Accurate bookkeeping is important for tax time and STRs are a little more complicated.
Stessa currently only has the ability to track the payouts from both platforms through a connected bank. This request is for Stessa to have a connection between Airbnb and VRBO so that owners can track gross revenue and platform fees.
For example in the current version of Stessa, let’s say I received a booking on Airbnb that totals for $100. If I donated 1% of my total earnings to Airbnb.org and then pay the service fee of 3%, my bank account shows a $96 payout ($100 - $1 - $3). The current product only shows that $96 payout.
In the future, I’d like to automatically import the gross $100 from Airbnb to Stessa as short term rent revenue, then have a line item cost for platform fees such as service fees (ABB & VRBO), charity donations (ABB) and payment processing fees (VRBO). This would allow for more accurate tracking of top line revenue as well as associated platform costs come tax time.
I just wanted to let you know that if you export the transactions from the AirBnB site to a CSV file, Stessa will accept that file through the Import button on the Transactions page (unedited), and it will automatically split out the line items to separate categories.
For example, mine splits out the sales tax, host fee, and income to the appropriate categories (I do have to manually fix the tax line though, since it categorizes it as rent). Then for the transaction that syncs from the bank, I just set it to Transfers. When I look at the net cash flow report it then shows the full rent amount as income and the host fees as an expense.
Not sure if this helps but wanted to make you aware. The only other caveat is to make sure you delete any rows from the AirBnB CSV that you don’t want to import, so you don’t end up with duplicate entries.
I actually don’t use VRBO so I’m not sure. It might work if you try it out. We are getting ready to list our property there for next year so I need to figure that out too. Here is the article related to short term rentals, hopefully it helps! Track Short-Term Rentals with Stessa | Stessa Help Center
Currently, AirBnB direct deposits my payout into a business savings account. Stessa then recognizes the payout and records it in the transaction register. If I conduct an import via a .CVS file then I will duplicate my payout and will then have to decide which recorded transaction I should delete. Correct?
I am also seeing a variance between the Stessa recognized transaction and the one I import. Wondering what is causing that?
I have my bank account set up the same way. I just record the one that is imported automatically as a transfer, just for reference.
The one from the CSV will split out between rent (Income-Short Term Rents), sales tax (if you have that requirement in your area - I use Transfers-Taxes to Remit, and use that same category when I pay it out to the city since it is just pass through), and the host fee as an expense (Management Fees-Booking & Platform Fees).
You are probably seeing the variance between the bank account import and the CSV import because the one from your bank is income minus expense, and the one from the CSV has the income and expense (host fee) separated as 2 different transactions. If you subtract the host fee from the short term rent, it should equal the number from your bank account exactly.
Your info has been very helpful to me. I am still a little confused on how to ensure the accounting is done correctly without duplicates. When you set the automatically recorded bank account proceeds from AirBnB payments as a Transfer, do you use a specific sub-category? Doesn’t setting it up as a Transfer inaccurately impact your Balance Sheet and reporting?
I am not using Stessa anymore so I had to refresh my memory, but that is the reason I set it as transfer. The import from AirBnB will be the final amount of transaction, so in order for you to not have a duplicate when you import the CSV from AirBnB, I set it to transfer because those should be filtered out on your financial reports (because they should just be for moving money around). The imported transaction from the AirBnB CSV will split out the income/expense and that is what you want on your financial reports. For example, if the rent you charged was $100 and you have a $50 cleaning fee, plus AirBnB charged a fee of $15, the final transaction would be $135, so I would set the one from your bank as a $135 transfer (which you can filter out the report) and then you’ll have income showing as $100 for short term rent, $50 cleaning fee, and $15 expense for a hosting fee. (These categories probably don’t line up to what Stessa uses exactly, but hopefully you get the idea. I haven’t been using it for a while so I can’t remember their exact category names.)
The other thing you can do is just split the charge that imports from the bank to the correct categories like I described, then you would just have individual transactions showing that will add up to the same amount, so it would balance. That would eliminate the need for the extra transfer transaction, I just liked using the CSV to save me that data entry time. Stessa may even have a way to link them together now, I’m not sure.