Setting up your vacation rental software is generally a painless process, and you can be up and running in no more than a couple of days. The first step is to create an account with the software vendor you chose, and follow their onboarding steps. You’ll usually need to enter some details about your property, policies, and contact info. Next, you can build your website or configure a booking engine that you can embed on your own website. This module allows guests to book reservations online with you directly. You’ll need to upload photos, enter your property descriptions, and load prices. In addition to your own website, you can connect your vacation rental software to third-party channels, like Airbnb and Vrbo. If you already have listings on those channels, you can simply connect them to enable the flow of rates, availability, content, and reservations. If you don’t have listings yet, you can publish new ones at this point.
The last steps to complete before accepting new reservations include setting up your payment processor so you can charge credit cards, creating any automated messages you want to send to guests, configuring integrations with other apps, such as smart locks or dynamic pricing systems, and inviting other users to the system who help you host.