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Easy month-end reports
How a growing STR manager saves a day’s worth of work each month with automated reports
Ryan Ingram is the owner of Vacant Nests, a short-term rental management company located in the UK’s Sunderland region. Ryan’s business offers owners peace of mind thanks to managed maintenance service, property protection tech, and a thorough guest vetting process.
Vacant Nests offers both full-service and part-time management to single- or multi-property owners. This dual approach adds a level of complexity when it comes to month-end reporting, sending out payments, and collecting fees. Let’s explore how Hostfully helped.
Overview
Before
- Scaled to 24 properties in under 2 years
- Month-end owner reporting was complex and manual
- Responded to owner questions regarding revenue
- Manually adjusted calendars for owner block stays
After
- Reporting takes a fraction of the time it used to
- No more Excel spreadsheets and manual processes
- Owners can log in to see their properties’ performance and block stays in their properties themselves
Impact
- 8 hours saved per month preparing reports
- Fewer owner questions and higher satisfaction
- More time to focus on expanding company into Dubai market
“With Hostfully’s Enhanced Reporting feature, we create a report template and choose a date for when it gets generated. Fees, earnings, commissions, and cleaning expenses are automatically calculated. I make a few edits and send it to the owners. This saves me so much time each month.”
Ryan Ingram, Owner, Vacant Nests
Before
In just under two years, Ryan scaled Vacant Nests to 24 properties. During this growth, Ryan realized he needed something more powerful than the starter property management software (PMS) he had been using. As Ryan puts it “anything more complicated than basic channel management, like preparing reports, meant lots of manual work.”
Ryan spent hours each month manually transferring data from Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com to a spreadsheet due to the inadequate report feature of his PMS. This process involved copying and pasting information to calculate Vacant Nests’ management fees, OTA commissions, cleaning fees, and owner payouts. “There had to be a better solution,” Ryan reflects.
After
Ryan realized he needed to transition to one of the top PMS options in the industry. After thorough research, he settled on Hostfully for its exceptional value. Upon onboarding, configuring his channels, and linking the Hostfully central calendar to his direct booking site, Ryan delved into the Enhanced Reporting feature.
With a few clicks, Ryan configured his monthly auto-generated reports. As some owners possess multiple fully-managed properties while others own single part-time properties, this variation impacts fee calculations and report types. Hostfully’s Enhanced Reporting offers the flexibility for Ryan to generate reports automatically. “A bit of editing, and the reports are ready to be sent to the owners,” Ryan remarks. He notes, “This reduced my monthly workload from 9-10 hours to less than 2.”
Bonus
Before using Hostfully, Ryan had to respond to owner inquiries and manually update his calendar for owner blocks when they wished to use the property themselves. However, thanks to the Hostfully Owner Portal feature, Vacant Nest clients now have access to real-time revenue and booking information, and can easily block off time with just a few clicks. This led to higher owner satisfaction.
