Example 1:
In regard to the payment on check-out change, the key way that it will make payments faster for homeowners is because the new process is a simplification of the current internal process that the Finance Team have to do at the end of each month for homeowner payouts. This is an enormous task for the team at the end of every month and often times to Finance Team work over the weekends and significant overtime to process everything for our homeowners.
In its current state of payment on check-in, there are times when reservations are paid to homeowners before the guest has checked-out for a reservation. If there are any complications from the booking, this creates manual work for the Finance Team to amend the reservation payout and in some cases deduct earnings from the next homeowner statement. This manual work is generally done at the end of each month when finalising the statements.
The new process completely rids the Finance Team of all this reservation revision work that is completed at the end of the month, so that the team can purely focus on finalising each homeowner statement and getting the payments processed as quickly as possible - leading to faster monthly payouts from Hometime to homeowner.
Please also note that this change will not have any impact on reservations that are fulfilled in the same month (check-in and check-out in the same month), which is the majority of reservations. It will only impact the minority of reservations that straddle two months (eg. check-in: 28th June, check-out: 5th July). In these cases, you can be certain that you will be paid in the month of the check-out day.
This new process also clears up a grey area that Hometime currently contends with Airbnb, whereby Airbnb receives and processes payments on behalf of all hosts that use their platform (including Hometime). As Airbnb holds the funds on behalf of Hometime when the guest books, there is a delay between the guest paying Airbnb for their reservation (pre-check-in) and then Airbnb paying Hometime the funds for the reservation. This delay means that Hometime is never 100% sure when we will receive the money for the reservation to then attribute to your homeowner statement - but we always add the payment to the homeowner statement as soon as we receive the funds from Airbnb. This is automatically done with software.
In the past there were issues with reservations straddling two months where in some cases we have been paid from Airbnb and the homeowner gets paid on the current month statement, and other times where we haven't been paid by Airbnb (for whatever reason) and then have to attribute the reservation to the following month. This caused unpredictability in earnings for homeowners, not having certainty on when they will actually receive the money for a reservation that straddles two different months.
To smooth out any confusion on when homeowner's get paid from Hometime, it is simpler to have a blanket rule that Hometime will attribute the reservation payment to the month of the check-out day. This ensures that Hometime has definitely received the funds from Airbnb to then pay our homeowners and all revisions have been accounted for prior to payment.
Example 2
Firstly, please kindly note that as per the Agents Financial Administration Act 2014 best practices, we are moving to finalise the transaction prior to making payment to homeowners in order to minimise risk to our business and trust accounts. Please be assured that we are acting within all Qld property regulations.
The key reason for this change is for the simplification of the current internal process that the Finance Team have to do at the end of each month for homeowner payouts. End of month processing is an enormous task for the team and often times the Finance Team work over the weekends and significant overtime to process everything for our homeowners.
In its current state of payment on check-in, there are times when reservations are paid to homeowners before the guest has checked-out for a reservation. If there are any complications from the booking, this creates manual work for the Finance Team to amend the reservation payout and in some cases deduct earnings from the next homeowner statement. This a lot of manual work is generally done at the end of each month when finalising the statements which slows down the entire payment process.
The new process rids the Finance Team of all this reservation revision work that is completed at the end of the month, so that the team can purely focus on finalising each homeowner statement and getting the payments processed as quickly as possible - leading to faster monthly payouts from Hometime to homeowner.
Please also note that this change will not have any impact on reservations that are fulfilled in the same month (check-in and check-out in the same month), which is the majority of reservations. It will only impact the minority of reservations that straddle two months (eg. check-in: 28th June, check-out: 5th July). In these cases, you can be certain that you will be paid in the month of the check-out day.
This new process also clears up a grey area that Hometime currently contends with Airbnb, whereby Airbnb receives and processes payments on behalf of all hosts that use their platform (including Hometime). As Airbnb holds the funds on behalf of Hometime when the guest books, there is a delay between the guest paying Airbnb for their reservation (pre-check-in) and then Airbnb paying Hometime the funds for the reservation. This delay means that Hometime is never 100% sure when we will receive the money for the reservation to then attribute to your homeowner statement - but we always add the payment to the homeowner statement as soon as we receive the funds from Airbnb. This is automatically done with software.
In the past there were issues with reservations straddling two months where in some cases Hometime had been paid from Airbnb and the homeowner got paid on the current month statement, and other times where we hadn't been paid by Airbnb (for whatever reason) and then attributed the reservation to the following month. This caused unpredictability in earnings for homeowners and lack of certainty when they would actually receive the money for a reservation that straddles two different months. Understandably, for homeowners with mortgages and budgets - this is not ideal and something we could never give homeowners a clear answer on because we don't control Airbnb's payment processing schedule.
To smooth out any confusion on when homeowner's get paid from Hometime, it is much more effecitve to have a blanket rule that Hometime will attribute the reservation payment to the month of the check-out day. This ensures that Hometime have definitely received the funds from Airbnb to then pay our homeowners. This also helps the Finance team (a lot!) when processing end of month payments to reduce manual recision work, as mentioned.
I hope this adds some further context around the decision and shows the operational efficiencies that will come with this change.
Please let me know if you have any further questions or would like a phone call to discuss anything further.