How to use the formula builder?
Creating formulas is easy using our step-by-step Formula Wizard.
We will explain how to use it in this article. Please watch the following video in which we explain How to set up financial formulas so you can start using them right away and take advantage of their full potential.
Some notes before we start:
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The formula builder can be used as many times as you want. That said, it will remove all created formulas. This means you can use it once to build as many formulas as possible and then edit them manually
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Only the main account holder and Users with Admin access level can see the formula builder
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The formula builder will only work for "New" and "Modified" reservations. For cancellations and Owner Stays, you will need to create formulas manually
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The formulas created with the Formula Builder can be edited
- Formulas can be set from the system as a whole, or they can be edited from a listing-specific
Financial settings: Formulas Builder
Financial Settings is divided into 2+1 sections (Financial Reporting > Financial Settings)
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Formulas
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Taxes
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Additional settings
How to use the formulas builder?
For new users
By default, some pages may be empty informing that formulas are needed to use these features: Formulas, Rental Activity, reservations' formulas section, Analytics, Owner statements. This will happen if the default previous formulas remain untouched and no custom formulas are created.
In the Occupancy Report, we will show the banner below.
The formulas builder
When using the formula builder for the first time, clicking on "Setup formulas" will open a side pop-up with steps to follow.
New vs Current Users
New users
Here we explain what the resulting formulas will be:
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Total Price
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Rental Revenue
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Total Payout
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Owner Payout (only for invoice and payout models)
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Property Manager Payout (only for invoice and payout models)*
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*Please note that the PmCommission should only contain the commission %. To understand how much corresponds to the property manager, please use Property Manager Payout
To obtain the resulting formulas we will also generate intermediate formulas.
Current users
If there were already formulas set, the system will show a warning message informing that existing formulas will be removed to generate new ones.
In this case, the system will allow you to download a CSV file with all your formulas in case you would like to save to manually restore them later on.
Business Model
Select the business model that better describes you. You can modify formulas later if you have a mixed model:
- Self operator. I'm the owner of my properties or I do rental arbitrage
- Payout model. Guests pay me and then pay a % to owners
- Invoice model. Owners get paid by guests and then I collect my commission
The results of the formula wizard for Invoice and Payout models will create 2 extra formulas: Property manager payout and Owner Payout, corresponding to the expected payout for each of the parts based on the commission introduced, and the concepts involved in it.
OTAs
Select which OTAs you plan to use.
General advice: Do not select all OTAs if you do not plan to add them all. This will add a lot of formulas, more complexity, and longer calculations and load time.
Guest fees
Select which fees you plan to use, and you will be able to easily add more later.
General advice: Do not select all fees if you do not plan to add them all. This will add a lot of formulas, more complexity, and longer calculation and load time
Taxes
Please select the taxes you plan to use.
For Airbnb and Booking.com you can use a mapping tool in Financial settings. For the rest of the channels, we calculate them based on the settings entered in the section "Taxes" in financial settings. We are also the source of truth for them (iCals and Expedia excluded).
In addition, we ask who remits these taxes for Airbnb because they affect the payout (and other dependent formulas can be affected as well).
Sometimes, some taxes are remitted by Airbnb and some by the Host. In this case, you will need to distinguish between them.
Creating Formulas for taxes does not mean you will be collecting taxes, you have to create taxes by following the steps in how to add a tax % to a Tax.
Discounts and other
The final step should help the system apply the correct discounts and apply the damage deposit when is part of the total price or not. When the process is finished, the formulas will be generated.
The Outcome
As mentioned, there are intermediate formulas that can be used inside other formulas. This summarizes what we built.
Because the number of formulas may be a bit overwhelming, we have added an option to hide formulas so they don't appear in other places (dropdown selectors, list of formulas, etc.). Previously selected formulas that are hidden will remain selected until changed.
FAQs
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How I can change some numbers such as a tax or a commission for one specific listing?
- When changing a Tax or a number in Financial Reporting > Financial Settings > It will update all your listings
- If you need to change a value for a specific listing, go to Listing > Edit > Financial Settings > Edit the value there. Only this listing will be impacted
- Please note that once changed manually on a listing level, if you change the value on the account level, the system will not update this manually edited listing
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Are owner stays included in Financial Reporting?
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No. You will need to edit the created formulas or create new ones
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Does the system consider cancellations?
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- No. You will need to edit the created formulas or create new ones
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