Over the years international tourism has been increasing progressively, and consequently, the number of people engaging with the vacation rental industry has escalated as well. Something that has become more common over the past few years is the use of “Property Management Systems” or PMSs. Property Managers use these solutions in many different ways to help run their vacation rental businesses.

But what are Property Management Systems? And why is it useful for your rental business?

What is a property management system (PMS)?

Let’s start from the beginning. First of all, it is important to know the difference between a property management system (PMS) and a channel manager. 

Property management systems are softwares that were originally designed to help hotel managers and owners to manage every aspect of the hotel business. As years passed, PMSs developed and whilst some softwares are still targeting hotels, others are a better solution for other types of vacation companies like short-term rentals, B&Bs, other accommodation businesses or even private owners. 

On the other hand, a channel manager is a service that allows property managers to manage their listings on multiple sites, for example by receiving bookings from sales channels and automatically updating the availability in the rest of the platforms where the property is listed. This service is usually included within the PMS. 

The amount of services offered depends on the different Property Management Systems. These softwares are mainly used for organizing the bookings, integrating rates and payments and managing communication with clients. Besides these features, there can be many other options offered to optimise your vacation business management. 

Joining a PMS System

Each PMS is different, and so is the way to access them. Therefore, it is important to be aware of what requirements you may find before joining a PMS.

• In some PMS software, you need to meet an account executive before signing up who will give you more details about their PMS software and who will ask you for information about your business.
• In some cases, you will need to meet certain criteria before publishing your vacation rentals like owning or managing a minimum amount of properties.
• Another requirement might be that you need to pay a subscription or Get started fee in order to join the platform.
• In some cases, the price will increase if you would like to use additional features of the PMS or include more properties.

When using Your.Rentals as your PMS you will not have any disadvantage like subscription or unforeseeable costs. Your.Rentals wants to make rental simple, every customer is welcome regardless of size. The bigger our clients are the more support we can offer. Every profile is being supported by professionally educated Account Managers specialised in rental, assigned to regions according to size and potential. If you wish to work independently, even this way we work fine, our software is easy to use and reliable. Instead of a subscription fee Your.Rentals offers a service fee, charged by booking, this trend works in favour of businesses which are affected by the COVID-Situation. The service fee is adaptable to negotiations. With Your.Rentals you only pay by performance!

How does a Property management system work?

Using only one system to administer all your bookings through the different platforms and other aspects of your rental business can save you a lot of time and also, can help you get better results since your business will be more organized. Some of the features that will help you manage your vacation rental business are: 

Calendar Synchronisation.

Within the calendar sync, you can manage your listings availability, block dates or introduce new bookings. In Your.Rentals calendar sync you can add your existing calendars from other platforms like Airbnb, Google calendar, etc. automatically and all the blocked dates and bookings will be integrated. Having an updated centralised calendar is one of the most important things to take into account when managing a vacation rental business since it will be your best ally to avoid double bookings. 

Relevant insights.

When the listings are published, you can learn how they are performing through different insights and use the information to compare your business with the competitors. For example, you can see how many bookings you’ve had over time, how much you have earned or compare your occupancy to your competitors. Your.Rentals offers a listing quality score that calculates the quality of your listings. If your listings get a high score it is most probable they will rank higher in the sales channels. We also give you tips about opportunities that might suit your business in order to optimise your performance. Besides this, you also have access to the analytics page which compares different aspects of your properties to similar ones in your market.

Universal messenger.

If you have your listings in different channels it is most likely that you will receive messages from clients to different inboxes. By using a universal messenger you will receive all the messages in the same inbox, reducing the chance of missing a message, but also making it more simple to organize the messages and answer in a quicker and more efficient way. Besides these features, Your.Rentals also allows you to have a list of templates and secure file attachments, so you can send common messages like check-in instructions quickly and easily.

More benefits of using a Property Management Software

1. Do not need to take care of the payments. In many cases, the channel manager or PMS collects the payment from your guests and also takes care of other aspects related to them. This way you don’t need to send invoices, or chase guests to pay you. Then, the PMS will securely send you your customers´ payments with all the relevant information. 
2. Save time. The channel manager converges all the bookings from the different channels automatically so you don’t need to update the listings’ availability manually. Also, you gain access to a larger number of channels and their information, which can save you time when researching the most optimal places to advertise your properties on. Besides this, the rental management systems usually provide you with an account manager who will support you and guide you if needed, this option can save you much time as well if you have questions of any type. Your.Rentals stands out for their customer service according to the clients’ reviews. 
3. Get access to experts’ information. When signing up for property management systems you may have more valuable information at hand. Some information will come from your account manager who will give you tips and help you set the right prices as well as improving your listings in order for you to get more visibility, only if requested. Also, Your.Rentals teamed up with Rental Scale-Up and Airdna.co which provide data analysis about the vacation rental industry with some of the most important insights in the business. As mentioned before, one of the results of this collaboration is the Webinar that took place during Spring, 2021, which provided valuable information about upcoming trends in 2021. Register here to watch it for free. 
4. Get a personalised website for your business. The vacation rental industry changes very fast and joining Property management systems will help you not to be left behind. Some PMSs offer personalized services like the possibility to get direct bookings through a customized website. Your.Rentals has launched this service in order to improve their customers’ businesses. Find more information about direct bookings here. 

Conclusion 

Knowing all the elements related to the vacation rental industry can seem from afar something very difficult and heavy to learn, however being part of this business is something very simple, especially if you rely on software and services that were created to make things easier for you. Each Rental management system is different, so take some time to consider exactly what tools and features you need to help run your business.

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