So I am on a flight RIGHT NOW and I am on the Internet writing this blog entry and making changes to guest reservations for my properties using Lodgix.com.   That is the future folks.   Soon with ubiquitous Internet you’ll be able to keep up with your reservations anywhere in the world….as long as you are using a web-based application to manager your vacation rentals.

Using my old client based application, I would have to wait until I get back to my office where the reservation system was and then catch up on all the email requests, reservation changes, new reservations, etc…   Now I am getting that all done while on the plane!  No catchup work when I get back to the office.  Now that is beautiful!

I built the Lodgix.com application because I really disliked the Webervations product.  Their customer support was non existent, their interface was (and still is) dated and not functional, and the product itself barely met the minimum standards for an availability calendar -  and online booking was out of the question.

I tried a couple of other products (all of which were very expensive), and in the end I gave up and decided to code it myself.  The result was Lodgix.com and my vacation rental business has been going gang busters ever since.

Initially, I thought that maybe 5-7% of my business would use the online booking functionality.   In my mind, it was the innovative availability calendar and its ability to show real time availability for years in advance, that would reduce phone calls and increase reservations.

However, I’ve been shocked at the response of the online booking component.   I would estimate that roughly 40% of my bookings are now originating online.  Additionally,  I am amazed at the number of guests who book online who have never called or emailed me.  Granted, my website is very thorough and full of information, but in many instances these are $4000+ reservations, and I just never would have guessed that someone would book that sort of reservation online without wanting to talk or email with me first.

Here is a screenshot of the email reservation notifications I’ve received from Lodgix.com in the last 4 months:

Take tonight for example, I woke up at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I went downstairs, made myself a sandwich and decided to get an early start on clearing out my emails before heading into the office on Monday. Lo and behold, I had two Lodgix.com pending reservation notifications in my inbox that came in while I was sleeping. One of those reservations had emailed me once a few days ago with some more questions. The other reservation had no previous history and just came in out of the blue.

Would I have gotten both of those reservations without Lodgix.com? Possibly yes and possibly no. Why? This weekend was Father’s Day weekend. I spent the weekend with my family and not tied to my email or phone. Thus, my response times for any vacation rental inquiries were slower, if not delayed completely. In the past during times when my response times were delayed, even if just by a few hours, many times by the time I returned the guests email or phone call I either never heard back from them or they would tell me that they had already booked a place somewhere else. That doesn’t happen any longer. Today I get those reservations thanks to the online booking calendar from Lodgix.com.

The net result is that my local vacation rental competitors are hurting. This recession has really affected them this summer. Not me. I am having the best summer season ever. It’s a testament to the power of online booking, and the power of empowering your guests to make their reservation immediately, easily and quickly.

If you are a vacation rental property owner, don’t underestimate the power of providing an online booking and availability calendar component for your guests. Not only will you generate high occupancy rates and realize increased revenues, but you’ll also be amazed at how much time a web-based vacation rental property management solution can save you.

Call me at 877-593-2083 x3 or email sales@innfirst.com, I’ll be glad to answer any questions you might have or give you a hand in setting up your properties if you decide to try the free 30 day trial.

Initially,  Lodgix.com was built to be a low cost, web based hospitality management platform for vacation rental and B&Bs with up to 20 properties or 20 rooms.    However, over the course of the last six months I’ve been working with several property managers and CondoTel owners who have buildings with hundreds of  condos that they manage.  Like a hotel, each of these “condos” operates very similar to a hotel room, in the sense that when guests book they don’t know which condo they are renting,the actual condo is assigned to the guest after the reservation is made, many times not until the guest actually checks in at the property management office.

The property manager or CondoTel owner is most concerned with maximizing occupancy.  To maximize occupancy there are several requirements:

1)  Robust and flexible booking logic which assign guests to rooms / condos.  At the property manager’s request, the booking logic must be able to shuffle reservations to assure maximum occupancy.    Likewise, some repeat guests will probably request specific rooms or units, so those reservations need to have the flexibility to be “fixed” and left out of the shuffle.

Likewise, the application must be smart enough to look at a block of rooms / units and then assign a new reservation to the best unit which results in maximum occupancy.

2) Booking calendar which shows all available dates and units.  Most online booking systems ask the guest to enter an arrival date and then the system returns which units are available (if any) for that date.   This has always frustrated me, because in most instances I have found the room or property that I want and I am flexible on my arrival date.  I simply want to know when it’s available and at what price.

Using traditional multi-unit / multi-room calendars this is not possible.  I have to literally go through day by day to see if the property or room I want is available.  Lodgix solves all that, by providing a booking calendar that displays all the rooms / units on the left and the calendar on the right.

Take a look:
Utilizing our booking calendar, a property owner or manager won’t lose those guests who are flexible in their dates.  In fact,  initial results are showing property owners are increasing their booking y 15-25% just by adding an online booking component to their website.  I’ll be writing more on these results in a later post.

In summary, if you are a CondoTel  property owner or manager, or a property manager managing up to 100 properties in multiple locations,  please try out Lodgix.com for the free 30 day trial period.  We’ll gladly walk you through the property setup and setup several of your properties for you to get you started.

In the last few days we quietly launched our employee payroll and alerting module.  At the moment, this module is included in the $19.99 monthly price.  This module contains several great features:

• Configurable Access Rights & Groups for Employees
• Automated Check in / Check out Alerts
• Automated Emails of Availability Calendars
• Customized Alerting Intervals
• Cancellation Notices Via Email
• Last Minute Reservation Notices Via Email
• Payroll Calendars
• Payroll Data Entry
• Payroll Submission
• Employee Communication Logging

I created this module to reduce or eliminate the amount of communication errors that were occurring between my staff and myself.   Many times a guest would call and request towel service or a late check out and I would forget to communicate this to the staff.   Mailing availability calendars to everybody was also a pain, and many times I simply forgot about it.   Inevitably,  I ‘d get a call later that week  from a guest locked out of their unit and wondering why it hadn’t been cleaned.  I’d be furious with my staff, when in reality it was my own fault because I hadn’t emailed them the latest and greatest availability calendar.

Or perhaps a guest ordered towel service.  Previously, I would email my head of housekeeping and she would note it on her schedule.   Ultimately though I would forget to that as well, and then I would get a call from a guest wondering why there are no towels in the unit.

All of that is now in the past.  The new employee alerting module now automatically communicates with employees. The frequency of those communications and the communications themselves are all customizable in the application by the property owner.

The payroll feature is a simple feature that allows property owners to setup and define a payroll calendar.  Then when an employee logs into to the application, they can print out the payroll calendar as well as enter their time for each day in the current billing period.

The screenshot below shows the tabbed employee payroll interface with three tabs for Payroll Calendar, Payroll Data Entry and Payroll History.

This screenshot shows the PDF calendar that the application generates for the employee to print out.

The property owner can set up four columns,  when the payroll period begins, when it ends, the date hours must be submitted and the date the check is issued.

This is a nice feature if your property utilizes a thrid party payroll service.    I use a company called Flex Pay out of Winston Salem.   They charge a small fee each pay period, but all I have to do is submit the hours for my employees each pay period and in return, they handle all the taxes, cutting the checks (or ACH direct deposit), all reporting, all tax filings, etc.     Currently all employees must email their hours to me, and then I email them to the payroll service.  With the new employee payroll module, the employee can enter their hours each day, as well as a small description of the tasks they accompished, and then at the end of the payroll period, they “submit” the payroll for review.

The property owner then is alerted that all payroll submissions have been received (or vice versa, not received) and can login, review each employees hours / use of time, and then approve the payroll and it’s automatically send to the email address of your payroll processor contact for processing.  The best part of this, it can be done from anywhere in the world and all the alerts are automated.  Thus, the property owner is freed from having to remind each employee to submit their payroll, remind them to send a detailed itemization of the work accomplished, etc.  The sytem automates all of this, and stores it for review in the future!

Do you own a vacation rental? Maybe you own several? Are you looking for a cost effective way to manage your guests, manage your staff, take bookings online, show availability and increase your bookings? Look no further, because Lodgix.com may be exactly the all encompassing solution you seek.

Lodgix.com has taken 1000s of man hours and over 11 months to test and develop. It’s been developed by a marketing professional, who owns, manages and markets vacation rentals. The product is coded using the latest web technologies and has been developed to be both cost effective and easy to use.

So many vacation rental software companies today charge per unit or per reservation. These systems are designed to penalize your business for being successful. Our system charges a flat, low monthly fee, regardless of how many units or rooms you own. Charging per reservation is another great way that many software companies attempt to nickel and dime their customers. It’s a confusing system, that makes money for the software company at the expense of the property owner.

Our US $19.99 per month package is the most competitively priced, full featured package of any vacation rental software provider.

To see an example of a small, 6 unit resort that is using the Lodgix.com platform, please visit their online booking and availability page:

http://www.rosewoodpointe.com/availability.htm

This page is an examples of how a property owner with multiple properties can easily embed a calendar directly into their website to show real time availability and take bookings directly from their website.

They also have the option of linking to the availability calendar on the Lodgix.com website:

http://www.innfirst.com/rosewoodpointe/

Next week, I’ll show more examples of how Rosewood Pointe can link their individual unit to their corresponding calendars, rather than displaying the multi-unit calendars.