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While not 100% effective... we tag the guest... and then have the system send to us a notification at time of booking if someone books that has been tagged. We of course keep all of the "history" with the guest and have not problem cancelling their reservation explaining the past history to them if needed. I would like to see this automated for direct bookings for sure by preventing them from confirming based on the guest information they provided... additionally, I don't know when you actually get the guest information from the OTAs but if when the inquiry comes in there are matches to a guest that is tagged I would think you could respond back to the inquiry with an appropriate booking violation response.
In a scenario where a guest is standing outside the rental unit and then scans a QR code to book a unit through my ownerrez website, I want the guest to be able to complete the booking, make their payment, then immediately receive a door entry code email all within less than 2 minutes.
For this to happen, I need to be able to set up:
1) An Immediate Trigger to Process A Payment and allow criteria such as BOOKING DATE IS SAME AS TODAY and CHECK IN TIME has past
2) An Immediate Trigger to send a door entry code email when BOOKING DATE IS THE SAME AS TODAY and BOOKING STATUS IS FULLY PAID
There are times when guests literally are standing in front of the property waiting for their door entry email and Ownerrez takes too long to cue up the payment and the door entry code email. Guest are very unsatisfied with the wait time from the Ownerrez PMS.
Please enable hosts to easily understand what the actual Net Rent is after all of the fees for Booking.com and other major OTAs, like AirBnB and VRBO.
For example, for Booking.com bookings, the host pays the 23% host fee (in US), which is included in the Rent.
OwnerRez gets the host fee info from Booking.com via the integration, BUT does not subtract it from the Rent in any of the reports, which overstates the actual Rent that we keep.
To expand on this idea, it would be useful to have a report where hosts can clearly see the Net Rent. This can be done by taking the amount paid to the host from by OTAs (AirBnB, VRBO, Booking.com - start with these 3, please!) and subtracting all of the fees (host booking fee, cleaning fee, taxes, etc.), so that we can see the actual Net Rent.
Thank you in advance and we appreciate the amazing OwnerRez team supporting this wonderful software!
Jake & Andrea at https://www.WhiteMountainsGetaway.net
Absolutely needed to reduce manual labor by property managers and other staff.
We actually used to have this feature but it got lost in a recent upgrade to our trigger setup form. We're working on restoring it as soon as possible.
Having a trigger that can be set for a message to go out during night time hours. This would allow a template explaining that response time might be a little slower since we are trying to catch some ZZZzzz but will get back to you first thing in the am. If this is an emergency……
I understand you wanted to create one post and are pushing hard to run any updates to accounting by you or a group you create. However, I think it would be helpful to split the request out. Then it can be show which feathers are wanted and by how many. That seems to be a better method than one large thread on all accounting features. Not everyone had the same accounting needs and wants.
@Paul / OR, can we please close out the various QB threads and create one cohesive channel for communication.
@Leti,
I empathize with your issue and have been trying to push for urgency in addressing key accounting deficiencies. We all have to work together to communicate the challenges and needs. Please see the thread I mentioned above for the latest discussion.
OR has finally said they will fix the issue (see Paul’s last post) but we don’t have a timeline yet.
I see that all the action is happening in the other thread. I'll follow there, thanks
Hey Paul, it's been a few years now, and refunds are still not getting sync'd into QB, making the process of matching invoices and deposits quite tedious.
Any update on when this feature will be available?
Currently, when we extend a reservation, the date in the electronic lock is updated through RemoteLock automatically. However, when I adjust the check-in or check-out time and apply a tag to reflect the change in the booking, the time in RemoteLock doesn’t update automatically—I have to do this manually, either through OwnerRez or the RemoteLock website.
Is it possible to automate this process? For example, if a booking with a checkout time of 10:00 AM is changed to 1:00 PM on the same day, could applying the "Late Checkout 1:00 PM" tag automatically update the time in the electronic lock?
Perhaps the tag could trigger the "Change/Move Booking" feature to modify the lock time accordingly.
When we extend a reservation, it does update the date in the electronic lock through RemoteLock. However, when I change the check-in or check-out time for the same day and apply a tag to reflect it in the booking, it doesn’t update the time in RemoteLock—I have to do it manually be it through OwnerRez or Remotelock website.
Is there a way to automate this process? For example, if a booking with a checkout time of 10:00 AM is changed to 1:00 PM on the same day, is it possible to automatically update the time in the electronic lock by applying the "Late Checkout 1:00 PM" tag?
Something like the tag making a command to the Change/move booking feature.
Thank you!
When we extend a reservation, it does update the date in the electronic lock through RemoteLock. However, when I change the check-in or check-out time for the same day and apply a tag to reflect it in the booking, it doesn’t update the time in RemoteLock—I have to do it manually be it through OwnerRez or Remotelock website.
Is there a way to automate this process? For example, if a booking with a checkout time of 10:00 AM is changed to 1:00 PM on the same day, is it possible to automatically update the time in the electronic lock by applying the "Late Checkout 1:00 PM" tag?
Something like the tag making a command to the Change/move booking feature.
Thank you!
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
It would be helpful to have items that occur frequently to be automated. For example, after I sent gate passes, I send a specific template and then assign a tag. Would it be possible to automate this. You could just have the same actions taken each time.
This type of feature was nice with hospitable. It had a prefilled responses to key words. i.e. pets.... it would then send a prescribed message about pets.
we use tags to filter out people we dont want future messaging to go to, but we have no current way to block someone with a "negative" tag from booking.
After receiving a credit card charge back, the credit card company wanted a copy of the conversation between the host and guest.
If there was a way to export the chat into a file, this would make it easier to fulfill this request, rather than trying to screen capture it.
thoughts?
It would be awesome to offer an optional discount during the inquiry ("kicking tires") phase of booking that appears before guests enter their name, email & phone.
Ex: after selecting dates to see rates there is the regular rate & a non-refundable option.
It would be even better if that non-refundable option was able to be configured where it is only available outside of the normal non-refundable period (ie: 31+ days out if there is already a 30 day non-refundable period).
Hi Jessica G - this is currently in testing. It should be out sometime this quarter!
Requesting customization to the staff portal to be able to limit users to specific properties.
OR
The option to allow portal users access to reports for their assigned property.
@Shawn, have you thought about implementing it in OwnerRez for direct bookings?
We would love to implement it. However, Vrbo does not yet support this function via its API, so we can't do so. They plan to add it, but the delivery timeline has slipped from their original plan. We'll implement it as soon as it's available to OwnerRez.
Any update on this feature being created?
Subject: Request for Flexible Minimum Night Requirement Settings
Hello Support Team,
I often find the need to set different minimum night requirements across platforms, such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and my direct booking website. For example, I may want to enforce a 4-night minimum stay on Airbnb for the period of December 20th, 2024, to December 31st, 2024, while setting a 3-night minimum for the same dates on my website or Vrbo.
The reasoning behind this can vary. For instance, I might include the cleaning fee within the nightly rate on Airbnb but keep it separate on Vrbo. In this case, I would need a longer minimum stay on Airbnb to help offset the baked-in fees, while still allowing for a shorter stay on Vrbo since those fees are not baked into the overall price.
Could you please look into the possibility of allowing platform-specific minimum night requirements that can be customized per platform, such as in the spot rates editor?
Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
Chris
A gap is defined as the window of time between two bookings. It is not possible to have a different Departure gap vs Arrival gap. In theory, every gap rule can be thought of as a Departure gap. In practice, an Arrival gap may "appear" before a booking to prevent a guest from booking their departure without sufficient Departure gap.
I think the feature needed by the OP is the ability to remove the Departure gap from some select bookings. That would be safer than advertising all nights as available and then attempting to add a gap after the booking has already been accepted.
I'm in a similar situation and would also like to request the ability to only require a gap day AFTER bookings depart so that our cleaning team can get the property ready without having to rush!
I would love to see a way to visually tell a booking has a past due balance. I use the ribbon view and if the guests name or the color of the block could be red to indicate there's an outstanding balance, that would be super helpful. Or something similar to the list view that shows cancelled bookings.
Having to hover over every single booking to see if there's an outstanding balance isn't ideal.
Thank you for the consideration
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.
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