounting related issues and votes into this one issue and prioritize developing a roadmap

Ken,

Thanks for the quick response. Maybe I’m not understanding the current form correctly. On the current form, when the guests submit the contact details form, it takes them to the contact signature page. In cases where we don’t need the rental contract this is confusing for the guest. Also, the overall messaging on the page could be simplified just for contact information gathering. Does that make sense?

right now there’s several instances, many times after check-in, where we request to guests email for the database and we have to wait for them to reply on Airbnb and then we have to copy and paste it into the CRM.

ideally, we would like to create a workflow that when guests make a reservation through Airbnb, we send them a template message did ask them to submit their email for future communications in for the sharing of house, manual recommendations, etc. which will allow us to regularly capture more emails.

Thanks Manel

I would also like to see tags for items/surcharges that are added to a booking.   For example if someone adds a hot tub or pool heat the booking would have the designated tag for those items added to the booking.   This would then allow for triggered communications (emails and sms) based on the tag.  IE I could send a message to the bookings that have a HOT TUB tag on the day of arrival a reminder about hot tub rules and information on how to unlock it.

We already do collect real email addresses from Airbnb guests using that form, so I'm not sure what the purpose here is.

Yes on VRBO native messaging -- which they say they are working on; I understand this is a high priority for lot of people, but it's not a deal-breaker for my business. For me, OR and hospitable (the old smartbnb) have been the twin pillars of my tech stack for years.  No one software checks all the boxes for me.

As for an app, I may be in the minority, but I love the progressive web app because it has the exact same functionality as the desktop version. Notifications would be nice, though. But a stripped-down android app mainly for notifications might be more trouble than it's worth. I don't feel that strongly about notifications, but I get it that it's a big deal for others.

Not sure why it would have been erroring on actual bookings and not just blocks without that filter, but as soon as my next booking comes in... I'll let you know if the Zap works normally or not!

Aha! That makes sense, and explains why I couldn't identify that ID from anywhere. If that's true, than the error should go away with the filter on `is_block`.