In the United States, some states require Property Managers (PMs) to be licensed real estate professionals and/or they cannot legally directly accept guest monies.
Many PMs bypass this requirement by depositing any revenue directly with the property owner and then billing the property owner for any commissions, fees, surcharges, etc.
OwnerRez is able to support this operational method. It results in statements that must have negative Payout balances, as Owners received all the money paid by guests but owe their PMs for any commissions, fees, surcharges, etc.
- OwnerRez has no direct connection to the banking system, and is not able to actually move any money anywhere. All OR can do is track and calculate what money needs to be paid to or by themselves or the property owners; users have to actually make the payment some other way, and then record that in OwnerRez.
- Users with an active QuickBooks account (QuickBooks Online, not QuickBooks Desktop) connected to OwnerRez can follow the instructions in the Owner Payouts support article.
Types of Payment Agreements
In this scenario, all revenue must go directly to the owner if you as a PM are unable to directly accept guest monies. But how does the PM achieve this?
There are a couple of different options. Here are just a few ideas.
- Send revenues directly to the owner's payment processor. Users can set up multiple payment processors in their OwnerRez account. The property owner remits any commissions, fees, surcharges, etc.
- Owner sets up their own listing channel account, including the owner's banking information for payouts and gives PM access to the listing channel. The property owner remits any commissions, fees, surcharges, etc.
Recording Negative Payout Balances
Since all revenue is going directly to the owner, owner statements must result in negative Payout balances that are in turn billed to property owners who then remit those amounts due to the PMs for any commissions, fees, surcharges, etc.
PMs have to record these negative payout balances on each and every booking by changing the Direct Remittance amount to $0. Currently, there is no way to record negative payout balances globally by property and/or owner.
On each booking, navigate to PM > Change.
Enter $0 in the Direct Remittance field. Click Save.
Remember that PMs have to record these negative payout balances on each and every booking by changing the Direct Remittance amount to something other than $0 - accurately reflecting the amount that was paid directly to the owner.
Owner statement payouts must have a negative balance. The Owner Payout menu is where you will record the negative payouts sent to the owner (that is, the owner actually sent money to the PM). Statements and payouts are separate entities in the system.