How to integrate with property management software

Payment processor changes

Because you’ll process all payments, bookings, refunds and cancellations within your software, we’ll no longer be your merchant of record. This means that you’ll need to select a payment processor supported by your software provider to continue processing online payments directly to your account. Talk to your software provider to understand the options available to you. 

Rental agreement

Rental agreements ensure that guests understand your policies, restrictions and behaviour expectations up front before booking. Once your software is integrated, guests will view your rental agreement as a PDF during checkout. So you’ll need to upload this in your software for easy guest viewing.

House rules

After integrating your software, you’ll also manage your house rules within your software instead of on the owner dashboard. Make sure that you’ve set your preferences for the rules below within your software, including check-in and check-out times. Note: You may find these rules under different names in your system, depending on your software. Here’s the list of all six house rules that will need to be set up: 

• Minimum age requirement
• Maximum number of overnight guests
• Events
• Pets
• Children allowed
• Smoking

Cancellation policies

• The same standardised cancellation policies in the owner dashboard will be available in your software. Select the policy that most closely matches your rental agreement so that guests clearly understand your terms.
  • Strict: Cancel at least 60 days before the start of stay and receive a 100% refund.
  • Firm: Cancel at least 60 days before the start of stay and receive a 100% refund OR cancel at least 30 days before the start of stay and receive a 50% refund. 
  • Moderate: Cancel at least 30 days before the start of stay receive a 100% refund OR cancel at least 14 days before the start of stay and receive a 50% refund. 
  • Relaxed: Cancel at least 14 days before the start of stay and receive a 100% refund OR cancel at least seven days before the start of stay and receive a 50% refund. 
  • No refund.

Custom cancellation policies are also available, but your software provider must invest in developing the API. Contact your software provider to understand when these may be available to you. 

• You can set a custom cancellation by defining the percentage of refund to be given in the event of a cancellation and the days ahead of check-in that this percentage will be refunded.
• Set up to three tiers by defining the percentage of a refund that you’d apply for specific days from the check-in date. For example, a 100% refund if cancelled at least 90 days before arrival date or a 70% refund if cancelled at least 60 days before arrival date.
• You have the option to add a flat non-refundable cancellation fee that will apply across all tiers. For example, you can set a 50% refund if cancelling at least 30 days before the arrival date, plus a £50 fee. Note that adding in a non-refundable fee will make your listing ineligible for free cancellation treatment.

Pay-per-booking commission changes

Using a software to manage your properties also impacts your commission, as well as how and when you pay it.

• When you manage your properties from our platform, your commission includes the use of our payment platform, including processing, fraud detection, reporting, etc. When you manage your properties through software, and they’re on our pay-per-booking plan, your commission rate will be decreased to 15%. You’ll be charged for payment services directly by your provider and based on the services that you subscribe to with them.
• Commission will be invoiced to you once a month instead of being charged with the first payment of each booking. We’ll directly debit the amount from your card on file. Invoices are generated on the first week of each month based on bookings confirmed the previous month.

Managing pending reservations

Once you’re integrated, your software calendar will override your dashboard calendar. This means that only the reservations that you have entered into your software calendar will show on our site. Any outstanding payments for bookings made prior to integration will require you to collect/manage them offline. Note: If the booking was made prior to your integration, you should not attribute the booking to us, as this will result in a second commission charge for the booking.

Calendar

Before you complete the integration, remove all calendar blocks in your owner dashboard. You’ll manage calendar blocks within your software after integrating.

Enabling distribution

The exact process varies by software provider. Please check with your software provider on how to enable your properties for distribution.

Minimum content

Certain minimum content is required for each of your properties before they can go live via your integration. Your onboarding specialist will cover these in more detail, but here’s an overview:

• Location: Fill out the following for each listing:
  • Address line 1
  • Latitude and longitude coordinates 
  • City
  • Country
  • Postcode
• Property details: Fill out the following for each listing:
  • Add at least one bathroom
  • Add at least one bedroom
  • Define the maximum number of people that the property sleeps
  • Define the property type 
  • Add a description with at least 400 characters
  • Add a headline with at least 20 characters
• Policies: You must have an active rental policy with:
  • Cancellation policy
  • Check-in time
  • Check-out time
  • Children allowed value
  • Pets allowed value
  • Smoking allowed value
• Photos: At least six photos are required for each listing, but we recommend adding a minimum of 25. Photos must be a minimum resolution of 1024x683 pixels and maximum file size of 20 MB (although we recommend 3840x2160 UHD).
• Security: At least one phone number is required for two-factor authentication.
• Payments: For any properties that are fed over from your software during the integration process that you have not listed with us before, select either pay-per-booking or subscription for each listing.
• Rates: Rates must be defined based on the rates model that your software provider supports. Your software account manager or support team can help to identify this and the exact fields that you’ll need to fill out.
• Registration: Some jurisdictions require a registration number to list short-term rentals in certain areas. If this is required where your properties are listed, you’ll need to add this for each listing. If you’re in Europe, you must also add VAT details and registration.
• Single currency: You’ll need to select a single currency when onboarding that matches your properties’ primary site’s currency and your bank account currency (exceptions: Vrbo US   can support both CAD and USD, Vrbo UK can support both GBP and EUR). The currency that you choose will determine how your rates display. For example, if you’re listing on Vrbo UK and receive GBP in your bank account, GBP will be your single currency. Similarly, if you’re listing on Abritel, EUR will be your single currency.

Want to learn more about our property management software partners? See the full list here.