Thank you for making the decision to distribute your properties with us. If you are utilising a property management software offered by one of our software partners, keep reading for some best practices to help you manage your operations efficiently and effectively.
Best practices for managing your properties with connected software
Using your property management software effectively
As an integrated property manager, you should rely on your software to manage your core day-to-day operations, because any enquiries or bookings from our site will process through your software.
It’s best to do the following in your software:
- Manage all reservations
- Your software will process all bookings and enquiries from our sites; the owner dashboard calendar will not be updated.
- Make sure to confirm or cancel all reservations that come in through your software—do not leave in ‘unconfirmed’ status.
- When necessary, cancel reservations in your software so that the calendar updates properly.
- Do not delete any reservations in your software; deleting reservations prevents our site from receiving accurate booking records, which can result in negative impacts to your account and for your guests.
- Manage guest enquiries
- Depending on your software functionality, you can respond to enquiries in your software or via email.
- We recommend replying to enquiries as quickly as possible within a 24-hour period to provide a better guest experience. Guests may be looking at other properties at the same time that they are enquiring about yours.
- Set your rates
- Pricing, fees and discounting rules should be managed in your software, and these features vary depending on your provider.
- For questions about setting your rates, we recommend getting in touch with your software provider.
- Add and update your rental policies
- This includes pets policy, check-in/check-out times, cancellation policies, house rules and more, depending on the options available in your software.
- Process payments and issue refunds
- All integrated property managers must use their software to process payments from bookings on our site.
- Integrated property managers must also process refunds through their software for cancelled bookings from our site.
- Collecting and remitting taxes and ensuring your regulatory compliance must also be managed through your software.
- Update your listing content
- This may include photos, amenities and property descriptions, depending on the options available in your software.
- We recommend that you regularly audit your content to make sure that all properties are up to date and complete—this is one of the most important factors for guests looking to book!
We work with our software partners to add new features and tools frequently. Stay in the loop with your software company about the latest updates.
Additional features available on the owner dashboard
All your core day-to-day business operations should be handled in your software. However, property managers using integrated software also have access to an enhanced multi-property dashboard. Once you integrate your software with our platform, we’ll automatically update your dashboard to show additional features that can help you to improve your performance on our site. Note that some features are dependent on performance criteria, and not all features are available in all global markets.
Performance tools and data available on the owner dashboard includes:
- Boost your properties is a feature available to property managers with price-consistent properties that helps to improve a property’s position in search results for select days.
- Access ranking metrics to see a comprehensive performance overview of your properties, including data such as property views, bookings and search results.
- View market insights data with MarketMaker.TM Access your market’s overall demand and occupancy data to get the insights that you need to set competitive rates.1 If you use Escapia software, you already have access to this data integrated into your Escapia dashboard. Learn more about MarketMaker.
- View billing reports and manage your commission settings as necessary, depending on the functionality and availability of these features in your software.
Learn more about these features and how to navigate the owner dashboard in this article.
By using your holiday rental software to effectively manage your properties, you will be optimising your business and delivering excellent booking experiences to your guests.
Do you have questions about distributing your properties on our site? Contact our team at pm.partner@vrbo.com.
1 Listings must be price consistent. Listings must have nightly rates or length of stay enabled. Listings must be located in the US.
