General Help and Questions

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I sent you an email offline with my cell number. Please do give me a call at your convenience.

-Paul

You can manually adjust it to whatever you want. The subject is shown in the quote email form before you send it. When we release mail merge fields for the email bodies, we'll make sure to put them in the subject lines as well.

How does your system handle when the inquiry comes in without a Last Name filled in? You can't book a transaction without it. VRBO and such do not require a last name.

I was just going to try the first one and when I went to enter a Quote, there was no last name.

Claudia

Can the calendar also display open quotes? It would really be nice to see who has requested dates, and be able to see what the quote was for those dates.

Claudia

When the quote is sent, can the subject state the name of the renter, along with the dates requested. At the moment it states my house and the dates requested....

[Quote # 14990] Claudia's Vacation Home - PA for 5/11/12 - 5/13/12

Thank you,
Claudia

Hate you?!? Oh please, you're nothing. I've had people ask the same type of questions and then get MAD at the answers and start arguing and being offensive. You've been great!

Answer: open the booking, click the Legal tab, click the Open Archived PDF button.

You can also use that area to send them a request to sign a new agreement. Or if you've entered the booking manually and they never signed on to begin with.

Do you hate me yet? :(

How do I see the terms and conditions that the renter agreed upon? I tend to change my rental agreement, at times. I belong to a vacation rental forum and things come up, at times, that make me modify my agreement.

How do I see the one that was actually agreed upon, a the time they booked?

Claudia

Are there reminders, to alert customer that their balance is due, if they paid by check? Or reminders to send them Welcome Packets or anything else, which the owner sets up?

Thanks,
Claudia

Excellent news on the widget and I didnt even think of the @inquiryspot option. You probably figured out already I manage several properties. I am excited about what I see so far in your system and would be interested in learning more as well as sharing more about our business with you. Is there a place we could connect online outside this forum or speak by phone?

Thanks

FYI, you can also send inquiries from your website right now by simply sending email directly to your @inquiryspot email address.

If you look at the inquiry instructions page which is here:

https://app.ownerrez.com/inquiries/instructions

It shows a unique @inquiryspot email address for each property.

Any email you send to that address will be handled gracefully by the system. If we don't recognize the email (such as coming from VRBO or HomeAway) we give you an editor that lets you quickly enter the inquiry.

Funny you should mention that. The very next sprint - we're releasing a major update today and tomorrow - involves updates to the inquiry area with a possible embedded widget for your own website. I say "possible" because it might fall to the sprint after that depending on some scheduling. But it's coming right around the corner.

-Michelle

I understand. Would it be possible to create an inquiry form on my site that that could integrate with OwnerRez?

I really couldn't say. Over the past 6 months, we've had a large influx of new users each with their own questions and ways of doing things. It's provided a huge amount of feedback that has caused us to re-prioritize our roadmap half a dozen times. We don't build things just because one or two people requested it - that's a bad way of designing software - but there are a fair number of things that users have correctly pointed out are more important.

I could tell you 6 months, but that could easily change again.

On the other hand, we've noticed that a fair number of things would benefit by the API being out earlier such as mobile apps, calendar and inquiry integration.

OK, not a big deal, any ballpark idea of when it may be available? Don't worry I wont hold you to it. :)

At the moment, the API is still under development. We have references to it sprinkled around the website because it's something we've been working on (and use ourselves) for the last year or so. But it's not ready for prime-time at the moment.

-Michelle

A a manager I prefer a flat fee, providing a choice of FF or PB would be a great move on your part and allow you to capture business from both owners of a single property and owners / managers of multiple properties.

Hi Claudia,

1) Enter all your reservation into the system as manual bookings. You can do this from the Booking menu by clicking the "Create Booking" button and select the "Create from scratch" option. Make sure to not send out emails by un-checking the options at the bottom.

2) For each reservation, go to the Charges tab and make sure it reflects the actual charges you billed the guest for originally.

3) For each reservation, go to the Payments tab and enter a manual payment for each one you've already collected. You can select "Credit Card Processed Elsewhere" as the type of payment if it was a credit card. Otherwise, check and cash are two other payment types.

4) For the reservations where the guest still owes you money, you can schedule a second payment under the Payments tab. To do so, call them and get their credit card info by phone to enter into the scheduled payment fields. Or you can have them pay by PayPal as you did originally and enter it as another manual payment.

We are working on Scheduled Payment Reminders that work like Scheduled Payments, only the guest receives an email about paying their second payment and then is presented with a list of options.

-Michelle

Is the info on your API available? I would be interested in finding out what features can be integrated into our website.

Thanks

No limit. You can enter as many properties as you want. Our pricing model - due out in a month or two - is based on bookings so the number of properties doesn't matter.

That being said, you may find that if you enter a LOT of properties, the booking overview calendar is difficult to manage. It can only show 8 or 10 properties side by side before you begin to run out of room. We haven't developed a "ribbon" style availability chart, but that's on the dev roadmap for the future.

-Michelle

Thanks for the prompt response. A common email may work and the alerts are definitely useful. I have multiple properties I own and manage, is there a limit to the number of properties I can enter?

Hi SM8285,

Thanks for the kind words!

Our 'grant access' feature has not been released. We've had bits of that designed for awhile but we had to delay it to make way for higher priority features.

What some users do is share a common email address to login with.

We also have Third Party Alerts that can be configured to send email to someone whenever a property is booked, dates change or is canceled. For instance, this helps you alert the housekeeper that a new booking came in.

-Michelle

Just signed up a new account and LOVING the software, great job! Cannot seem to locate the ability to grant access to a manager, please advise.

Thanks!

Other vendors hold the payments because you aren't really using your own merchant account. You're using THEIR merchant account and they're assuming the risk on your behalf. We made the conscious decision to NOT go that route and instead require each user to bring their own merchant account or set up one with our bank partner. We want each user to be responsible for their own merchant account and the underwriting associated with it.

-Michelle

Thanks. That is what I thought, I just wanted to confirm. I think some places hold it until the end of the month.

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

When a guest pays you by credit card, the payment goes directly from their bank to yours, via your merchant account. That's what a merchant account is - a virtual account that links interchange (Visa/MC/Discover) with your checking account.

We (OwnerRez) do not touch, hold or handle your money in any way. Interchange takes about 2 business days for Visa, MC and Discover payments to settle. Amex takes 3-5 business days.

-Michelle

What is the best way to switch existing customers onto your system?

I have 8 upcoming reservations, 4 of which have paid in full, but have not paid the Security Deposit yet. The other 4 have paid the deposit only. According to my rental agreement and when they booked, they didn't have the money taking out of their accounts, automatically. I would send them a bill and and email. What would happen now, if I switch? Or, for now, do these in the usual way, Paypal? How would I record it on your system, without the credit card? Cash?

Claudia

You might have answered this in a previous letter, but does the money go into your account? I think you mentioned that it would take 2-3 business days. However, the money goes into your account and then at the end of the month the charges are deducted?

Claudia

I was thinking of that. I have to first find out about the charges and what kind of record I would have, using your program. You were going to check to see how I would be able to see, realtime, the charges for the amount received, so I could record it realtime. Whether it is signing in to their system, or them sending a confirmation with the charges on it.

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

Will do. Just as an FYI: when you enter your existing bookings, you can always enter what they paid as a manual payment and then schedule the second payment for "the remaining balance". So if you have someone that already paid $500, just enter that amount as the first payment and the second payment will automatically collect what's left.

-Michelle

Very good, Michelle. Your all doing such a great job!!

Claudia