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Getting Started » Setting Up Your Account
Updated 3 days ago

Setup Checklist

OwnerRez offers many options and settings to help automate your short-term rental business. However, before you can do that, you need to set up your properties, settings, and business rules.

Complete the following steps before initiating any listing channel integration connections (e.g., Airbnb, Vrbo). The fastest and most effective way to set up your account is to follow the steps below systematically. These steps are intended to operationalize your account as quickly as possible without disrupting your current business practices.

OwnerRez has default settings in some areas, so those parts of the system work immediately. Other areas, including messaging templates, rules, branding, logos, and more, need customization to fit your needs.

Here's a quick video overview of setting up for direct bookings. Connecting to major listing channels is somewhat more complicated.

Here is the summary checklist as a Printable PDF that you can print out and check off the steps as you complete your account setup.

Stepping Stones

Below is a step-by-step guide. Each step is essential in setting up your OwnerRez account. Hyperlinks throughout this guide will provide links to additional support documentation with more detailed information.

Payment Processing - Before continuing your account setup, we recommend you research and determine which Payment Processor would be best for you to use and initiate the process of getting an account with them.

If connecting to the Vrbo channel integration, all Integrated Property Managers (IPM) must be the "Merchant of Record" to process payments and remit taxes for bookings. Payment processing is also needed for direct website bookings.

NOTE: Some Credit Card Processors can take a few weeks to get fully approved and set up, so we call this out this early in the process. You can continue with some of the setup steps below while awaiting approval from your chosen processor.
  1. Listing Content
  2. Property-Level Rules
  3. Seasons/Holidays and Rates
  4. Additional Pricing Settings
  5. Travel Insurance
  6. iCal Import/Export
  7. Damage Protection Insurance
  8. Channel Bridge
  9. Import Reviews
  10. Direct Bookings
  11. Testing
  12. Custom Sources
  13. Payment Processing
  14. Connect Channel Integrations
  15. Verified Email Domains
What next?

1. Listing Content

Enter your Property Listing Information into OwnerRez

  • If you are not currently using Airbnb or Vrbo, see our Adding New Properties support article for instructions on adding your Properties from scratch.
  • If your properties are listed on Airbnb or Vrbo already, we have written a tool that will import that information into OwnerRez. Review each of the following tabs and confirm all information is updated for each of your properties (Properties > specific Property > Listing Content > Accommodations, Amenities, etc.):
    • Accommodations
    • Amenities
    • Descriptions
    • Guest Instructions
    • Health & Safety
    • Location
    • Photos: If you import both VRBO and Airbnb listings, all fields will merge except for photos, which will be duplicated. Thus, we recommend importing photos from only one of the two channels.
    • Rooms

NOTE: If you have more than ten properties, contact us (or email help@ownerrez.com), and we can run the Listing Content Import for you on the back end to save time!

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Support Articles:

2. Property-Level Rules

Review the Rules section for each property to ensure everything is correct for each property. We enter default values in some fields, so verify that your settings are correct, including your Cancellation Policy.

NOTE: If you have more than a few properties, it may be easier to download and export your properties. You can then bulk-edit the rules for all the properties in that spreadsheet and import the edits. You can also add additional properties at this time.

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3. Seasons/Holidays and Rates

If you performed a Listing Content Import from either Airbnb or Vrbo, you may have imported Spot Rates from those channels. You will now want to review and configure your rates ( Settings > Pricing > Seasons and Rates) for future bookings.

NOTE: If you're planning to integrate with a dynamic pricing tool from the beginning, OwnerRez recommends adding at least one year of Seasons/Holidays or Rates in OwnerRez before integration.

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4. Additional Pricing Settings

  • Surcharges: Add any additional items you may charge for, such as Cleaning Fees, Pet Fees, Extra Guests, etc.
  • Discounts: Set up automatic Length of Stay Discounts, Discount Codes for marketing to repeat guests, or manual discounts that can be applied to quotes or bookings.
  • Taxes: Configure each tax you must charge guests, even if the booking channel handles it for you. Contact your local tax authority or state/province Department of Revenue for the correct percentage. This is important for both direct and Vrbo channel-integrated bookings. Don’t forget to complete the registration section for each tax.

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5. Travel Insurance

You can offer your guest the option to purchase Travel Insurance at no cost to you! Travel Insurance is automatically turned on and offered to all guests who book directly with you through your OwnerRez Hosted Website or via the Booking Widget used on your personal website hosted outside of OwnerRez.

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6. iCal Import/Export

Set up calendar imports and exports for any listing sites you already use.

  • During your OwnerRez free trial, you may want to import calendars into OwnerRez. Doing so will allow you to see bookings in OwnerRez without directly affecting how you currently operate. If you add the OwnerRez export calendar to the channels, this will be the first time OwnerRez will send data to the channels. Once import and export iCals are set up, two-way synchronization prevents double bookings. When using the OwnerRez export iCal, you should remove any other iCals in the channels. This way, all data flows from the channels into OwnerRez and back to the different listing channels.
  • If you are switching from another PMS and have a channel integration linked with Vrbo, you can skip this step because Vrbo disables iCals when a channel integration is established.

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7. Damage Protection Insurance

Review our integrated damage protection insurance offering. If you want to use this product, it can be enabled in your account here. 

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Time to Run OwnerRez's proprietary Listing Quality Analyzer!

The Listing Quality Analyzer (LQA) can be run at any time during the setup process to check all the settings entered thus far. The LQA will produce a list of errors and warnings that you should address to improve the quality of your listings.

  • Errors in red are items that could potentially cause issues with connecting a channel integration and need to be resolved before proceeding.
  • Warnings in yellow are items you should address to improve the overall quality of your listing(s), but they shouldn't cause an issue with channel integration connections.

8. Channel Bridge

Channel Bridge is an OwnerRez tool that "bridges" the gap between the data you can import with an iCal and the complete data received through the channel integration, with the ability to import booking data from Airbnb and Vrbo.

  • You can set the Channel Bridge intake date to a past date (like 2010) to ensure you get all your historical data. See our Channel Bridge Overview and Installing and Using the Channel Bridge support articles for more information.
  • The Channels determine how much data they will provide during this process. If you have a lot of bookings to bring over, the process may timeout. If this happens, shorten the date range and run multiple times to retrieve all the data.

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9. Import Reviews

You can also import Vrbo reviews into OwnerRez using the Channel Bridge tool. These reviews can then be displayed on your Hosted Website or through Widgets on your integrated website.

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10. Direct Bookings

OwnerRez provides three options to help facilitate direct bookings.

  • Hosted Website: An OwnerRez hosted website (available as a premium feature) is dynamically generated from the Listing Content data you previously imported. The website is automatically updated when you change a photo or description in OwnerRez. If you add a new listing in OwnerRez, your website will automatically add a new property page.
  • WordPress Plugin + Integrated Websites: If you built your website on the WordPress Platform, you can use the OwnerRez widgets in combination with the WordPress Plugin. The WordPress plugin will automatically add items that aren't imported with the Widgets, so if you update a listing in OwnerRez, it will modify your Descriptions, Photos, and Amenities on your WordPress site.
    • NOTE: The Hosted Websites premium feature includes access to the WordPress Plugin, so you'll need to activate Hosted Websites.
  • Website Widgets: If you have an existing website, you can create HTML-based widgets and embed them in your site for a Property Search Bar, Availability Calendars, Booking Form, and Reviews Display.
    • NOTE: Listing Content such as amenities, descriptions, photos, etc., will not be synced from OwnerRez, so these items need to be hardcoded into your website, meaning additional web development whenever you add a property.

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Support Articles:

11. Testing

You can test your quotes in a couple of areas to determine if everything looks correct (rates, etc.), and OwnerRez strongly recommends that users complete these steps.

Once you've completed both of the steps above, everything should be ready to start charging guests.

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12. Custom Sources

Configure your website as a Custom Source so OwnerRez can detect and identify direct bookings through your website.

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13. Payment Processing

Before initiating the channel integration connection with Vrbo described below, you will want to add the credentials you received from your new Payment Processor to your account here.

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Listing Quality Analyzer Check #2

Now, rerun Listing Quality Analyzer. Ensure the LQA returns no red Errors before connecting channel integrations.

14. Connect Channel Integrations

Up to this point, you have been syncing calendar availability with the channels via an iCal file. The channel integration brings over more complete booking data and pushes all of the updates you make in OwnerRez out to the listing channels (e.g., Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, etc.).

IMPORTANT!! Do not complete this step before completing all of the steps above. When you connect the channel integration, you will be overwriting your Channel Listing with all the data you have entered in OwnerRez up to this point. If you skip steps and do this too soon, you risk creating an incomplete listing on the Channels.

Airbnb

Support Articles:

  • Airbnb Overview: contains a lot of helpful information to help you better understand how things will be processed differently once connected.
  • Airbnb Setup and Connecting: a step-by-step guide on how to set additional rules for the channel, correctly map the listings, and finalize the channel integration.
  • Airbnb Common Issues and Questions: "Recommended reading* — Many good questions here about things you might experience differently now that you are channel integrated.
  • Request Channel Guest Without Contact Information to Sign Renter Agreement Template and Trigger: Airbnb does not automatically provide guest contact information (e.g., phone number, physical address, email address, etc.). This support article provides instructions on requesting your guest's contact information and having them sign your renter agreement and schedule their security deposit.
    • NOTE: OwnerRez sets this Template and Trigger up by default in the system; this is how important we feel this is.

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Vrbo

The Vrbo connection is not 100% self-service like the Airbnb connection. Instead, when you follow these steps, you request that an Integration Job be created within Vrbo, which one of their representatives will need to work on manually.

NOTE #1: Because the channel integration connection is a manual process on Vrbo's end, it can sometimes take a week or more for it to be finalized. However, there is no need to worry; if you followed the above steps, you are iCal connected and can use Channel Bridge to bring in the necessary data.

  • You can continue to use all the features of OwnerRez while awaiting the channel integration connection.
  • You will need to make updates manually in Vrbo until the connection is live.

NOTE #2: If you are a brand new Vrbo customer and do not have an existing account, DO NOT create a Vrbo account on their site. When you follow the steps below, OwnerRez can create an account for you and push the listing data to Vrbo to create your listing. This will significantly reduce your wait time!

Support Articles:

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15. Verified Email Domains

With the number of outbound emails sent from OwnerRez to your guests, your email could be flagged as spam. Please read about our Verified Email functionality, which lets OwnerRez send emails on your behalf to guests using your actual email as the "From" address and to help prevent spam filtering. You can benefit from having a custom domain email address (e.g., hello@acmecabins.com), even if you don't plan to have a direct booking website.

If you previously had an OwnerRez account with a Verified Email Domain and/or Domain Name Registrar (e.g., GoDaddy, Wix, etc.) and have made changes to either since closing your account, you might need to reconfigure them in OwnerRez.

Now that you've completed the above steps, you can always do more to help you maximize your use of OwnerRez. So, read on!

Support Articles:

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What next?

Install OwnerRez on Devices

OwnerRez fully supports mobile devices, including phones and tablets. When installed on mobile devices, the OwnerRez app functions the same across all screen sizes by adapting to all devices, allowing you to do everything on a phone or tablet that you can on a desktop or laptop.

Existing Bookings and Calendar Syncing

If you list your property on multiple regional sites, your bookings need to sync with different calendars. Otherwise, you risk double bookings. Calendar syncing can run into problems occasionally. It's important to monitor the listing sites' calendars a while after you've finished the setup to ensure all applicable dates have been blocked properly.

  • Importing calendars from listing sites will update the OwnerRez calendar with dates for future bookings. Most listing sites include some previous bookings.
  • You also need to export your calendar to these sites to ensure they block off any dates booked elsewhere.

Historical Data Import

If your bookings are all on Vrbo or Airbnb, you can import that data directly using Channel Bridge (installed during the above checklist).

However, if you have your records of existing bookings, you can import this data directly into OwnerRez using the Tools menu. Using these tools, you can ensure your historical data is in OwnerRez, so your reports are as complete as possible.

We recommend that you import the following data into OwnerRez.

Support Article:

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Fine-Tuning

There are some fine-tuning things to build on the process:

As of September 2023, Airbnb removed the platform (a.k.a. proxy or pass-through) email address function. Users should follow the instructions in the Request Airbnb Guest Contact Information support article.

  • Triggers: Create triggers to automate the process of sending your customized Templates (e.g., email, channel, SMS). Templates and triggers go hand in hand. For example, you may want a special welcome email sent two days before arrival. Check out our Template and Trigger Library Overview support article for inspiration.
  • Rental Agreement(s): e-Signed Rental Agreements are a great way to further protect your property by establishing a mutually agreed-upon set of guidelines for its use. Add/customize your renter agreement in Settings > Legal Agreements. We provide a default, which you can use by picking Prefill From > Default System Agreement. Still, you probably want to adapt that to your local jurisdiction or replace it entirely if you already have an agreement you like.
  • Theming: Configure your branded email headers and footers in the Theming section. Theming provides an easy way to include your logo, phone number, etc., in emails sent to your guests. This area controls how your contact info is displayed on your Hosted Website.
  • Automated Locks: If you have compatible smart locks (e.g., eRentalLock, ResortLock, RemoteLock), you can connect to those accounts to auto-generate codes.
  • Team Access: Do you need to give account access to other people? You can invite Portal Users or Staff Members. Read our Team Access Overview support article to learn more. 

Premium Features

If you're interested in our premium features like Hosted Websites, Property Management, QuickBooks, etc., here are the guides for them:

Ongoing Support Options

Here are some other great resources to use as you continue to learn OwnerRez:

  • Support Center: This is where all our support documents live. There are many step-by-step instructions here and videos for those visual learners among us. At the top is a plain text search bar. If you type in a keyword of what you are looking for, you will see results from articles, forums, our blog, and videos! For even more information, check out our August 14, 2024, Webinar: Focus Session - How to Use the OwnerRez Support Center.
  • Webinars: We conduct live webinars weekly. Our Sales Demo webinar goes over many of the steps in our checklist and shows you how to set up a new listing from beginning to end in under an hour. In addition, we also host chats with industry-leading experts. You can also find many of the recordings of those webinars in this section. Recently we have also added an Open Q&A that we do biweekly. Feel free to sign up for any or all of these webinars. You will learn much from attending.
  • Forums: We also have user community forums where people post questions. So, if you can't find the answer you are looking for in our support articles, try posting in the forums. We have a very knowledgeable community! If we don't get to the post first, maybe someone else will answer!
  • Blog: We have a blog that we update weekly. You will find product updates and all sorts of info about our software and the short-term rental industry.
  • Email Support: If you can't find the answer you are looking for, fill out this simple form here. It will send us a message, and someone will get back to you as soon as possible!