Yep, great questions and will answer right here for the edification of everyone! Answers:
1) The built in templates trigger when the associated event occurs in the system. Most of them, like dates changed, check-in/check-out changed, payment request, renter agreement request. etc. are linked to actions you (the owner) do in OwnerRez, so you'll see the option to send those emails out and optionally edit them before sending.
There are a few ones that will go out automatically during the reservation process -- Booking - send confirmation to guest, payment receipt, Renter Agreement - send archive copy to guest. And then payment receipts will be sent if an payment is processed automatically.
Payment reminders and security deposit reminders will go out if a) you have them enabled and b) there is no automatically scheduled payment -- those are to make sure that a manual payment isn't forgotten.
And if a booking is in the pending state because "check is in the mail", then the pending reminders will go out until you record a payment or clear the pending flag (covered in more detail in (4) below).
2) There's not a sandbox system. Instead, create test quotes with yourself as the guest and run them through to bookings. Then void the payment and cancel the booking. That way you can see how everything works end to end. If you're doing credit card payments you can change the charges down to a couple bucks beforehand so it doesn't hit your card for a large amount, or create a check or custom instructions payment method for testing and deactivate it after.
3) No, platform messaging doesn't go into OwnerRez currently. We have plans to add a whole unified inbox system, but that is a large undertaking. For now, deal with the guest before booking on the platform, then after booking you have all of the scheduled and triggered templates going out to their email automatically from OwnerRez.
4) Pending is for bookings payments you would take outside OwnerRez like checks, Venmo, Zelle etc. For those, when the booking is made we mark it pending with an auto cancel date if you don't record the payment by then.
For cancellations and cancellation policies, we don't enforce a specific policy on you and cancel and refund are two separate operations in OwnerRez. For OTA's, they'll have a cancellation policy and handle that as they process the payment for you. For direct bookings, cancel the booking in OwnerRez and refund according to your policy.
5) The amount due is based on the total charges for a booking. You can filter the List tab for bookings that have a balance due. If you're using credit cards, this will all be handled automatically -- first payment processed on booking, balance processed when it is due based on your rules on the Rules tab of each property (like 30 days before arrival), and you and the guest will both get emails if a payment fails.
6) For OTA's, some have a review link you can send via email, otherwise you'd handle that directly in the OTA system. For direct bookings, there's a review link/request email you can send to the guest.
7) To send gap night emails to current guests, use a template like this: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/fill-gap-hole-nights. It's not going to automatically apply the discount, just get the guest to circle back with you and then you can add the charge when they confirm.
8) Yes, any payment > 0.
9) Not currently a way to filter the list down, but that's a good idea.
10, 12) Yep, listing site fees are what they take from the guest and what they take from you. If you want a charge by charge report, use the Line Item Pivot report.
11) For taxes, set them up in Settings > Taxes under the Pricing section. That'll assess the percentage on direct bookings and they'll show up as charges. Then use the Taxes report or Line Item Pivot report later to tally them up and prepare your remittance.
13) We don't have a specific additional guests list feature (it's on the todo list). You could add custom fields for that during checkout: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/capture-additional-fields-on-checkout-quote-acceptance -- but that is just a text box and doesn't have any way to validate that it's an actual email address.
14) We pull as much as info as we can from listing sites, but VRBO is the only one that'll give you the real guest email (you can pull this in to OwnerRez through channel bridge: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/channel-bridge). Some other smaller listing sites do this too, but BDC, ABB, etc are all going to give you a pass through email address that only works during the booking.
For those channels, set up a template/trigger like this: https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/airbnb-request-for-contact-info-real-email-address-and-signed-renter-agreement which will get them to sign the renter agreement and in the process provide their real email address (the renter agreement signing process will capture updated contact info for any future booking, but won't let them update contact info if a booking is in the past).
