Top three ways to automate your STR management business

Remember the time you received a booking from Airbnb and had to rush to Booking.com to block off your dates?

If you’ve reached this point, you’ll know all too well that manually managing your clients and booking details is no longer an effective means to run your business (if you have double-booked a listing and lost a client as a result - we see you).

The above is just one example of how technology or more specifically, automation, can save you time and drive efficiency. Below, we've listed our top 3 ways to automate your short-term rental (STR) management business so that you can focus on growth.

Automate your calendar

Managing your guest arrival and departure is critical to ensure a seamless rental experience. But if you have more than one guest arriving on the same day, being in two places at once is not an option.

It's Saturday night and you are at dinner with your partner or friends and your phone starts ringing. Your heart sinks. The guest can’t get in because you didn’t send them the lockbox code…. We have all been there and it sucks. That’s why we ensured it can never happen to us and you, again.

What does my calendar software need to do?

• Have an inbox that does it all so that you never miss a message again.
• Send notifications that are applied at the team level so everyone understands an unread message requires action. No more 99+ unread messages.
• Have an inbox that allows you to collaborate with colleagues, send off messages at lightning speed, and automate important information like check-in and check-out instructions.
• Have all messages in one place and collaborate with your team to respond in minutes - never send a double message again!

Automate your finances

With the right technology platform, you can track all your operational expenses, including cleaning and maintenance tasks, to stay on top of your end of month statements.

What does my financial software need to do?

• Provide oversight of earnings and expenses associated with all the tasks happening in your business.
• Streamline end-of-month statements and understand what parts of your business are profitable vs loss-making.
• Keep detailed records of work done for auditing and reporting purposes and quickly sense checking supplier invoices.
• Keep track of monthly financial reports to keep an eye on your end of month statements.
• Provide oversight of Airbnb resolution centre payments.
• Provide a quick view of all outstanding statements and prioritise accordingly.

Automate your operations

Investing in the right technology can save you time and drive efficiency so that you can focus on your business growth. When it comes to Airbnb’s automation features, like their scheduled messages feature and the check-in guide, we recommend using them to get started.

If you want something more robust, we suggest investing in operational software that has the following key features:

• Organise property and owner information centrally so your team can take action with context at any time from any device.
• Upload homeowner contracts and insurance information and get reminders when policies expire.
• Capture the make and model of appliances and upload photos to help guests troubleshoot issues without having to visit the property.
• Connect the property information to the tasks feature to provide cleaning and maintenance staff with all the relevant information they need.

The Hometime Platform does all this and more. We created property management software to help you manage your properties like a pro, from automating tasks and keeping on top of financial statements for owners to managing guest communications.

Need help managing your property? Feel free to drop us a line, we are happy to help.