Financial Reporting: User Permissions

This guide explains how to configure, manage, and understand granular financial permissions across our web platform, mobile app, and various features.

Introduction

Historically, granting access to financial information on our platform was an "all-or-nothing" decision. We understand that in real property management organizations, delegating financial tasks requires nuance. While owners need to see owner-relevant figures, they shouldn't see internal fee structures. Likewise, operations or guest-facing staff may need to see total prices but not margins.

Setting Up Financial Permissions

Before we start, it's important to note that existing users will be automatically moved to the new permission system, respecting as much as possible their previous permission settings.

To configure these permissions:

1. Go to your Hostaway Dashboard > Settings > Users
2. Click on Add New User, or find the user you want to edit and locate the Allow access to financial data permission.
3. Tick this permission ON.
4. Underneath, you will see a configuration panel allowing you to choose between:
   • Show all data without restriction: Default option. (Note: For Admins, this option is greyed out as they always have full access.)
   • Show all data except: To restrict specific formulas, financial fields, or the total price. New formulas or financial fields will be accessible by default.
   • Show only selected data: To enable specific formulas, financial fields, or the total price. New formulas or financial fields won't be accessible by default.
5. Click on Save

The same options are available for groups. Changing these settings on a group will automatically apply to any users in that group, which is a smart and fast way of managing these settings for many users at the same time.
It is possible to go to each individual user afterwards and overwrite the group configuration manually by changing the permissions for that specific user.

Giving access to financial data will make it accessible to this user in different parts of the system, provided that those sections are also available for the user: reservations page, inbox, calendar, and most importantly, the financial reporting module (Analytics, Rental Activity, and the Occupancy Report). The mobile app will also follow these rules.

Show formula value instead of Total Price:

Below these main options to grant and restrict financial data, we'll keep the previously existing Show formula value instead of Total Price option. This option is intended to highlight another relevant piece of information instead of the total price in other parts of the system: the reservations table, the inbox, the calendar, and emails.

Before, users without access to financial data could still see one formula if it was selected here in different parts of the system. These users will now have access to financial data assigned to them, with only that formula available. Please review the access of your existing users.

When a formula is selected there the user will only see that formula in those locations (it will replace the total price).

Only available formulas can be selected there.

Detailed feature behavior (Where restrictions apply)

Reservations: 

Price Breakdowns

• Hidden Breakdown Fields: If a field involved in a price breakdown is restricted for a user, the detailed breakdown is hidden. Instead, only the final total price will be visible in a textbox.
• Restricted Total Price: If the total price itself is restricted, the entire price breakdown becomes unavailable. Additionally, original total prices, total prices from channels, and related metadata will be hidden. However, any unrestricted individual components will remain visible in their designated sections.

Financial Fields & Formulas Sections

• Fields: Restricted financial fields are completely hidden from selection lists and creation options.
• Formulas: Restricted formulas are hidden from view.
• Formula Components: To prevent users from guessing restricted values, when a formula uses a restricted sub-formula or field, we hide the detailed composition (items and values). The user will only see the final value in the "Formula" and "Result" columns. 

Owner Statements (OS) & Auto-Statements

New Owner & Auto-Statements:

• Restricted items in metrics, rental activity, and grand total are completely excluded from all selectors

Existing Owner & Auto-Statements:

• Existing statements are saved as secure snapshots.
• Users with edit permissions can access and restricted items can be removed from current selections (rental activity, grand total, metrics) but cannot be re-added.

Duplication & Templates:

• Duplicating an Owner Statement or generating one from a template will strictly respect the original columns and access rights of the active user.

Analytics & Reports

Analytics

• Restricted metrics and graphs are hidden from all selection menus.
• If a user has no formulas available to them, the formulas options will be removed
• Specific Revenue Restrictions:
  • If Rental Revenue is restricted: Rental revenue and Average revenue per stay are hidden.
  • If Base Rate is restricted: Average nightly price is hidden.

Rental Activity

• Restricted columns are hidden from selectors.
  
• Tooltips that appear when hovering over financial data are disabled for users who do not have access to all financial data.
• Note: The same behavior applies to the Rental Activity section within Owner Statements.

Occupancy Report

• Restricted columns are hidden from selectors.
• If Rental Revenue is restricted: Revenue, Revenue nights booked, and Revenue/nights available are hidden.
• If Base Rate is restricted: Average nightly rate is hidden.

Custom Views

• Any custom views saved in Analytics, Rental Activity, or the Occupancy Report will automatically filter out and remove restricted items.

CSV / Data Exports

• Whenever a restricted user clicks "Download all data" on Rental Activity or the Occupancy Report, the resulting CSV file will have all restricted financial columns omitted.

Mobile App Compatibility

• No extra configuration is required for mobile. Hostaway's mobile app mirrors the web platform's permission logic exactly. Any fields, total prices, or formulas hidden on the web app will automatically be hidden in the mobile app interface when financial data is exposed. This includes:
  • Reservations
  • Inbox
  • Calendar
  • Owner portal

Exceptions and Special Rules

Quickbooks Integration

• Financial restriction rules do not apply to data synced or displayed within the QuickBooks integration. This data will continue to show normally to ensure accounting integrity.

CoHost

• The Co-pilot feature respects all restrictions. It applies the respective Rental Activity and Occupancy Report logic described above based on the user's permissions.

How Settings Migration Works for Existing Accounts

If you are an existing customer, your current configurations are automatically migrated to this new system to prevent any disruption of access: