What is Vacation Rental Software?

Are you constantly on travel sites, such as Airbnb, to check activity? Do you have to juggle multiple websites, emails, and text messages? Do you make and take endless phone calls about maintenance, cleaning, bookings, and everything in between?

You may need online rental booking software, which is designed to offer all the functions that a rental property owner or team needs. You can even use it to manage several properties at the same time. It automates and simplifies many property management tasks.

Below, you’ll learn the many functions that rental management software offers, and you can decide if you or your team needs the help.

If you decide that you don’t want to learn how to use a new type of software, you could instead let an outside team take care of all your property management needs—with whatever software they want.

What will give you the most time and ability to build your ideal business and life? That’s up to you to decide, as it’s based on your unique business plan and life goals.

What Does Vacation Rental Software Do?

Vacation rental management software was designed by studying the rental business and testing software in the field. Each brand of software has a unique list of features, and here are some of the many capabilities that are offered:

• Integrates well with your rental accounts on sites such as Booking.com, Airbnb, Tripadvisor, Facebook, and many others
• Helps you create your own customized booking website for your rental business
• Displays all your bookings and other rental data from multiple sites and multiple guests on one simple dashboard
• Sends automatic emails to guests and to staff
• Helps you schedule cleanings
• Makes it simple to invoice guests
• Handles trust accounting
• Provides digital signatures
• Sends automatic text messages (very useful for harried guests who need info on their phones)
• Handles travel insurance
• Integrates with damage protection
• Has well-designed reservation calendars
• Simplifies month-end accounting processes
• Provides easy year-end accounting
• Protects you during tax audits
• Takes credit card payments
• Keeps all your leads and inquiries in one place so you don’t forget a lead and lose revenue
• Supports hospitality efforts

Vacation rental property management software is the workhorse of the rental property business. A property manager uses it the way an accountant uses spreadsheet software or a writer uses a word processor. It simplifies many of the small details and tasks of renting your property out.

Are You a Property Manager or a Real Estate Mogul?

Vacation rental software is used in the work of a property manager. Is that what you are? Do you want to manage properties? Or, do you have bigger aspirations, such as building up a real estate portfolio and creating massive asset wealth for the future?

Either goal is OK, of course.

If you want to have your own office and employees managing 10 or more properties, they’ll definitely need good software. It would pay to research vacation rental software pricing and brands to decide which one would work best for your portfolio. Some of them have free trials so that your team can demo them and make an informed decision.

Up to a point, vacation rental management software can help you improve your business. You or a team can accomplish more when many tasks are automated and/or more efficient.

But is efficiency what you want to focus on? Do you just want to do tasks more quickly? Or would you rather do completely different tasks and have a different type of life?

Do you instead aspire to the work and thoughts of a CEO? Would you like to decide the best locations for new properties, how fast you want your business to grow, and what your five-year strategy should be? Then you might want to grow beyond daily property management tasks.

The Alternative: Partnering with a Rental Management Company

Even if you have great software, you still have to operate and manage it, either yourself or through a team. That’s one option, and it might be appealing to you.

But is that scalable? If you really want to build your business (and get more free time!), partnering with an expert vacation rental management company can completely automate most tasks for you. If you work with Grand Welcome, we can take care of:

• Cleaning your property (or properties)
• Responding to maintenance requests
• Keeping track of leads
• Booking guests
• Answering guest questions
• Dealing with problems, such as refunds
• Marketing your properties
• Interacting with guests at on-site offices, on the phone, and through email
• Helping guests explore the area
• Delivering a 5-star guest experience
• Sending you one big revenue check every month

Vacation rental software is helpful, but it can’t do all the work for you. If you want to be free of the daily labor of operating the software, you can hand the property management over to us.

Think about which of these is more lucrative:

• Saving a little bit of revenue by managing a few properties yourself
• Creating more revenue by acquiring and renting out multiple new properties that are managed by a partner

If you have more free time, you can find other ways to improve your rental business, such as coming up with new services, perks, promises, amenities, and so on. Get the time you need for improving your business (and going on your own vacations) by freeing yourself of the daily grind of property management.

Pivot to a Better Life in 2020

This can be a major decision and turning point in your business. Do you want to try to save money by avoiding paying a partner? Or, do you want to create a scalable business structure that can grow indefinitely and fulfill all your financial dreams?

The question really is: what do you want your daily life to be like? Do you want to be a property manager? Do you want to do accounting, invoicing, scheduling, etc.? Or, do you want to be an owner and investor?

You can definitely try some vacation rental accounting software, or simply letting Grand Welcome handle management tasks could help your business reach its potential. And then you could take your family on that vacation they always wanted, send your kids to the best schools, buy a better home for yourself, and much more. Think big and aim high in 2020!

List your property—or multiple properties—with Grand Welcome. You can earn more revenue using our easy and comprehensive management program. Get in touch with us to get started, and check out the useful resources on the Grand Welcome.

If you are interested in opening a business rental management franchise to expand your business, recruit new properties, and grow a successful vacation rental business, contact Grand Welcome Franchise today to get more information about a turnkey franchise opportunity or to receive the FREE Franchise Information Kit.