Hold up! Before you start celebrating International Beer and Pizza Day, don't forget to drink up and chow down our latest product update!
🍺 and 🍕 go together like peanut butter and jelly! They're both great combinations--just like OwnerRez and vacation rental businesses. But unlike food that is meant to be consumed and then disappears, OwnerRez is here for the long haul and is continually beefing up our software. Read all about the October 9th release with 13 product updates detailing Support Article Anchor Links, Improved Airbnb Message Displays, and Upgraded Reports!
Enhancements & Tweaks
Header Anchor Link Added to Support Articles
OwnerRez Support articles are a rich resource for OR users. But sometimes you just want to find a specific answer that is buried deep in a support article. Instead of scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, we have started adding anchor links to support article sections as shown below. Important sections of the support article will have links at the top of the page to take you to the corresponding sections.
In addition, the URL or address will change accordingly so that you can link or share specific support article sections with staff (or yourself for later).
Improve Airbnb Pre-Approval Charge Calculations
- Airbnb taxes weren't displaying as percentages but rather the calculated flat amount. OwnerRez has added the following tax logic.
- If tax percent matches amount, retain it as a percent so it's easier to calculate other charges later.
- Match taxes even if there are multiple of the same type as long as the amounts calculate correctly.
- Airbnb pre-approvals are implemented as special offers by Airbnb and adds any additional fees assessed by OwnerRez users to the total rent. Fees are not missing as Airbnb has just rolled it into the total. OR now calculates the charges for preapprovals so additional fees and surcharges will display properly.
- Pet fees will be skipped from calculated charges specifically so there won't be any duplication but they will still add them to the surcharge if they come through on standard fees for a pre-approval.
Link Sync Status Property Errors on Properties Page
It's frustrating when OwnerRez users are seeing a Sync Status error on the Property Status page. And while not all errors that are produced in the sync status will be understandable to the average user, OwnerRez has decided we should err on the side of transparency and display the error text when users hover over the error link as shown below. Perhaps this would allow some of our more tech savvy users to attempt to debug it themselves first. Of course, our Helpdesk team is always there to help too.
Learn more about Channel Syncing by reviewing our Adding New Properties support article.
Show Airbnb Co-Host Name/ID Related to Messages in Conversation View
In Airbnb API Connected properties, we display any messaging not from the host as from the guest. That's pretty confusing if you're co-hosting as the conversation view will show anything not from the host as from the guest. For example, if you respond directly via the Airbnb platform as the co-host, rather than responding from OwnerRez as the host, then that co-host message would show up as from the guest since it's not from the host.
User IDs have been added to the OwnerRez messaging so OR users can now see the actual Airbnb user ids on the message as shown below. Note that there are both a Mike and a Michael responding to Airbnb guest Stephenie. Hopefully, with the addition of the Airbnb user IDs any co-host/owner/property manager confusion will be cleared up.
Learn more about this topic by watching our Messaging - Overview support video.
Upgrade Expense Import and Export Reports to Include Categories
OwnerRez offers a robust report system that allows user to record and manage all sorts of transactions, payments and expenses. Reports, both import and export, now include expense categories. Category columns on the expense-import.xlsx template use data validation to utilize a prefilled list of system items, but now also allow adding your own additional categories as shown below.
Learn more about Report Categories in the How can I show surcharges (e.g. cleaning fee) and taxes to owners? section of the Property Management - Common Issues & Questions support article.
Bug Fixes
Consider Quote Charge Description a Change When Quotes are Updated. We discovered that some description updates are considered a change for bookings but was not the case for quotes. Those quotes gave no reminder that the quote charges could or should change and the change date descriptions did not update. This issue has been resolved.
Don't Include Aggregate Review Ratings When There are No Reviews. No reviews yet? We're sure guests will be reviewing your property soon. In the meantime, OwnerRez will not aggregate or display your property's review average.
Don't Include Guest Name in Custom Statement View Expense Description Columns. When OwnerRez Property Managers create Owners Statements and select "show guest names" and "grouped by property". Guest names are hidden but are still impacting the statement settings. So if you view a standard view with names on, then switch to custom view, guest names display again (both for bookings and expenses). That's now fixed so you should see no name as expected when switching to a custom view.
Fix Issue Property Management Booking Expense Changes That Fails to Save. When OwnerRez users using the Property Management area are making changes to booking expenses, the system wasn't allowing expenses to actually save on the Expenses screen. However changes to booking expenses could be sucessfully completed on the individual booking charges screen. This can occur if the charge/surcharge is set to "owner or PM gets the entire amount" (as shown below) so that any expense changes will automatically revert to the original booking expense.
This has been resolved to check expense changes for the "owner or PM gets entire amount" setting and the change amount. Any manual expense changes will override the "owner or PM gets entire amount" so the manually set amount will take effect.
Fix Issue Where Manual Surcharge Settings Not Saved When Adding Charge on Mobile Device in Portrait Mode. When a user's settings include "Property Manager gets the entire amount" and "no commission", manual surcharges added to a booking on a mobile device in portrait mode only (desktop and mobile landscape mode work fine) weren't saving properly. This has been resolved.
Fix Rental Agreement to Use User Date Format. We found that some users rental agreements were not honoring the selected culture settings. All rental agreements now respect the date culture setting.
Fix Report Date Picker Layout. When selecting OwnerRez Report dates, the report was jerking back down to the report body. The report date picker has been fixed to no longer do that.
Remove Old API Callout From 2020. We removed an old API callout stating that we would be removing that feature on or around June 2020 on the Developer/API Settings page.