Answers · Bookings into your accounts
How do I automate holiday-rental accounting?
Short answer
Make every booking reach your accounts the same way, whatever channel it came from. Airflow reads booking confirmations from Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia and your own direct bookings, and turns each into a draft invoice in Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage or FreshBooks, with fees and commission separated, the property tagged and the currency converted. For managed properties it also produces a statement per owner. You review and approve.
Why holiday-rental books drift
A holiday rental has income from several places that each report differently: one channel pays net of fees, another bills commission monthly, a direct guest pays a deposit now and a balance later. Add a second property, a second currency or an owner who is not you, and a general accounting package has no idea how the pieces relate.
The books then get done in batches from memory and exports, and the questions that matter, such as what each property earned and what each owner is owed, take a spreadsheet to answer.
How to do it with Airflow
- 1
Set up properties and accounts
Add each property as a listing, connect your accounting package and map each listing to a tracking category or class. Set your accounting currency.
- 2
Bring every channel in
Route booking emails from each channel to Airflow, and take direct bookings on your Airflow booking page. Each booking keeps a label showing where it came from.
- 3
Drafts are created as bookings happen
Each booking becomes a draft invoice with accommodation, cleaning, channel fee or commission and tax on separate lines, converted to your accounting currency at a rate fixed at booking.
- 4
Close the month per property
Record payouts and payments received, approve the drafts, and for managed properties issue the owner statement: income, less commission, management fee and expenses.
A month for one managed property
How the pieces line up at month end. Figures are illustrative.
| Airbnb bookings (3) | 1,860.00 gross |
|---|---|
| Booking.com reservations (2) | 700.00 gross |
| Direct bookings (1) | 540.00 gross |
| Channel fees and commission | -166.00 |
| Management fee and expenses | -512.00 |
| Net payable to owner | 2,422.00 |
The owner statement is sent to Xero as a draft bill to the owner, tagged to the property.
Currencies
A booking keeps the currency agreed with the guest, and your ledger keeps its own. Airflow records both and fixes the exchange rate at the time of booking, so an invoice does not change value because a rate moved before you approved it.
Night limits
Where a city or region caps the number of nights a home can be let each year, the count is an accounting question as much as a legal one. Airflow tracks nights against the limit for each property from the same bookings.
Other ways to do this
Airflow is one option. These are the others, and when each is the better choice.
- A monthly summary journal
- Total each channel's statement and post one journal per channel per month. Low effort, and it gives up per-booking and per-guest detail.
- A PMS with trust accounting
- Larger managers who hold client money often need a property management system with full trust accounting. That is a heavier tool for a bigger operation than Airflow is aimed at.
- A specialist bookkeeper
- Bookkeepers who focus on short-term rentals will run the whole process for a monthly fee.
What Airflow does not do
- Airflow is not a full trust-accounting system and does not hold or move client money.
- Owner statements are pushed to Xero; for other packages the statement is produced in Airflow.
- It does not match bank lines to bookings automatically.
Common questions
Can I automate accounting across Airbnb, Booking.com and direct bookings together?
Yes. Airflow reads booking confirmations from each channel and takes direct bookings itself, and every booking becomes a draft invoice in the same accounting organisation, labelled by channel and property.
How do I track income per property?
Map each property to a tracking category in Xero or a class in QuickBooks. Airflow tags every invoice line, so reports split by property without manual coding.
Can it produce owner statements?
Yes. Airflow closes the month per property, builds the owner statement and sends it to Xero as a draft bill to the owner. Owners can also see their statement in a read-only portal.
How are deposits and balances handled on direct bookings?
A direct booking can take a deposit at booking and the balance later. Each payment is recorded against the booking, and the invoice shows what has been paid and what is outstanding.
Does it handle more than one currency?
Yes. The guest's currency and your accounting currency are both kept, with the exchange rate fixed at booking.
What does it cost?
Plans include a number of listings, team seats and automated tasks. Paid plans include a monthly allowance of automated tasks and start with a free trial; on the Free plan the same work is pay as you go. Current prices and allowances are on the pricing page.
Try it on your own bookings
Forward a few booking emails and look at what Airflow builds from them. A card is needed at sign-up.
Start with Airflow See plans and pricing