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Another month, another Gallimaufry

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Following up on the Gallimaufry post from June, and July/August, here's what we've got for September.

Gallimaufry (n): A collection or hodgepodge of things with no apparent unifying theme.

One of the bigger features we've already announced was tracking and displaying reviews. We've got more to announce on reviews in the next couple of days, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

New listing sites

Overhauled renter agreement section

More docs on renter agreements can be found in our Renter Agreements and other legal agreements support article.

  • Allow setting agreement to sign when generating a link for the guest
  • Add listing site criteria on renter agreements so language can be altered for different listing site policies
  • Add verify contact info page on signing link (including booking checkout custom fields)
  • Require email address to be not a listing site double blind on contact info verification
  • Apply theme header/footer on booking forms

Portal access

  • Make calendar permissions a set of flags vs a level so they can be independently selected
  • Add allow all properties option
  • Add guest name permission for calendar and owner statements
  • Add notes button and permission

Hosted website

  • Enhanced loading snappyness on photo slider
  • If too many menu items to fit, put them in a more menu
  • If site name too wide, give it an ellipsis
  • Allow setting book now button caption via tab name

Mobile responsive enhancements for Bookings tab

  • 15 day view for ribbon mobile portrait
  • Allow left/right swiping to switch months
  • On ribbon, measure text and tighten up layout on small screens to save space
  • On month, make rows scrollable if too many bookings to fit
  • Layout buttons and filters to fit on one rows
  • Grid responsive to hide/show columns

 

And all of the other stuff...

  • Overhaul booking payments and refunds into new Transactions section
  • Add booking cleaning date
  • Hover headers on grid to make sort visible
  • Add datepicker to booking calendar picker
  • Show cc icons on booking forms if PayPal only
  • Export all season rates in their own season even if there are other seasons
  • Add listing site fee report
  • Add travel insurance filter on bookings grid
  • Update RemoteLock codes instead of new each time
  • Allow setting RemoteLock code
  • Add address to convert block to booking form
  • Add Airbnb transaction history import
  • Clarify that Air can do calendar sync
  • Add non commissionable amount on booking charges
  • Add booking charge linked expenses
  • Add nightly taxes
  • On date or property change on quote or booking, ask if charges should be recalced
  • If there are guest fees, ask to recalc charges when occupancy changes for quote or booking
  • Default expire and pending day extension box values
  • Add payment and secdep request email templates and compose buttons
  • Add merge fields for listing site
  • Order season selectors by date vs. name

12 Comments (add yours)

BlueMtnCabins
Oct 12, 2017 1:07 PM
Joined Jun, 2016 1113 posts

Awesome, question off the bat: How do i do these:

Overhauled renter agreement section

Allow setting agreement to sign when generating a link for the guest << not sure what this is?
Add listing site criteria on renter agreements so language can be altered for different listing site policies << where do I set this?
Add verify contact info page on signing link (including booking checkout custom fields) << where do I set this?
Require email address to be not a listing site double blind on contact info verification << where do I set this?
Apply theme header/footer on booking forms

BlueMtnCabins
Oct 12, 2017 1:10 PM
Joined Jun, 2016 1113 posts

Also, "facebook" does not show in a dropdown when i am trying to point inquiry/book widget to it.

Wendy@A-List
Oct 12, 2017 1:30 PM
Joined Jun, 2012 32 posts

Thank you! You guys are great! Have been wondering about the importing of reviews, is there a way to have them downloaded from the different ad sites or do we manually copy past each one?
Thank you for your continued improvements and enhancements of your program.
Wendy

Wendy@A-List
Oct 12, 2017 1:31 PM
Joined Jun, 2012 32 posts

meant to say copy and paste each one....

Chris Hynes
Oct 12, 2017 2:18 PM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

@BlueMtnCabins... good point on the how's. Most of the new features are automatically added. I just wrote up an article with more details on legal agreements here: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/renter-legal-agreements

For the header/footer, that's referring to the Forms header/footer setting in Settings > Theming. While overhauling renter agreements, we realized that the header/footer was applied to quote checkout forms but wasn't applied to some other forms like the security deposit signing form -- so now it will be.

@Wendy... Right now it's copy/paste, but we're working on an import tool.

Amanda & Mike H
Oct 22, 2017 9:28 AM
Joined Jun, 2017 12 posts

Wow, lot's of upgrades. Love it. Just beginning to dig in on some of these.

I have a couple of questions/suggestions in regard to the Owner Portal Access.

For the Booking Calendar:

When displaying financials inside of the booking calendar, the total charges shown here reflect all charges to the guest. This will cause confusion with owners as they may expect their earnings to be based on the total dollars shown. This is incorrect as it includes fees they are not entitled to earnings on such as taxes and cleaning fee.

Is it possible to display only the charges that the owners have a share in?


For the Owner Statements:

Is it possible to modify the owner statement header area to include more information? The reason for this is, it can then fully replace our owner statements and stand as a formal document for the owner’s records.

Here is an image of what I mean. https://ibb.co/dwsp86



Chris Hynes
Oct 22, 2017 7:22 PM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

Hmm, that's a good point on financials. Maybe we need two levels for that, full financials and owner only. What items make sense to show under Owner Only? There are a lot of numbers so it needs to be simple and not confusing. The detailed items are already available on the owner statement Full Amounts view, so perhaps we could display some of those items instead?

Or maybe the Earnings Breakdown and Payout Breakdown on the PM tab of the booking, like:

Earnings Breakdown
Total Amount:
$1,830.98
Taxes:
$170.98
PM Commission:
$182.60
Owner Payout:
$1,477.40
Payout Breakdown
Guest Balance:
$1,830.98 (100%)
Can Be Remitted:
$1,477.40
Already Remitted:
$1,477.40 (Statement 1/31/2017 and Statement 9/30/2017)
Payout Balance:
$0.00

Great idea on the owner statement header/footer customizations! We'll look into it -- should be able to add that in the theming section like you can do for email templates, legal agreements

Amanda & Mike H
Oct 23, 2017 9:44 AM
Joined Jun, 2017 12 posts

Guest Charges

Item Description Rate Amount Commission
Rent 7 nights during Base Rates at Week rate 800.00 800.00 45%
Surcharge Cleaning Fee 80.00 80.00 100%
Surcharge Pet Fee 100.00 100.00 45%
Tax HST 13% 127.40

Amanda & Mike H
Oct 23, 2017 9:55 AM
Joined Jun, 2017 12 posts

In my opinion the owner statement needs to show amounts that only relate to them.

If we use this Guest charges example:

Rent – 800.00 (PM Comm 45%)
Cleaning Fee – 100.00 (PM Comm 100%) NOT owner related revenue
Pet Fee – 100.00 (PM Comm 45%)
Taxes – 130.00
Guesst Pays – 1130.00

Owner Related Revenue (Owner Statement reporting)

Rent – 800.00 (PM Comm 45%)
Pet Fee – 100.00 (PM Comm 45%)

Total Owner Revenue - 900.00
PM Comm - 405.00

Net Owner Earnings - 495.00

Chris Hynes
Oct 23, 2017 11:07 AM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

How does that work without being confusing, though?

If you show the guest pays but don't show how it breaks down to the owner amount and commission, the owner is going to ask why the guest paid * 45% is different from what you're taking as commission. Same thing with hiding taxes.

Or are you suggesting to hide all that and never show guest amount/payments at all. Instead show just those 3 values:

Total Owner Revenue: sum of items that aren't tax and aren't 100% commission
PM Comm = sum of commission on items that aren't 100% commission
Net Owner Earnings: total owner - commission

Amanda & Mike H
Oct 23, 2017 12:12 PM
Joined Jun, 2017 12 posts

Yes to the later.

Chris Hynes
Oct 30, 2017 7:56 PM
OR Team Member Joined Oct, 2012 1400 posts

This has now been released.

There is a new Owner Revenue view of the owner statements, with a Financials permission in the portal access user configuration that lets you control which is accessible. That also applies to the booking view as well.

For the header/footer, there is a new Owner Statements header/footer configuration in Settings > Theming. That allows you to pull owner name, email, etc, as well as statement date. The header/footer will display while printing an owner statement only. There's also a new Download PDF button that includes the header/footer as well.