Blog
Guides, insights, and updates from the Airflow team.
Getting Started with Airflow: Your First Five Minutes
A step-by-step guide to setting up your Airflow account, connecting your first resource, and seeing your first automated booking in action.
Read the guide →Start here
Put Your Place on the Trip: Itineraries Written by Hosts
Travellers plan a route, not a single bed. Hosts on Airflow can write their own trip itinerary with their place on the route. It is checked, then joins the trip ideas on Airflow Stay, where travellers can start a plan from it.
How do I get my place into the trips travellers plan? →
How Airflow Works With Safari Operators, Travel Agents and Local Experts
Travellers plan multi-stop trips on Airflow, then hand them to someone who knows the ground. A walk through the whole thing with our first safari partner, The Safari Vibe: their page, their journeys, the traveller's plan and the checkout. You can try every step yourself.
How does Airflow work with safari operators and travel agents? →
How to Connect Airbnb to Make
Airbnb has no Make app for hosts. Here is how to send each new, changed or cancelled Airbnb booking to a Make scenario through a custom webhook, what the message contains and what the method cannot do.
How do I connect Airbnb to Make? →
How to Connect Airbnb to Zapier, Make or Slack
Airbnb gives hosts no Zapier app. Here is how to send each new, changed or cancelled Airbnb booking to Zapier or Slack, what Airflow already does without it, eight automations worth building, and what the method cannot do.
How do I connect Airbnb to Zapier or Slack? →
How to Connect Airbnb to n8n
Airbnb has no n8n node for hosts. Here is how to get each new, changed or cancelled Airbnb booking into an n8n workflow through a Webhook node, with the fields you receive and how to check the signature.
How do I connect Airbnb to n8n? →
Connect Out: Send Booking Events to Your Other Systems
How Connect out works: add a web address, choose the events, and Airflow sends a signed message when a booking is created, changed or cancelled, or a payment is received. What is sent, the money lines, how retries work and how to check a signature.
How can I send my bookings to other automation systems? →
Nobody Should Manage a Night Cap by Hand
Counting nights against a letting limit every month, for every property, forever, is a job that fails quietly. What it takes to hand it over safely — and what should still need your say-so.
Can a night cap be managed automatically? →
Which Nights Should You Give Up?
If a night cap means closing part of your year, the question is not how many nights but which ones. Rank the year by your own rate card and the answer changes by thousands.
Which nights should I close to stay under a night cap? →
Your Villa Sleeps Eight. Who Actually Books It?
An average party size hides the shape of who comes. What a group-size breakdown shows, why it changes year to year, and what it means for how you price extra guests.
What size of group actually books my place? → Open an Airflow Account Without Leaving WhatsApp
Message Airflow on WhatsApp and you can sign up, set up your listing from a link to it, set your price and put your booking page live, all in the chat. Here is how it works, step by step, and what it does not do yet.
Can I open an Airflow account on WhatsApp? →
The Best Way to Export Rental Financials for Tax Prep
Export one row per booking with gross income, platform fees, taxes and payout kept apart, by property, for the tax year. What your accountant needs, and how to get it out of each platform.
How do I export my rental income for my accountant? →
How to Find Your Airbnb iCal Link and Sync It with Other Calendars
Where the Airbnb calendar link is, how to paste it into VRBO, Booking.com or Google Calendar, how to import their calendars back, and what an iCal link can and cannot carry.
Where is my Airbnb iCal link, and how do I sync it? →
Can I Move from WordPress to Booking Software?
Yes. You can keep your WordPress site and add a booking engine to it, or move the whole site across. What comes with you, what does not, and the order to do it in.
Can I move from WordPress to booking software? →
Is There One Inbox for Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com Guest Messages?
Yes, but only from software with an official connection to each platform. What a unified inbox needs, which kind of tool provides it, what it costs you in setup, and what Airflow does and does not do here.
Is there one inbox for Airbnb, VRBO and Booking.com messages? →
Vienna and Berlin: When the Cap Depends on Where You Sleep
In Vienna and Berlin the number of nights you may let depends first on whether the flat is your main home. Why residence is the hinge, what each city allows, and how to set it up.
How many nights can I let in Vienna or Berlin? →
Surfaced to the Right Guests, at the Moment They Plan
Airflow's AI trip planner matches each traveller's route, dates and taste to the places that fit their trip. What that means for a host, and what makes your place come up.
How does Airflow match my place to the right guests? →
Your Whole Trip in One Place
A multi-stay trip usually means a dozen confirmation emails, several booking sites and a spreadsheet. Airflow Guest puts every stay, extra and person on one timeline. How to set one up in a few minutes.
How do I keep a whole trip in one place? →
Travellers Find You While They Plan, Not After They Search
Booking sites wait for a traveller to type a search. On Airflow Guest and Airflow Stay your place is part of the trip while it is still being planned. How that works, and how to get your place in front of those travellers.
How do travellers find my place while they plan a trip? →
Confirmed in Their Portal, Paid to You
When a traveller on Airflow Guest books your place, the booking is confirmed inside their own Guest Portal and the money goes directly to you. Here is the whole journey, from request to payment.
How am I paid when a traveller books through Airflow Guest? →
Cape Town's 50% Rule: Stay Under, or Go Commercial?
Staying under Cape Town's draft 50% letting threshold means closing nights. Crossing it means commercial rates. How to work out which costs you less, with three worked examples, including a family home with a garden cottage.
Should I stay under Cape Town's 50% rule or go commercial? →
In Namibia, Letting an Unregistered Room Is a Criminal Offence
The Namibia Tourism Board Act makes providing accommodation in an unregistered establishment an offence carrying a fine up to N$20,000 or two years' imprisonment.
Do I need to register my rental with the Namibia Tourism Board? →
Kenya Plans to Collect Its 2% Tourism Levy at Source
Kenyan short-term rental operators must register with the Tourism Regulatory Authority. A 2% tourism levy deducted by the platforms was due by mid-2026 and had not started by September 2026.
How does Kenya's 2% tourism levy affect my rental? →
Barcelona's Tourist Licences All Expire in November 2028
Roughly 10,101 HUT licences, none renewable, all gone by November 2028 — upheld by the Constitutional Court. No calendar setting fixes this. What the options actually are.
What happens to Barcelona tourist licences in 2028? →
Portugal's Alojamento Local, Now That Lisbon Has Stopped Issuing
AL licences became permanent and transferable in 2024 — then Lisbon began closing neighbourhoods to new ones. Why the licence is now the asset, and how containment zones work.
Can I still get an Alojamento Local licence in Lisbon? →
Greece's AMA Number, and the 60-Day Line That Isn't a Cap
Greece requires an AMA number from AADE on every listing. The 60-day threshold is widely misread as a limit — it is a tax classification boundary, and the difference matters.
Do I need an AMA number in Greece, and is 60 days a limit? →
Italy's CIN: The Code That Goes on Your Listing and Your Front Door
Italy's national identification code must appear in every advert and physically at the property. What the CIN is, how it differs from the regional CIR, and the €8,000 downside.
What is Italy's CIN code, and where must I show it? →
Amsterdam's 30 Nights — and 15, If You're in the Wrong Street
Amsterdam caps holiday letting at 30 nights a year, and at 15 in eleven central neighbourhoods since April 2026. Plus the per-booking reporting duty hosts keep missing.
How many nights can I let in Amsterdam? →
Paris Is 90 Nights Now, Not 120
Paris cut its principal-residence cap from 120 nights to 90 with effect from January 2025. What changed, what the 13-character number is, and how to count it.
How many nights can I let my home in Paris? →
London's 90 Nights: How to Count Them Before the Council Does
The 90-night rule applies to the property, not to you, resets on 1 January, and has a second condition most hosts have never heard of. How to count it properly.
How do I count London's 90 nights? → A Night Cap Is an Accounting Problem, Not a Calendar Problem
Your calendar shows today. It cannot tell you what was available last March — and that is exactly what a night-cap rule asks. Why proving your number needs a ledger.
How do I prove how many nights my property was let? →
From 20 May 2026, Your Platform Reports Your Nights For You
EU Regulation 2024/1028 makes platforms verify your registration number and report your activity to national authorities every month. What it changes for hosts, and what it does not.
What does the EU short-term rental regulation change for hosts? →
Short-Term Rental Rules by City, 2026
Night caps, registration numbers and licence freezes across Europe and Africa, with the number, the authority and the date for each — and what actually counts towards your limit.
What are the short-term rental rules in my city? →
Three Properties, Three Spreadsheets, One Sunday Afternoon
Multi-property owners reconcile by hand because each property lives in a different place. What a portfolio view shows that three spreadsheets cannot, including the pipeline nobody tracks.
How do I see all my properties on one page? →
Occupancy Was 78%. So Why Was It a Bad Year?
Occupancy and average rate both flatter a bad year. What a per-night value chart shows that neither does, and how to find the months where you discounted and still didn't fill.
What did each night of my year actually earn? →
Your Booking System and Your Accounts Disagree. Which One Is Wrong?
Two systems, two totals, and no way to tell which is right. How to reconcile bookings against your ledger month by month, and what the gaps usually turn out to be.
Why don't my bookings match my accounts? →
Airbnb Says 15%. Your Books Say 18.4%.
Headline commission is not what you pay. A breakdown of what each booking channel actually costs once service fees and taxes are out, and how to see your own number.
What does each booking channel really cost me? → Will My Garden Cottage Be Affected by Cape Town's 50% Availability Rule?
You live in the five-bedroom house and let the two-bedroom cottage. Under Cape Town's draft by-law the erf is one property, so the cottage borrows the whole house's capacity — and the answer flips entirely if the City counts it the other way.
Will Cape Town's 50% rule affect my garden cottage? →
Short-term Letting in the City of Cape Town
What the City of Cape Town's draft Short-Term Letting By-Law, 2026 actually requires: registration, a registration number on every listing, availability and occupancy data sharing, and the 50% room-nights rates threshold. Comment closed on 5 October 2026; rating changes are due from 1 July 2027.
What does Cape Town's draft short-term letting by-law require? →
Copenhagen's 70 Nights and the Reporting Condition
Denmark lets you rent out your whole home for 70 days a year only when every booking goes through a platform that reports your income to the tax agency. Otherwise it is 30.
How many nights can I let my home in Copenhagen? → How to Get Direct Bookings Instead of Relying on Airbnb
A practical plan for moving part of your business off the channels: somewhere to book, somewhere to be found, a reason to trust you, and a way to keep the guest once they arrive.
How do I get direct bookings instead of relying on Airbnb? → Turning a Repeat Channel Guest Into a Direct Booking, Without Breaking the Rules
Your best guests keep coming back through the channel, and you pay commission every time. What the channels forbid, what they do not, and how to be the easy option when a guest goes looking for you.
How do I turn a repeat Airbnb guest into a direct booking? →
Where Your Bookings Are Actually Sold
A row of tiles under your bookings list and calendar showing every place each property can be booked, whether it is live, and the listing title Airflow matches your booking emails against.
Where can each of my properties be booked? → Is a Direct Booking Actually Worth More? Run the Numbers
A direct booking does not save you the channel's whole commission. A worked example of what each side really costs, the largest discount you can offer before you lose money, and when direct is worth less.
Is a direct booking really worth more than an Airbnb one? →
Letting an Owner Block Their Own Dates Without Handing Over Your Calendar
Owners want to use their own property. You cannot give them the keys to your calendar. Here is how owner block-date requests work in Airflow: the owner asks, you approve, and only then is anything blocked.
How can an owner block their own dates safely? →
Tourist Tax and City Tax on Short-Term Rentals: How to Charge It Properly
How tourist, city and occupancy taxes on short-term rentals are worked out, who collects them, and how to charge them correctly on your direct bookings.
How do I charge tourist tax on a short-term rental? →
What to Send a Guest Before Arrival, and When
A pre-arrival timeline for short-term rental hosts: what to send at booking, once paid, a week out, three days out and on check-in day, and how to automate it.
What should I send a guest before arrival, and when? →
How to Calculate and Record Your Management Fee
Two managers can both charge 20% and pay the same owner different amounts. The difference is the base the fee is charged on. Here is how to choose it, and how Airflow applies it on every owner statement.
How do I calculate and record my management fee? →
Your Guests Keep Asking the Same Five Questions
The five questions every short-term rental guest asks before arrival, and how to answer each one once, in a place guests can find, instead of in every inbox.
How do I stop answering the same guest questions? →
What to Show an Inspector: A Night-by-Night Letting Statement
If a council asks how many nights your property was let or offered, a screenshot of today's calendar proves nothing. What a letting statement should contain, and how to download one.
What do I show an inspector who asks about my letting nights? →
The Plan Has a Price. What Did Last Month Actually Cost?
What running an Airflow account costs in a quiet month and a busy one, which work uses automated tasks and which is free, and where to read your own number in the portal.
What does an Airflow account really cost each month? →
South African Short-Term Rental Tax and Rates
Crossing Cape Town's 50% threshold makes you a commercial operator. Here's what changes for rates, income tax, VAT and capital gains — and what to track.
What tax and rates apply to a South African short-term rental? →
Staying Under Cape Town's 50% Letting Threshold
The draft by-law counts nights your property is available, not nights it's booked. Here's how the 50% maths works and what it means for your rates bill.
How do I stay under Cape Town's 50% letting threshold? →
No-Shows and Guests Who Never Pay
Abandoned checkouts, offers that expire, and the stay nobody turned up for. What each one should do to your calendar, your books and your task allowance.
What should happen when a guest never pays or never arrives? → How to Take a Deposit on a Direct Booking
How much to ask for, when the balance should fall due, and the edge case that trips up every booking system: a guest who books inside your own balance window.
How do I take a deposit on a direct booking? → What to Do When a Guest Hasn't Paid the Balance
The balance was due last Tuesday and nothing happened. How to chase it, how to reach a guest whose email you never got, and what to automate.
What do I do when a guest hasn't paid the balance? →
Your Calendar Still Shows a Cancelled Booking
A guest cancelled on the channel, but the dates are still blocked everywhere else. Why feeds leave stale blocks behind, and how to clear them.
Why does my calendar still show a cancelled booking? → Setting a Cancellation Policy for Direct Bookings
Free cancellation until when? What to charge, what to put in writing, and the one safeguard that stops a guest's throwaway email cancelling a real booking.
How do I set a cancellation policy for direct bookings? →
What Happens to Your Invoice When a Guest Cancels
A cancelled booking can leave a live invoice in your accounts. Whether to delete, void or credit-note it depends on one thing: its real status.
What happens to the invoice when a guest cancels? →
Cancelling Shouldn't Take Your Listing Down
Downgrading and closing your account are two different decisions. Now they have two different outcomes — one listing stays live, takes bookings, and gets paid.
Does my listing stay live if I cancel my plan? → Show Airbnb and Google Reviews on Your Website
Your best reviews sit on a channel that charges commission. How to get them onto your own site, what each platform's terms allow, and four pitfalls.
How do I show Airbnb and Google reviews on my website? →
How to Set Seasonal Rates for a Short-Term Rental
Fixed rack rates or a percentage off a base? Recurring seasons, minimum stays, discount stacking, and a yearly increase that compounds correctly.
How do I set seasonal rates for a short-term rental? → Multi-Currency Airbnb Income in Xero
A foreign-currency booking involves three exchange rates, not one. Which rate belongs on the guest invoice, the payment and the Xero entry, and why.
How do I record foreign-currency Airbnb income in Xero? →
Import Airbnb Booking History into Xero
Importing years of past bookings can raise hundreds of draft invoices dated today. The safe order to do it in, and which bookings to leave out.
How do I import past Airbnb bookings into Xero? →
A Booking Is a Thing at a Time
One booking engine for nights, days, per-person tours, appointments and timed sessions, with the same checkout, invoice and books behind every type.
Can one system take nights, tours and appointments? →
Know What the Import Will Cost Before It Runs
Running out of credits mid-batch is worse than being refused at the start. Airflow prices the work before it runs and refuses short batches whole.
How do I know what an import will cost before it runs? →
Price Next Season Before You Have To
See what each season actually achieved against the rate you set, then apply a yearly increase per season, only where your own booking data supports it.
How should I price next season? → Quote in Their Currency, Bank in Yours
Quote a guest in their currency and keep your books in yours. How Airflow locks the exchange rate, tracks the balance owed, and keeps Xero reconciled.
Can I quote guests in their currency and bank in mine? →
Thirty Emails, or One
One digest instead of an email per event, with a per-event choice of immediately, in the digest, or off, and silent failures surfaced so you can fix them.
Can I get one daily digest instead of thirty emails? →
The Pin on the Map Is Deliberately Wrong
Keep your property's exact address private on a public listing, and release it automatically on confirmation, on payment, or days before arrival.
How do I keep my exact address private on a listing? → It's a Trip, Not a Booking
Guests have trips, not bookings. Paste an itinerary or forward a flight confirmation and Airflow builds the plan: stays, flights and activities in one place.
How do I turn an itinerary into one trip plan? → Your Reviews, On Every Surface You Own
Put your Airbnb and Google reviews on your own booking page, website and embeds. Airflow reads them out of the notification emails you already receive.
How do I put my reviews on my own booking page? → Go Live on Your Own Terms
Publish your direct booking page, your marketplace listing and your website embed separately, per property. Or run Airflow accounting-only, with no public page.
Can I publish my booking page and listing separately? →
Who Collects the Money on a Booking.com Stay?
Airbnb collects from the guest and remits. Booking.com usually does not. Why that hides money you are owed, and how to track what each channel collects.
Who collects the money on a Booking.com stay? →
Every Booking You Already Have, In One Place
Import existing bookings three ways: a CSV or Google Sheet, an iCal feed, or typed by hand. Every route blocks the dates before it touches your books.
How do I import the bookings I already have? → Accepting PayPal Payments for Your Bookings
How PayPal fits into your booking workflow, where Airflow handles the payment, and how to keep your accounts clean either way.
Can I accept PayPal for my bookings? →
Admin That Handles Itself
A booking email arrives. By the time you've read it, the data is filed, the invoice is drafted in your accounting software, and the next steps are already moving.
What happens after a booking email arrives? → One Resource or One Hundred
Airflow works the same whether you run a single room or a hundred properties. Start small, grow without re-platforming, and never change how you work.
Does Airflow work for one room as well as a hundred properties? →
Guest Marketing with Mailchimp
Mailchimp is where your newsletters go out. Here's how Airflow keeps clean guest records that feed it, without double data entry.
How do I get my guest list into Mailchimp? →
Export Your Bookings to Google Sheets
Prefer a spreadsheet? Airflow can draft your booking records straight into Google Sheets, so your numbers stay live without retyping.
How do I export my bookings to Google Sheets? →
Forward Booking Emails from Gmail to Airflow
Your Airbnb and Booking.com confirmations land in Gmail. Here's how to turn them into structured bookings, by hand or automatically.
How do I forward booking emails from Gmail? → Forward Booking Emails from Outlook to Airflow
Booking confirmations sitting in Outlook? Here's how to turn them into structured records, by forwarding or by connecting your account.
How do I forward booking emails from Outlook? → Taking Bookings from Instagram & Facebook (Meta)
A lot of enquiries start on Instagram or Facebook. Here's how to turn that interest into a real booking without losing it in your DMs.
How do I take bookings from Instagram and Facebook? →
See Your Whole Business in One Place
Bookings, revenue, clients and activity across every property — and every business you run — on a single dashboard. No more flicking between tabs.
How do I see my whole business on one dashboard? →
Pin Up a QR Code. Your Cleaning Team Gets the Checklist.
Getting field staff into a system is the hard part. Airflow gives each property a printable QR code — your cleaners and maintenance crew scan it to get the day's checklist and tick tasks off as a team. No email, no app, no login.
How do I get a checklist to my cleaning team? →
Run Your Bookings From WhatsApp: Forward, Complete, Confirm
Airflow lives on WhatsApp. Forward a booking and it's logged automatically, ask about your income and upcoming guests, change prices, block dates, pause a listing, and add photos to your gallery — all from the chat. No browser required.
Can I run my bookings from WhatsApp? →
How to Track OTA Commissions as Expenses (Airbnb, Booking.com & VRBO)
How to track Airbnb, Booking.com and VRBO commission in your accounting as a proper expense, why netting it out costs you, and how to automate the split.
How do I track Airbnb and Booking.com commission as an expense? →
Your Short-Term Rental Chart of Accounts: A Template That Works
A short-term rental chart of accounts template: the income, expense and liability accounts hosts actually need, why the split matters, and how to keep it clean.
What chart of accounts does a short-term rental need? →
Expedia Bookings and Your Accountant
Expedia accounting for hosts: how Expedia's commission and remittance model differs, the right invoice structure, and how to automate the draft in your books.
How do I account for Expedia bookings? →
Bank Reconciliation for Short-Term Rentals: A Step-by-Step Guide
Short-term rental bank reconciliation made simple: why OTA payouts never match your invoices, the step-by-step method, and how to automate the matching.
How do I reconcile my bank for a short-term rental? →
Deposit Now, Balance Later — and the Books Stay Right
Let guests pay a deposit to hold their dates and the balance closer to arrival. Airflow tracks every stage automatically — deposit paid, balance remaining, fully paid — and the accounting stays reconciled the whole way. Live across cards, Paystack, and manual payments.
Can guests pay a deposit now and the balance later? →
Why None of Your OTA Payouts Match Your Invoices
Airbnb, Booking.com and VRBO each net fees and commission differently, so OTA payouts rarely match your invoices. Here is why, and how to reconcile cleanly.
Why don't my channel payouts match my invoices? →
Airbnb & UK Tax: Getting Your Books Ready for HMRC
Airbnb tax in the UK explained for hosts: the property and trading allowances, VAT threshold, Making Tax Digital, and the records HMRC expects you to keep.
What records does HMRC expect from an Airbnb host? →
Airbnb & US Taxes: 1099-K, Schedule E and Clean Books
Airbnb taxes in the US for hosts: 1099-K thresholds, Schedule E versus Schedule C, the 14-day rule, and the records you need for clean, defensible books.
How is Airbnb income taxed in the US? →
From Spreadsheets to Real STR Bookkeeping (Without the Pain)
Moving from an Airbnb spreadsheet to real bookkeeping: where spreadsheets break for hosts, what proper accounting gives you, and how to make the switch painless.
How do I move from a spreadsheet to real bookkeeping? →
VRBO Income in QuickBooks: the Setup Nobody Explains
How to record VRBO income in QuickBooks correctly: what a payout contains, the line-item structure for accommodation and fees, and how to automate the draft invoice.
How do I record VRBO income in QuickBooks? →
VAT for Short-Term Rentals: When to Register & How to Handle OTA VAT
VAT for short-term rentals explained: when registration becomes compulsory, why holiday lets are standard-rated, and how to handle VAT on OTA commission.
When must a short-term rental register for VAT? →
Your Website, Imported by AI in One Paste
Paste the URL of your existing website and Airflow's AI reads it for you — crawling your pages and filling in your property details, descriptions, photos, and branding. Onboarding goes from an afternoon of copy-paste to a couple of minutes.
Can Airflow import my existing website? →
Bookkeeper vs PMS vs Airflow: An Honest Breakdown
Bookkeeper vs PMS vs Airflow for short-term rentals: what each one actually does, what it does not, and how to combine them without paying for overlap.
Do I need a bookkeeper, a PMS or Airflow? →
How to Record Airbnb Income in Xero (Without the Manual Entry)
How to record Airbnb income in Xero correctly: what a payout really contains, the right line-item structure for accommodation, cleaning and service fees, and how to automate it.
How do I record Airbnb income in Xero? →
Short-Term Rental Tax Prep: Get Your Books Ready in a Weekend
Short-term rental tax prep made manageable: what records you need, a quick UK and US overview, and how clean draft invoices and an activity log make Airbnb tax preparation fast.
How do I get my rental books ready for tax? →
Channel Manager vs. Better Accounting: What You Actually Need
A channel manager distributes rates and availability across OTAs. Airflow connects bookings to your accounting. Here is how to tell which problem you actually have.
Do I need a channel manager or better accounting? →
Multi-Property Short-Term Rental Accounting: A Clean P&L Per Property
Multi-property Airbnb accounting done right: how to get a clean profit and loss per property using tracking categories, and automate the per-property tagging.
How do I get a profit and loss for each property? →
Your Referral Engine Is Already Built (and Free)
Every Airflow host already has a complete referral toolkit in their account — a shareable link, a QR code, ready-made social and print assets, and live stats. Invite another host and you both earn bonus automated tasks when they take their first booking. No setup, no cost.
How do I refer other hosts to Airflow? →
Booking.com Accounting: Why Your Payouts Never Match (and How to Fix It)
Booking.com payout reconciliation explained: the commission-invoice model, VAT on commission, fortnightly payouts, and how to make your bank deposits match your books.
Why don't my Booking.com payouts match? →
Commission on What You Collect, Not What You Hope to Collect
Airflow now charges its booking commission proportionally to the money you've actually received — pay on the deposit when it lands, the rest when the balance is paid. Live now across cards, Paystack, and manual payments.
When does Airflow charge its booking commission? →
VRBO vs Airbnb Fees for Hosts: What Each One Takes in 2026
Airbnb takes 15.5% from most hosts. VRBO takes about 8% from the host and charges the guest 6–15% on top. A side-by-side table, a worked $1,000 booking, and what the difference means for your books.
What do VRBO and Airbnb each take from a host? →
Best Airbnb Accounting Software in 2026 (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage & FreshBooks)
The best accounting software for an Airbnb host is usually Xero or QuickBooks, whichever your accountant already uses. A plain comparison of Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and FreshBooks, and how to get your booking income into them.
What is the best accounting software for an Airbnb host? →
Every Guest Message in One Thread, Beside the Booking
Stop hunting for the right conversation across email, your OTA inbox, and confirmation messages. Airflow gives every booking its own communication thread — the original booking email, your guest's replies, and the emails you send, all on one timeline right beside the reservation.
How do I keep every guest message with its booking? →
Get Paid in Kenya: M-Pesa Bookings With Real Books Behind Them
Kenyan and African hosts can take direct bookings paid by M-Pesa, card, or bank transfer through their own Paystack account — and the accounting draft and commission flow happen automatically. Live now in KES.
How do I take M-Pesa payments for bookings in Kenya? →
Accounting for Short-Term Rentals: OTA Income, Fees & Reconciliation (The Complete Guide)
A complete guide to short-term rental accounting: why OTA income never matches your bank, how to structure your books, and how to reconcile Airbnb and Booking.com payouts.
How should I do the accounting for a short-term rental? →
Hostaway & Guesty Do Channels — But Who Does Your Books?
Hostaway and Guesty are excellent channel managers, but they are not accounting tools. Here is the books-side gap they leave, and how Airflow fills it honestly.
Who does the books if I use Hostaway or Guesty? →
See the Number Before You Charge It: Manual Payments, Done Right
In bank-transfer, cash, and mobile-money markets, you collect the money yourself. Airflow lets you record the exact amount received — and shows you the precise commission before anything is charged. No silent charges. Live now for PayPal, M-Pesa, and bank transfer.
How do I record a cash or bank-transfer payment? →
Sell the Airport Pickup at Checkout: Guest Extras in Action
Offer airport transfers, late checkout, activities, and a private chef as paid extras — guests can buy them while booking or during their stay. The money flows to your account, the commission is handled, and there's no extra admin. Live now across your booking pages and the guest portal.
How do I sell extras like an airport pickup at checkout? →
Owner Statements That Write Themselves — and Land in Xero
If you manage properties for owners, the monthly statement is the job everyone dreads. Airflow now builds each owner's payout statement automatically — rent collected, deductions, your management fee, net payout — emails it, shows it in a portal, and pushes it to Xero as a draft owner remittance. Live now.
How do I produce monthly owner statements? →
Cleaning Fees, Damage Deposits & Taxes: Where Do They Go in Your Books?
Airbnb cleaning fee accounting explained: where cleaning fees, refundable damage deposits and occupancy taxes belong in your books, and how to record each correctly.
Where do cleaning fees, deposits and taxes go in my books? →
Held for 10 Minutes: How Airflow Stops Double Bookings at Checkout
When a guest starts paying, Airflow holds their dates for about 10 minutes so no one else can grab the same slot. Complete the payment and it's confirmed; abandon it and the hold auto-expires and the dates free up. And a database-level guard makes a true double-book impossible, even in a race.
How does Airflow stop double bookings at checkout? →
Your Website Builder Bill Is Just the Start
A website builder gives you a brochure. For less than a Wix subscription, Airflow gives hosts the website and the operating system behind it — and moves your old site over in one conversation.
Is a website builder enough for a booking business? →
Plans & Upgrading
Understanding Airflow's plans, what's included at each level, how your automated-tasks allowance works, and how to upgrade when you're ready to grow.
Which Airflow plan do I need, and how do I upgrade? →
Calendar & Channel Sync
How Airflow consolidates bookings from every source into one calendar and publishes an availability feed your channels can import — helping prevent double-bookings.
How does calendar sync work in Airflow? →
Notifications & Alerts
How Airflow keeps you informed — booking alerts, payment notifications, system updates, and action reminders delivered to your portal and inbox.
How do Airflow's notifications and alerts work? →
Why We're Opening Airflow Slowly — Our Early-Access Approach
We're rolling Airflow out to a focused group of booking businesses first — deliberately. Here's why a careful early-access launch makes for a better product.
Why is Airflow opening slowly? →
Automated Guest Communications
How Airflow sends the right message to your guests at the right time — booking confirmations, pre-arrival info, check-in instructions, and follow-ups.
How do automated guest messages work? →
Team Collaboration & Invitations
How to invite team members, assign roles, and manage access across your Airflow organisation — from owner to staff.
How do I invite my team and set their access? →
Your Connected Ecosystem
How Airflow connects your email, calendars, accounting, payments, and guest tools into one automated hub — so nothing falls through the cracks.
What can I connect to Airflow? →
Managing Your Properties
How to add, configure, and manage your properties (resources) in Airflow — from a single villa to a portfolio of rentals.
How do I add and manage my properties? →
Guest Payments & Deposits
How Airflow handles guest payments — from deposit collection at booking to balance payments via the guest portal, with support for Stripe, Paystack, and manual methods.
How does Airflow take guest payments and deposits? →
Why Your iCal Sync Keeps Breaking — and What to Do About It
Double bookings, stale calendars, and missing reservations. iCal sync is the glue holding most booking businesses together — and it's failing. Here's why, and a better approach.
Why does my iCal sync keep breaking? →
Your Activity Timeline
How Airflow logs every action — bookings processed, invoices created, emails sent, settings changed — so you always know what happened and when.
Where can I see everything Airflow has done? → Stop Sending Guest Emails Manually — Automate the Entire Journey
Airflow's Automations addon sends the right email at the right time — pre-arrival, check-in, post-checkout — once you've set it up, automatically for every booking.
How do I automate my guest emails? →
The Guest Portal Experience
After booking, your guests get their own trip portal — itinerary, property details, documents, payments, and companion sharing. No app download required.
What do my guests see in their portal? →
Your Custom Booking Website
How Airflow gives you a branded direct booking website where guests can browse availability, book, and pay — with zero OTA commission.
How do I get my own booking website? →
WordPress Booking Plugins Are Holding You Back
WooCommerce Bookings, Amelia, Jetwoobuilder — WordPress plugins promise booking management but deliver frustration. Here's why they fail, and how Airflow's WordPress plugin and embeddable widgets turn any website into a direct booking system.
Are WordPress booking plugins good enough? →
Managing Your Account & Profile
How to set up your Airflow profile, manage your login, update contact details, and configure your display preferences.
How do I manage my account and profile? →
Automatic Accounting Sync
How Airflow automatically creates draft invoices in Xero, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, or Sage from your booking data — with correct line items, taxes, and FX.
How does Airflow create invoices in my accounting software? →
Airbnb Payouts Don't Match Your Invoices — Here's Why
The guest paid €1,200. After Airbnb's ~15% host-only fee and a currency conversion, your bank received £867. Your Xero invoice says something else entirely. Here's what's happening — and how to fix it.
Why don't my Airbnb payouts match my invoices? →
How Booking Extraction Works
Airflow reads your booking emails and extracts guest details, dates, pricing, and platform fees — automatically creating structured records.
How does Airflow read my booking emails? →
How Booking Email Forwarding Works
Learn how to forward OTA booking confirmations to Airflow and watch them turn into structured records automatically.
How does booking email forwarding work? →
Managing Bookings from 5 Platforms Without Losing Your Mind
Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, HomeExchange, and direct enquiries — all in separate tabs, separate calendars, separate inboxes. There's a better way.
How do I manage bookings from five platforms? →
Your Reviews Are Your Most Underused Asset — Here's How to Fix That
Airflow's Reviews addon collects reviews from Google, from Airbnb's review-notification emails, and from your direct guests into one dashboard — with tracking, responses, and automated review requests.
How do I collect my reviews in one place? →
Stop Paying Per Property — You're Overpaying in the Off-Season
Per-property pricing charges you the same in January as in July. If your bookings are seasonal, you're subsidising empty months. There's a fairer model.
Why pay per property in the off-season? →
Airflow is Now in Early Access
We're opening Airflow to our first users. Here's what's ready, what's coming next, and how to get started.
What is ready in Airflow's early access? → HomeExchange, HomeSwap, and the Calendar Problem Nobody Talks About
Home exchange platforms are great for free travel. But they don't give you a unified calendar, accounting records, or any way to manage swaps alongside paid bookings. Here's how to fix that.
How do I manage home swaps alongside paid bookings? →
Your Booking Business Deserves a Real Website — Not a Linktree
Airflow's Website addon gives property managers a professionally designed, mobile-ready site with booking integration, custom domains, and managed hosting.
Why does my booking business need a real website? →
Your Booking Confirmation Emails Are a Goldmine You're Ignoring
Every booking confirmation email contains guest details, dates, amounts, fees, and platform data. You're reading them once and filing them. Here's what you should be doing instead.
What can I do with my booking confirmation emails? →
From Checkout to Account in 60 Seconds
Pick your plan, enter your card, and your entire Airflow account is live before you finish your coffee. Here's how the onboarding pipeline works.
How quickly is my Airflow account ready after sign-up? → Xero + Short-Term Rentals: The Setup Nobody Teaches You
Xero is powerful accounting software. But setting it up for short-term rental income — with multiple properties, platforms, currencies, and fee structures — is harder than it should be. Here's the right way.
How do I set up Xero for short-term rentals? →
Why Your Cleaning Team Can See Your Revenue (And How to Fix It)
Most booking tools give everyone the same access. Your cleaner sees your revenue. Your co-host sees your billing. Here's why proper team permissions matter — and what they should look like.
How do I stop my cleaning team seeing my revenue? →
What's Next for Airflow: The Road Ahead
A transparent look at what we're building next — from direct booking sites to AI agents to trusted device security.
What is Airflow building next? →
Your Own Booking Engine, for Free — Why Direct Bookings Change Everything
Every Airflow plan includes direct booking: a Stripe-powered checkout, draft invoices, and full guest ownership — with no monthly fee for the booking engine.
Can I get my own booking engine without a monthly fee? →
Meet AI Flow: Your Booking Business Has an AI Assistant Now
AI Flow is a context-aware AI assistant built into Airflow. It knows your bookings, your settings, and your business — and it costs a fraction of what you'd expect.
What can Airflow's AI assistant do? → Multi-Currency Bookings Are Breaking Your Spreadsheet
EUR bookings, GBP payouts, USD reporting, KES bank deposits. If you're managing multi-currency bookings in a spreadsheet, something is already wrong. Here's why — and how to fix it.
How do I manage bookings in several currencies? →
Security First: How We Passed a 27-Point Code Audit
We ran a comprehensive security audit across every page and edge function in Airflow. All 27 items resolved. Here's what we found and fixed.
How secure is Airflow? →
One Calendar to Rule Them All
Day, week, month, and year views — all in one calendar. See every booking across every property at a glance.
Can I see every booking in one calendar? →
Managing Teams Without the Complexity
Owners, managers, and staff — with permissions that make sense. Add your team without needing an IT department.
How do team roles and permissions work? →
Your Money, Every Currency: How Airflow Handles Multi-Currency Bookings
Bookings in euros, payouts in pounds, accounting in dollars — Airflow's three-layer currency model handles it all without spreadsheets.
How does Airflow handle multi-currency bookings? →
Automated Accounting: From Booking Email to Draft Invoice in Seconds
How Airflow turns a forwarded booking confirmation into a categorised, tax-ready draft invoice in your accounting software — without you touching a spreadsheet.
How does a booking email become a draft invoice? →
Connect Everything: Xero, Stripe, Google, and Beyond
Airflow connects your booking channels to your accounting, payments, calendar, and email — without replacing any of them.
Does Airflow connect to Xero, Stripe and Google? →
Automated Tasks, Not Per-Property Fees: Why We Chose a Fairer Pricing Model
Most booking software charges per property per month, whether you use it or not. We think you should pay for what you actually process.
Why does Airflow charge by task, not per property? →
One Platform, Every Service: How Airflow Adapts to Your Property Operation
Villas, lodges, boutique hotels, safari camps — plus restaurants, spas, and activities within your property. Airflow adapts its entire interface to your operation. Here's how.
Does Airflow work for lodges, restaurants and activities? → Airflow Is Not a PMS (And That's the Point)
Why we deliberately chose not to build another property management system — and why the middleware approach serves businesses better.
Is Airflow a property management system? → Why Every Booking Business Needs a Middleware Layer
You're the human middleware between your booking platforms, your accounting software, and your clients. Here's why that needs to change.
Why does a booking business need a middleware layer? →
The 20-Minute Problem: Why Every Booking Costs You More Than You Think
Each booking takes 20 minutes of admin work that software should handle. Here's the breakdown — and what to do about it.
How much admin time does each booking cost me? →%%TITLE%%
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