Latest Activity...
As someone who also puts booking fees in COGS I have to say that it is far easier to use the automated deposits and do a JE to move in a lump sum monthly or quarterly. The amount of time we now save by doing the deposits manually far outweighs the few minutes!
I am trying this out. However, there seems to be a slight change I would love to request. Currently it only offers expense accounts. Would it be possible to see other accounts, like COGS.
We use COGS for the booking fees because we do owner reports through QBO, and that allows us to split and share the fees easily with owners. However, only allowing for an expense account does not let us do this without having to either modify the report or manually reclass items.
I also know others who actually put it as part of the income accounts too, to just lower the income to match what was deposited. I don't think that is best practice, but nonetheless, their practice.
I would HOPE QBO would make this easy for you and it is a simple change of what fields you are showing. But that might me a dream too.
The language at the bottom of the guest payment form is as follows: "Guest receives 96.50% if cancellation occurs by May 31, 2025; Guest receives 50.00% if cancellation occurs by Jun 30, 2025; No refunds after Jun 30, 2025.
All refund percentages are relative to the total booking charges, not the amount paid so far." Is there any way we can change that last part to say, "All refund percentages are relative to the total amount paid so far, not the total booking charges." We found that the language is inherently incorrect as a guest cannot be refunded 96.50% of the total amount of the booking if they haven't paid the total amount yet.
Would love to see nightly rate / price displayed on the monthly view of the booking calendar without having to switch to "Rate Calendar" tool. Rate Calendar is visually difficult to see bookings with the lines vs. actual reservations, etc.
It would make my life a lot easier if the calendar showed the booking platform logo next to the guest's name rather than having to hover over each name or sort and filter to see where that booking came from. I know it is possible because I used another channel manager in the past that had it and it was beneficial. Possibly use OR logo for direct books?
I did a mock-up to give an idea of what I would like to show on the calendar. It helps to know visually where each guest booked from for me, I hope this will also help others. let me know what you think and please vote for it.
I’m going to give Quickbooks a try again. I would love your recommendation on charts of accounts you’ve used to set your integration up. Thank you!
Yep!
We are currently developing the option to sync to those new settings. Airbnb does not always give advanced notice for their changes which finds us adapting after the fact. I don't have an ETA for you at this time.
It looks like Airbnb now supports pet fees being charged per pet, per night. I’m not sure how new this is or if I missed an OwnerRez update covering this, but I’ve searched the support articles and forums and haven’t found anything. Is this now supported for API-connected hosts?
Nope. Still need to manipulate the system daily. Major inconvenience for an otherwise good system
Do you know if there has been any movement on this feature? I'd love to use it!
Yes, we have been wanting that for years so guest can just click the link instead of sending it in a message or email.
I always send my guests a follow-up message an hour after they have arrived at the property. I know the time they arrived at the property based on the notification I get from the Schlage app that the access code for that guest was used to unlock the door. It would be great if Schlage could report the logs back to OwnerRez so that we could then trigger messages based on the timing of lock/unlock events. Using the check-in time wouldn't really work for me as guests rarely arrive exactly at the check-in time and I don't want to message them too early or too late.
Aloha,
What are the best ways to test the Quickbooks integration before switching completely? I'm still connected with BnTally. I want to Test it for Airbnb Booking, Vrbo Booking, and direct website booking. I have already worked on the mapping on my sketch paper and created proper services for tax ( state and county). What you wish you knew before doing the integration? Mahalo Ania
I'm already reconciled with all my BnTally and manual entry invoices. I don't want duplicate entries, but I want to test it and see how it works booking by booking. Can I since only one or few bookings before the sinc date?
Just to confirm, is there a way to set up the Default Rent by Platform. My Income statement has Airbnb Sales, Vrbo sales, Website sales - so I can verify my sales register to 1099k at the end of the year.
As far I can tell, this only works before a guest has signed any Rental Agreement at all. Because at that point, the Renter Agreement Status will be set to "No" and then you can create automated tags from that status. However, once a guest signs the Rental Agreement, the Status moves to "Yes" and never gets set back to "No" under any circumstance. So once booking details change and the previously signed Renter Agreement is no longer valid, the Status still remains at "Yes". So automated tags will not work for changed bookings after initial signing.
Try tag automation?
If a guest signs a Renter Agreement and then later changes the booking (say for different dates, or additional guests), the renter agreement status does not change back to "No". While I know it is possible to automatically send a request to sign a new renter agreement when a booking changes, the renter agreement status will still remain at "Yes", which means there is no automated way to track if the guest has signed the updated agreement with the latest booking information without manually going into the booking and checking for a newly signed agreement. Renter Agreement statuses should automatically change back to "No" when critical booking details change like dates or guest counts.
OwnerRez contains Auto-Cancellation Rules in the UI that can conflict with each other and cause inadvertent overrides of settings. There is a setting where you can apply auto-cancellation rules for "Checks" when a booking is waiting for a payment by check. Additionally, there is a separate setting for "Pending for Payment" where a different set of auto-cancellation options exist. However, any booking that is waiting for a check payment will inherently be placed in a "Pending for Payment" status as well. So that booking would match the criteria for both "Checks" and "Pending for Payment" at the same time. There is nothing in the UI that prevents a user from selecting conflicting options. For example, in the "Checks" section a user can select "The booking auto-cancels in 14 days". But in the "Pending for Payment" status, the user can simultaneously select "Send me a warning notification". These are conflicting options as one will auto-cancel and the other one will not auto-cancel but instead send a notification. In this instance, the "Pending for Payment" option takes precedence and will override the auto-cancellation selection in the "Checks" section.
Another example is if in the "Checks" section a user selects "The booking does not auto cancel". But in the "Pending for Payment" section, the user selects, "Automatically cancel the booking. Again, these are opposite and conflicting selections. It's unclear what would happen to a booking that is pending payment by check in this instance. Will the booking auto cancel or will it not auto cancel?
Ultimately, I don't see a need to have the "Pending for Payment" section at all as it appears redundant to the "Checks" and "Custom Instructions" sections, both of which will naturally place a booking in a "Pending for Payment" status while waiting for the payment. My suggestion would be to get rid of the "Pending for Payment" section altogether and simply add a third option to the "Checks" and "Custom Instructions" sections that allows users to receive a warning notification rather than auto-cancel.
Tim would you be willing to share a screenshot?
Here is my site and I would love a widget to go in the yellow area
I don't know how much flexibility you have in your website, but there are almost certainly ways to incorporate a static price comparison. Could be as simple as making the graphic and adding it like a picture.
I agree this would be a phenomenal feature, even if it were just implemented for our direct booking site.
You're right Robert if you have static pricing. But I use dynamic pricing so it would be nice to have a widget that shows comparison pricing. HiChee says they have plans - and their site is super quick. So everyone who is wanting this.....signup for HiChee and ask....and then schedule an email to ask every week LOL
Whether one has static or dynamic pricing, having a comparison example is better than nothing.
I certainly recognize why a live comparison is better, but in the absence of that, having a fixed example probably has 75-80% of the same impact on travellers.
Some may argue that having a live comparison tool is NOT the best approach because it gives the guest the price for their dates, taking away the incentive/reason for them to contact you.
Getting the guest's email address allows you to market to them in the future. Having them see a price and leave without booking has value, yes, but probably not as much when you could inform them of the differences in pricing AND get their contact info if they're truly interested. And many are... that is until they find out that your price is twice what they were hoping to pay and give up and disappear!
For those of you who haven't seen it, if you are on Google Vacation Rentals along with other sites, you have a live comparison feature already available online. It looks like this:
I have no idea if anyone could 'jury-rig' some means to display that on their own site, but a high-end web developer may be able to do it.
Tim would you be willing to share a screenshot?
Here is my site and I would love a widget to go in the yellow area
You're right Robert if you have static pricing. But I use dynamic pricing so it would be nice to have a widget that shows comparison pricing. HiChee says they have plans - and their site is super quick. So everyone who is wanting this.....signup for HiChee and ask....and then schedule an email to ask every week LOL
Is the concern with having the price comparison tool or simply being able to book direct on your website?
The reason I'm asking is it would be very simple (or should be) for whomever is designing your website to build a price comparison panel to display on a page on your site, which has a price comparison for any week that you care to choose. It doesn't have to be a particular week, or even the week that your particular guests are looking for. Just a comparison panel that shows the pricing of your property on various sites for a particular sample week that you choose.
Then, right beside that, you have your widget from OwnerRez where the guest can enter their own dates and info, and either request a quote, or see one instantly, depending on which OwnerRez widget you setup.
If you or your web designer has problem designing a comparison panel, a cheap, quick and easy way to create one would be to just take a screen shot of the multi-site panel that shows on Google Vacation Rentals for your property (you are on Google Vacation Rentals, right?), where they show 6-8 websites where your properties can be seen on the web, with prices for whatever dates you request. And if it's like mine, your own website will appear at the top of that list with the best price, and an "Official Site" designation right next to it.
My point is, you can easily have a comparison panel on your site, which gets the point across to your guests, without it being variable to a particular week, that booking direct with you is the best choice. It doesn't have to be variable. The comparison prices for whatever sample week it shows will be all you need to do to make the point to the guest that your own site is the best place to book. They will assume that the deal for their week is just as good as the sample they see.
No additional tools or third party software or subscriptions are needed. Just design the comparison panel, and have your OwnerRez booking widget right there.
Simple!
Or am I missing something?
If you think so, let me know why, and I'll happily straighten you out! Hah hah hah!
I have a price comparison graphic but that is static and only demonstrates "potential" savings based on a particular stay I "created". A dynamic tool would be more impactful in my opinion as it allows the potential guest to see exactly what the OTAs charge and exactly how much they would save on their specific stay.
It would be nice if OR embraced AI. AI is literally transforming my business and I'm able to do things now that I would've never had the time for in the past. Most of the tools I use now have embedded AI support. One of those tools is the new elementor AI generator. It would be nice if OR provided some design blocks that Incorporated their WP widgets. AI is the future. There's a lot of companies that are now jumping on the AI bandwagon and are adding AI driven features and OR certainly could benefit from developing some of these even within their tools. I use ChatGPT 4 for most text now, what it generates is way better and it will generate content that drives SEO.
Please start developing AI capable configurators.
Really like where everything is going with the new developments. I have added a bunch of surcharge packages but the one issue is that i manually need to check if people are purchasing these packages as there is not a way to currently add a tag or to have anything trigger to us. I would really love to see this soon.
Thank you
Lindsay
I too would love the feature to add custom fields to the Booking/Inquiry form. This bypasses the 'friction' that can occur when you have to email back and forth.
If you change the check-in time on the booking, it WILL update the check-in time in Schlage for their specific keypad code!
Just having completed the process of adding and updating photos for three properties I agree with the general premise that the process could be improved. However, my impression is that the current Ownerrez implementation is sort of based on the assumption that adding photos is a "set it and forget it" process. I suggest that our property photo galleries need to be more dynamic and will need updating in response to both changes we make to the properties and the varying informational and marketing needs of our Guests.
Photos are such a critical part of describing the property to potential Guests and are so very essential in selling. Anything that can be done to help us use photos more effectively is appreciated! "A picture is worth a thousand words..."
Several things occur to me;
1. each of our new properties had upwards of 60 to 70 photos so tracking them requires numbering. But after adding new photos I found it tedious that I needed to scroll all the way (down?) to the highest numered photos which is where the newly added photos are found. Is there any reason why the newly added photos could not be given the lowest numbers so they appear at the top of the screen? Those are the photos that now require assignment to "rooms" and to have captions added. The need to scroll down to them as opposed to having them at the top seems wrong.
2. can you retain the original file name of the photo/image as it was imported? This would make it possible to find the exact file by name that was used for the Ownerrez photo gallery. So often the photo selected is one of a series of multiple shots, each with slight variations in framing, angle, or whatever. I find it challenging and time consuming to identify exactly which of them was used to populate the Ownerrez photo gallery. Tracking the exact file name would have other benefits as well.
3. it would be very useful to have a "Replace Photo" function which could be used to update a given photo in one fell swoop. Right now the process takes multiple steps. If the "Replace Photo" process could also include retaining the "room" and caption which were associated with the original photo that would both save time and reduce errors and/or omissions potentially associated with this process. I would use this when updated photos become available or are required, for example when furniture or decor changes dictate such changes. Also, newer better photos become available or are required based on Guest feedback about features of the property for which more details would be beneficial. I would also use this for seasonal photo changes which I occasionally want to do.
Thanks for your time and attention,
Kees
Ownerrez!!! Please allow this feature.....pricelabs told me they can do it but you haven't allowed the feature yet.........Please update it so we can add % premiums for shorter bookings! Thank you
I'd like to see full integration with ZOHO Books
