Help Center

HostMoat is an operating system for an independent short-term rental. It combines calendar sync, direct bookings, guest messaging, contracts, invoices, property operations, pricing, reporting, and staff coordination around one active property at a time.

Most work starts from the left sidebar. Main holds Dashboard, Direct Booking, Calendar, Bookings, Cancellations, Guests, Inbox, and Watchtower AI. Property holds Property Profile, Staff & Cleanings, Maintenance & Work Orders, Inventory, Compliance, and Smart Devices. Finance has Pricing, Accounting, Bank Sync, Invoices, Profit & Loss, Analytics & Reports, and Tax Center. The Guests group holds Contracts, Pre-Arrival Forms, Auto-Email, Reviews, Guidebook, and Guest Portal. Account holds Settings.

Sidebar shortcuts open the matching workspace directly, so common tasks stay easy to find without maintaining duplicate pages. Direct Booking expands to Overview, Website, Quotes, Offers, and Widgets. Bookings includes the full register and Cancellations. Inbox and Watchtower AI are visible in Main, Auto-Email is visible in Guests, and each opens the matching Communications section. Accounting includes Transactions, Bank Sync, Invoices, and Commissions, with Invoices also directly visible in Finance. Profit & Loss, Analytics & Reports, and Tax Center open the Financial, Performance, and Tax report groups. Settings includes General, Listings, and Alerts & Health. Old saved links to former standalone pages still open the matching workspace destination.

Every page is scoped to the active property shown near the bottom of the sidebar. If you manage more than one property, switch the active property before editing bookings, prices, emails, forms, guidebooks, or staff. A common mistake is changing settings while the wrong property is selected.

HostMoat also has public guest-facing links. A guest may use a direct booking site, a guest portal, a contract-signing page, an invoice payment page, a pre-arrival form, a review form, or a guidebook link. Staff may use a cleaner portal link. These public pages do not require a HostMoat login.

New customers see one paid product: Pro for $7.99/month or $79.90/year. The 14-day trial is the same complete product they can keep, with no card required. Existing Essential and portfolio subscriptions remain grandfathered at their recorded price, limits, and access until an intentional migration.

Plan changes never delete property data or end the signed-in session. If access pauses or a property is outside a legacy allowance, HostMoat preserves the records and saved configuration so they can resume later.

Every new account begins with a 14-day trial of the complete Pro product. No credit card is required. Billing starts only after the account owner deliberately chooses Pro in Settings.

Pro is $7.99/month or $79.90/year and supports up to two properties*. The annual option is ten months of the current monthly price, saving $15.98. The product does not change between monthly and annual billing.

* Need more than two properties? Contact HostMoat support to discuss your setup. Signed-in customers can use Help & Support; everyone else can use the public contact page.

If the trial ends without a subscription, paid features pause while property records, bookings, templates, and saved settings remain safe. Choose Pro from the trial-ended email, or open Settings and select Upgrade, to pick monthly or annual billing and restore the paid product.

Existing Essential, Pro 5, and Pro 10 subscribers are grandfathered. Their price, property limit, and runtime entitlements remain unchanged until HostMoat deliberately plans and communicates a migration. Those legacy rows remain in the internal plan catalog so the app never collapses an existing subscription to the wrong fallback.

Cancellation or downgrade does not delete records. Paid features become read-only or pause where necessary, extra properties stay visible in read-only mode, and saved configurations resume when the required plan is restored. Existing sent contracts and invoices remain usable, including guest signatures and payments; refunds, cancel/void actions, already-issued guest or cleaner links, bank disconnect, and smart-device credential cleanup also continue. New portals, standing pre-arrival requests, cleanings, staff routing, paid automation, publishing, invitations, upsells, campaign image uploads, device setup/polling, and access-code creation pause until the property is eligible again.

Guided setup is four steps with a visible counter, and every step after the first is skippable. Naming the property creates your dashboard immediately, and setup continues straight into importing your rental. Close the wizard at any point with Finish setup later and the dashboard's Launch Status card offers Continue setup exactly where you left off; the wizard never reopens on its own.

1. Name the property. This is the only field on the first screen. Address, description, timezone, photos, rates, and calendar links can all wait. If you leave before naming it, HostMoat sends one focused follow-up on day 2.

2. Import your rental. Paste your Airbnb calendar link and HostMoat imports your bookings, then offers your listing details and photos for review. Vrbo and Booking.com calendars sync bookings, and pasting your listing text covers the rest. A manual first reservation works too and intentionally omits guest email so setup cannot accidentally contact a guest. The import runs once, only when you ask, and nothing is saved until you confirm each suggestion.

3. Review essential guest messages. HostMoat seeds sensible templates for the property but pauses automatic delivery. Every choice starts off. Keep messages paused, or preview and select only the individual messages you want before enabling delivery.

4. Setup complete. The closing screen says exactly what is now running: connected calendars sync every 2 hours, and your selected guest messages send when their triggers match. It also checks readiness across property data, photos, availability, pricing, the private booking-site draft, messages, guest tools, and payments. The check reads current state; it does not publish, email, charge, or change a price.

Base pricing, currency, publishing the booking site, Stripe payments, and the guest-experience previews all moved out of the wizard: set your base rate in Pricing, change currency in Property Profile, publish from Direct Booking, and connect Stripe from Settings when you are ready to collect payments. HostMoat still prepares a private, disabled inquiry-mode booking-site draft with a reserved slug during setup; it is not guest-visible until you deliberately publish it, and onboarding never creates, rewrites, or deletes seasonal rules, weekend premiums, imported daily prices, comp-set data, or Revenue Autopilot settings.

On the Launch Status card, Live means operating now, Draft means prepared but private or paused, and Later means optional. Payments and location are explicitly optional. Historical booking imports, transaction imports, email forwarding, advanced pricing rules, contracts, guidebooks, reviews, staff, smart devices, and Revenue Autopilot all come afterward as improvements.

To import more later: use iCal or Email Import for ongoing platform reservations, Bookings or CSV for historical stays, Accounting -> Transactions -> Import for bank/card CSV files, Bank Sync for ongoing Plaid sync, and Guests -> Import Contacts for consent-aware guest or subscriber lists. Always review a small sample before a bulk import.

The sidebar is the source of truth for where you are. Click a sidebar item to open that page. The top bar shows the active page title and includes a New Booking button when your role can edit. Direct Booking Site appears directly below Dashboard in the Main section so your public revenue channel is easy to reach. Property Profile appears first in the Property section so reusable property facts have one obvious home.

If the account has multiple properties, use the property dropdown near the bottom of the sidebar before doing any work. Bookings, forms, templates, guidebooks, pricing rules, staff, and reports are property-specific. Switching the active property changes the data on most pages.

Roles control editing. Owners can manage property setup, billing-related settings, team members, and all property data. Managers can usually edit operational data but may not control account ownership or billing. Viewers can see property data but cannot save changes. When a viewer signs in, the app shows a view-only banner.

Staff and cleaners may not need a full login. The Staff page can generate portal links for cleaner schedules and invitation links for team access. Cleaner portal links are intentionally narrow: they show assigned cleanings, task lists, status updates, notes, and photos without exposing financial details.

Admin pages are only visible to platform admins. Regular hosts will not see the Admin section. If someone says they cannot find Admin Home, first confirm that their account is actually marked as an admin.

Property -> Property Profile is the central source for reusable property content. Use Details for the property name, description, address, location, type, coordinates, and timezone. Use Spaces & Amenities for bathroom and guest capacity, default minimum nights, amenities, and named rooms with bed, floor, and notes. Bedroom count is calculated from the rooms whose type is Bedroom instead of being typed separately.

Use Photos to upload, caption, reorder, choose a hero image, and optionally assign an image to a room. Room and photo order, hero selection, and metadata save as complete changes, so an interrupted request cannot leave only part of a reorder applied. Upload and delete interruptions are checked against the saved gallery before image storage is cleaned up, so HostMoat does not erase an image that is still attached to the property. If another tab changed the same list first, reload and try the move again. Removing a room only clears its photo assignment; it does not delete the image. Use Guest Information & Rules for contacts, Wi-Fi and access details, parking, standard check-in and checkout times and instructions, and house rules.

On a small screen, use the arrow controls or swipe the section row; the selected section scrolls into view automatically. A keyboard user can move between sections with Left/Right/Home/End. In Photos, activate the upload area to browse or drop images while it is idle. Multi-photo batches keep their selected order and finish before another batch starts. Use the photo handle, its arrow keys, or Move Up/Move Down to reorder. Wi-Fi passwords and access codes are masked until you choose Show.

The default minimum is enforced by the shared pricing resolver and server-side direct-booking checkout whenever no date-specific pricing/import minimum applies. A seasonal rule can deliberately raise or lower that default for its dates. If a stay touches several explicit minimums, the highest applicable explicit value wins.

Booking Site, Guidebook, Guest Portal, new checkout consent, emails, directory listings, and Watchtower consume the relevant facts from this profile. Edit the fact here when it is wrong. Then use each guest-facing tool only for channel choices such as publishing, visibility, layout, payment, domain, and preview. Existing signed contracts, accepted consent, and issued invoices remain immutable historical snapshots; changing the profile does not rewrite what a guest already accepted or paid.

All sections follow the active property selector. Managers can edit when their role allows it, viewers are read-only, and the shared demo cannot be changed.

If your property has an Airbnb calendar feed connected, HostMoat can look up the public listing behind it and suggest Property Profile details: bathrooms, bedrooms, check-in and check-out times, a suggested minimum-stay value, your map location, and a name suggestion. The import appears in guided setup right after you connect a qualifying calendar, and later as an Import listing details button in Property Profile under Details.

Every suggestion is shown next to your current value with a checkbox, and nothing is saved until you confirm. Values you have not filled in yet start selected, while values you already set start unselected so the import never silently replaces your own work. The check-in and check-out suggestions start selected only while both still have the untouched default times. The minimum-stay suggestion comes from observed booking patterns rather than your listing settings, so it always starts unselected. Bedrooms are only offered when the property has no bedroom spaces yet, and applying them creates the rooms in Spaces so the bedroom count stays consistent everywhere.

The import can also bring in photos from your listing when they are available. Photos appear as a selectable grid, you confirm you own them or have the right to use them, and HostMoat copies your selection into the property gallery. Your plan's photo limit applies, imported photos never replace an existing hero image, and some listings expose only a cover photo.

If you prefer, or if your listing is on VRBO or Booking.com, paste your listing text instead: copy the description and amenity list from any platform into the paste box and HostMoat suggests a description, amenity selections, and a maximum guest count. This uses the built-in AI included with Pro and the trial, suggestions add to your existing amenities rather than replacing them, and the same review-before-save rules apply. House rules belong in Guest Information & Rules rather than the paste box.

The import is a one-time action, not a sync. HostMoat never updates these details in the background afterward, and you can run the import again at any time to review fresh suggestions. Your street address is not part of the import; enter it by hand in Property Profile. Lookups are limited to about once a month per property.

Settings controls account connections and administrative choices. Reusable guest-facing property facts are edited in Property -> Property Profile; Settings links there instead of keeping a second copy.

Pricing-adjacent and finance fields include base fixed costs, mortgage assumptions, insurance, utilities, taxes, HOA, purchase price, land value, improvements, and depreciation-related details. These feed Profitability and Tax Center calculations.

iCal Feeds are managed here. Add platform import URLs, remove broken feeds, and copy the HostMoat export URL back to external platforms. After changing feeds, use Calendar -> Sync iCal to verify results. Pro includes unlimited two-way feeds. Existing legacy accounts retain their recorded feed allowance; if a legacy downgrade leaves multiple feeds saved, additional rows show Configured · Paused until the account returns to Pro or the running feed is replaced.

Stripe and payment settings live here when payments are enabled. Before creating a new connected account, choose the country where your legal entity and payout bank are based; this can differ from the rental property's location and cannot be changed after Stripe creates the account. HostMoat shows countries Stripe currently reports as compatible with the property's payment currency, cards, and local payouts. Click "Connect with Stripe" to complete Stripe's hosted onboarding with no API keys to paste. The status card separately shows whether card charges and payouts are enabled, and you can finish setup or disconnect at any time. Guest payments go straight to the connected Stripe account and pay out to the bank collected by Stripe. US accounts may also offer guests US ACH; non-US accounts currently offer card payments while still receiving local bank payouts.

Email Import settings provide the per-property forwarding address for platform confirmation emails. Enable it, copy the address, then create filters in Gmail or your mail provider.

Team settings and invitations control who can access the property. Add members carefully, choose role before sending the invite, and remove members who no longer need access.

Other settings may include turnover spacing, default staff assignment, digest preferences, guest tag thresholds, export links, widget configuration, and property-specific operational options. When troubleshooting, confirm the active property first so you do not edit the wrong property's settings.

Start every day on the Dashboard. Check the Today strip for check-ins, check-outs, in-house guests, cleanings, unread inbox messages, and pending AI drafts. Then review Action Items for new inquiries, open alerts, unsigned contracts, unpaid invoices, pending forms, and revenue gaps.

Open Calendar next. Confirm today's arrivals and departures, same-day turnovers, and any manual blocks. If platforms were recently updated, click Sync iCal to pull changes immediately instead of waiting for the scheduled sync.

Open Inbox. Reply to new guest messages and booking inquiries. If Watchtower AI is enabled, use Draft with AI only as a starting point. Review every draft before sending. Do not send AI text that references a rule, fee, address, or access detail unless it matches the property guidebook and booking record.

Open Staff if there are cleanings or maintenance work. Verify assignments, task templates, status, notes, and any cleaner portal activity. For same-day turnovers, make sure the cleaner has a complete task list and any special notes from the booking.

Open Invoices and Contracts when Dashboard shows unpaid invoices or unsigned contracts. Send reminders, void incorrect invoices, mark offline payments, or resend contract links as needed.

Use the end of the day for data cleanup: add expenses, log maintenance, update inventory, dismiss resolved alerts, and write notes on unusual bookings. Clean records make the reports, tax center, and profitability pages accurate.

At month end, use this order.

1. Accounting -> Transactions: confirm every booking with revenue has a linked income transaction. Use Sync Bookings if needed. Add missing expenses, recurring costs, vendor payments, refunds, and owner-paid items.

2. Invoices: review sent, viewed, overdue, paid, and voided invoices. Mark offline payments if the guest paid outside Stripe. Void invoices that should not remain collectible.

3. Profit & Loss: review profit, mortgage, fixed costs, owner cash flow, and owner sharing. Update mortgage and fixed-cost settings if numbers look wrong.

4. Accounting -> Commissions: mark paid commissions for agents or partners. Use Mark all paid when settling an entire partner payout.

5. Staff: review cleaning payments, performance bonuses, staff ratings, and completed cleanings. Add any missing cleaner payments before reporting net profit.

6. Cancellations and Analytics & Reports -> Revenue Gaps: explain revenue misses. Mark cancellations rescheduled when appropriate and use gap data to adjust minimum stays or promotions.

7. Analytics & Reports -> Year over Year and Tax Center: export CSVs when you need accountant-friendly data. The tax report is a starting point, not a substitute for professional tax review.

HostMoat works as an installable app. On iPhone or iPad (iOS 16.4 or later), open hostmoat.com in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, open the Chrome menu and choose Install app. Android and desktop Chrome can also enable notifications without installing.

To sign in inside the installed app, request a sign-in email as usual, then type the one-time code from that email into the code field on the check-your-email screen instead of tapping the link. The code and the link both expire after one hour.

Turn on notifications from Settings under Notifications: tap Enable notifications on this device and accept the browser permission prompt. HostMoat sends a push notification when it records a new inquiry, guest message, booking request, or a booking update from email import. Delivery to your device is handled by your platform's push service. Reservations and urgent calendar conflicts discovered through iCal polling arrive on the regular sync cadence, so those alerts follow the sync rather than the platform booking instant.

Each device is managed separately (up to 10 per account). The Notifications card lists every enabled device with a Remove button and a Send test notification button. Signing out removes your notification devices automatically. Notification banners never include guest names or contact details; tap through to see the full alert inside HostMoat.

The Dashboard is the operating snapshot for the active property. If no property exists, it shows the setup wizard or a prompt to add the first property.

The Today strip appears only when there is activity. It can show check-ins today, check-outs today, guests currently in-house, cleanings today, unread inbox items, and pending Watchtower AI drafts. Click a Today card to jump to the relevant page.

The four main stat cards show YTD revenue, current-month occupancy, ADR and RevPAR, and total nights YTD. YTD revenue is based on active bookings whose check-in dates fall between January 1 and today. Occupancy and ADR are prorated for stays that cross month boundaries. HostMoat loads these cards, action counts, upcoming stays, and Launch Status as one coordinated snapshot for the active property. If that snapshot cannot load, use Try Again; switching properties loads a separate snapshot and never reuses the prior property's totals.

Booking Source Mix shows the share of YTD bookings from Airbnb, VRBO, Direct, and Other. Use this to understand platform concentration. If nearly all bookings come from one platform, direct booking and email blast tools are worth prioritizing.

This Month's Ledger rolls up recorded income, recorded expenses, and ledger net from Accounting -> Transactions. If it looks wrong, fix the source records there rather than trying to change the dashboard.

Action Items is the most important section for daily work. It links to new inquiries, open alerts, contracts awaiting signature, unpaid invoices, pending pre-arrival forms, and revenue gaps. Quick Actions jumps to common pages like Add Manual Block, Tax Report, Revenue Gaps, Guest CRM, Widgets, and Cancellations.

Upcoming Stays lists the next five active stays. Click a row to open the booking on the calendar.

The Calendar shows the active property's bookings month by month. Platform bookings, direct bookings, manual bookings, holds, and blocked dates appear together so you can see true availability.

Use Today to return to the current month. Use the left and right arrows to move between months. Same-day turnovers are highlighted so you can see when one guest checks out and another checks in on the same date.

Click + Add Booking to create a booking, hold, or blocked date. You can also double-click an empty day when you have edit access. Enter guest name, check-in date, checkout date, revenue, source, guest details, notes, and any related fields. Financial amounts cannot be negative, and N/C days cannot exceed the stay length. N/C days are assigned from check-in forward and count as personal rather than fair-rental use in tax reporting. For owner blocks or unavailable dates, use a hold/block source and clear guest-facing details.

Click an existing booking to open its booking modal. From there you can edit dates, guest details, source, guest count, revenue, notes, linked forms, invoices, contracts, and portal information depending on the available data.

Turnover Days Between Bookings is an operational setting under Account -> Settings. At 0, a new stay may begin on the prior checkout date. At 1, the checkout boundary cannot be reused for arrival and one full day after checkout is reserved, so a Jun 8 checkout makes Jun 10 the earliest next check-in. Manual and direct booking saves are rejected when they violate this spacing. Imported iCal and confirmation-email reservations keep their original dates; if a platform accepted tighter spacing, HostMoat preserves it and shows the operational conflict.

If iCal feeds are connected, Sync iCal pulls updates immediately. Scheduled sync also runs automatically. Use manual sync after adding a new platform booking, changing a platform reservation, or troubleshooting missing dates.

Pro includes unlimited feeds plus HostMoat's export calendar for two-way sync: import each platform calendar into HostMoat, then paste HostMoat's export URL back into each platform. Existing legacy accounts retain their recorded feed allowance. Also keep platform-to-platform sync enabled when possible. Calendar sync is not instant on external platforms, so leave buffer time before accepting overlapping last-minute reservations manually.

Open Settings and find the iCal Feeds area. Add each platform's iCal URL as a separate feed. Name the feed clearly, for example Airbnb - Main Listing or VRBO - Lake House. Clear names make sync errors easier to diagnose later.

After saving a feed, use Calendar -> Sync iCal to test it. A successful sync should create or update bookings on the Calendar and Bookings -> All Bookings. If a feed fails, check that the platform URL is a public HTTP or HTTPS iCal URL, not a normal listing or dashboard URL. Local/private network addresses, credentials embedded in URLs, redirects to private destinations, and feeds larger than 5 MB are rejected for security. Use the calendar export link supplied by the platform rather than copying a URL from the browser address bar.

Pro provides an export URL. Copy that URL into Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, or other platforms that accept external calendars. This lets direct bookings, manual bookings, and blocks from HostMoat appear on those calendars. Existing legacy subscribers retain their recorded export access.

Imported iCal data is limited by what platforms provide. Some feeds include only dates and a summary. For richer details like payout, fees, confirmation code, and guest name, enable Email Import and forward confirmation emails when supported.

When Airbnb, VRBO, or another platform mirrors unavailable dates from a second calendar, HostMoat may keep an unnamed or provider-labeled blocked row so the dates remain protected. These availability-only rows do not create guest profiles or send new-booking notifications. Connecting a feed can also import completed stays for reporting; those historical rows do not send new-booking notifications either. HostMoat does not merge two named cross-platform reservations based only on matching dates because an overlap could be a real double-booking, so it produces a calendar-conflict alert for you to review.

If a platform booking disappears from a feed, HostMoat may treat that as a cancellation depending on sync behavior. Review Cancellations if a booking no longer appears where expected.

HostMoat never stores two overlapping stays on the same property, because a calendar that shows both is a calendar you cannot trust. If a feed offers dates that are already occupied, those dates are not imported and you get an urgent alert instead.

The alert names both sides: which platform sent the new dates, who the stay is for, and which existing booking or block it collides with. Open Alerts to see it, or Calendar to see the dates in context.

Conflicts almost always mean two platforms sold the same nights, or one platform still shows dates you have blocked elsewhere. HostMoat cannot pick a winner for you, because only you know which reservation is real and which one has to be moved or refunded.

To resolve one: 1. Open the alert and note both date ranges and both platforms. 2. Check each platform directly to see which stay is a real, paid reservation. 3. Cancel, move, or unblock the losing side on the platform that owns it. 4. Wait for the next sync, or use Calendar -> Sync iCal to run it now.

Once the clash is gone the dates import normally and the alert closes itself. You do not need to dismiss it by hand.

To reduce conflicts, copy the HostMoat export URL into every platform you list on, so each one can see the others' bookings.

Bookings -> All Bookings is the table version of the calendar. Use it when you need to search, filter, sort, export, or review many bookings at once.

Each row includes guest name, check-in and checkout dates, nights, revenue, nightly rate, source platform, confirmation code, guest count, and pre-arrival form status. The form status column shows whether a form is unsent, sent, viewed, in progress, or completed.

Use search to find a guest. Use source and status filters to narrow the register to Airbnb, VRBO, Direct, cancelled, tentative, confirmed, or other categories. Click column headers when sorting is available.

Click a booking row to open the booking detail modal. This is usually the fastest way to edit guest details, update revenue, inspect linked invoices and contracts, check pre-arrival response status, or find the guest portal link.

Use Export CSV for accounting, owner reporting, data backup, or spreadsheet analysis. Export before making major cleanup changes if you need a snapshot of the old state.

Guest CRM collects guest records from bookings, direct inquiries, pre-arrival forms, review forms, and manual records. It helps you see who has stayed before, how much revenue they generated, and whether they are a candidate for repeat direct bookings.

Open a guest to review contact information, stay history, revenue, tags, notes, and linked bookings. When a booking has missing guest details, enrich the booking first from the booking modal or pre-arrival response so CRM data stays consistent.

Revenue is combined only when every completed stay in that guest profile uses one currency. If a merged or legacy profile contains stays in multiple currencies, Guest CRM keeps the stay history and counts but shows its total and average as unavailable instead of converting or adding unlike amounts. High Value, Champion, and custom revenue filters apply only when the guest's revenue currency matches the active property's currency. CSV exports include separate revenue currency and status columns.

Use Guest CRM before sending Email Blasts. A clean CRM improves segmentation. Duplicate guests, missing emails, and stale records reduce campaign quality.

To invite one past guest to book directly again, expand the guest and choose Invite back. The action is available only with edit access and a deliverable, eligible email address. HostMoat opens Email Blasts with that guest as the single recipient and adds the active property's booking-site button; it does not send anything automatically. Review the copy and optionally choose one offer that you already configured under Direct Booking -> Offers. Respect an unsubscribe. If the email is missing or the booking site is not ready, correct that underlying setup instead of copying the address into a manual workaround.

If two records represent the same person, standardize the guest name and email on their bookings. Future imports match better when confirmation codes, guest email, and guest name are consistent.

Use Add Booking from Guest CRM when a repeat guest contacts you directly. This keeps the stay attached to the guest record and helps direct-booking revenue show correctly.

Email Import gives each property a unique forwarding address. When supported platform emails are forwarded to that address, HostMoat parses booking details and merges them into the matching booking.

Email Import is included in Pro. Enable it in Settings, then copy the per-property forwarding address. In Gmail or your email provider, create filters that forward reservation confirmations, reservation updates, and cancellation emails from the platform to HostMoat. For Airbnb, use separate filters for Reservation confirmed, Reservation updated, and Canceled because Gmail subject filters are limited. Existing legacy subscribers retain their recorded email-import access.

Email Import can extract data that iCal often lacks: guest name, revenue or payout, nightly rate, host service fee, cleaning fee, guest count, confirmation code, and reservation URL. Guest email and phone depend on what the platform includes.

Matching is usually by confirmation code first, then guest name plus overlapping dates, then date overlap. If no matching booking exists, the import can create one. For update emails, new financial data may overwrite older values.

Cancellation emails can mark matching bookings cancelled and update cancellation payout when the platform includes it. Review the Cancellations page after forwarding cancellation emails so the reason, refund, and rescheduled status are correct.

Cancellations tracks bookings that were cancelled manually, detected by sync, or logged directly. Use it to understand lost revenue, refunds, and whether the dates were rebooked. Cancelling a booking releases dates and runs cancellation notices, but does not by itself promise or send money back.

Click + Log Cancellation when you need to record a cancellation that did not come from a synced booking. Enter cancelled date, original booking dates, guest, platform, reason, estimated revenue loss, refund paid, rescheduled status, and notes.

Mark Rescheduled when the guest moved to new dates instead of fully cancelling. This keeps reports from overstating lost demand.

For a cancelled direct booking paid through HostMoat Stripe, click Refund on its row. HostMoat checks Stripe for each payment's live refundable balance, then lets an owner or manager issue a full or partial refund. Confirm the amount carefully: Stripe refunds cannot be undone. A pending request remains visible and can be resumed safely without creating a duplicate. Recorded offline receipts appear in the same refund flow, but you must first return the money in the original bank, check, cash, Zelle, Venmo, or other service; HostMoat records that return and does not move the money.

Successful Stripe refunds and recorded offline refunds update the invoice's refunded and net-collected totals, the booking's net collected amount, Accounting -> Transactions, Dashboard, Profit & Loss, and Tax Center. They appear as locked negative rental-income entries, not operating expenses. HostMoat emails the guest after a Stripe refund; offline-return communication remains the host's responsibility because the outside payment service is not connected. Refund history distinguishes the two. Use Retry email on a succeeded Stripe refund if delivery is pending; this resends only the confirmation and cannot move money again. Pending or failed Stripe refunds do not change the financial totals.

Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com payments that were never recorded against a HostMoat invoice must be refunded in the original platform and entered only in the manual cancellation log. A pay-the-host receipt recorded against a HostMoat invoice can use the offline refund action after you return the money outside HostMoat. Never record the same return in both places.

Export CSV for bookkeepers, owner updates, and year-end review. Pair this report with Gap Detector to see whether cancelled dates were later filled.

Gap Detector finds open nights between confirmed bookings. These are often one-to-five-night holes that are too short for your normal minimum stay but still valuable if sold directly or discounted.

Open Analytics & Reports -> Revenue Gaps or use the Dashboard Action Items. Review each gap's dates, length, surrounding bookings, and estimated opportunity.

For one-night or two-night gaps, consider lowering minimum stay rules, creating a last-minute direct offer, or messaging previous guests. For longer gaps, update pricing rules or promote the dates in Email Blasts.

A gap is not always bad. Some gaps are needed for maintenance, owner use, deep cleaning, or staging. Add a manual block if you intentionally do not want the dates sold.

Review gaps weekly during high season and monthly during slower periods. It is easier to fill gaps 14 to 45 days out than one day before arrival.

Inbox is the central place for guest conversations and booking inquiries. It can include messages from public widgets, guest portals, direct booking pages, and imported inquiry sources depending on setup.

Use filters to separate new inquiries, active conversations, pending drafts, and archived or handled messages. Open a conversation to see the message history, guest details, related booking, and reply composer.

Reply directly from the conversation. Keep replies concise and factual. If a message concerns dates, money, access, house rules, or refunds, verify the booking record before sending.

When Watchtower AI is enabled, Draft with AI appears on eligible conversations. The AI uses the property guidebook, booking site content, property basics, and owner notes. It does not send automatically. Review, edit, then send. If a new guest message arrives while a draft is generating or being reviewed, the older draft is discarded rather than being attached to the wrong turn.

Use internal cleanup habits: archive handled inquiries, assign or link bookings where possible, and keep guest email addresses current. Inbox quality affects CRM, email blasts, and follow-up workflows.

Pro includes manual message templates, merge fields, automatic template delivery, booking confirmations, and inquiry auto-response. Common automated templates include booking confirmation, pre-arrival, check-in day, checkout reminder, and review request.

Open Auto-Email from the Guests group in the sidebar and review every template before enabling automation. Confirm the tone, check-in instructions, parking, Wi-Fi, house rules, fees, and links. A template is only as accurate as the property fields and merge fields it uses. If a trial or paid plan ends, HostMoat keeps the configuration but pauses delivery until Pro access resumes. Existing legacy subscribers retain their recorded automation access.

Merge fields pull live data into the email. Examples include guest name, check-in date, checkout date, property name, property address, Wi-Fi, door code, guidebook link, portal link, pre-arrival form link, invoice link, and review form link. Do not remove merge field braces unless you intend to turn a dynamic value into plain text.

Use timing carefully. Pre-arrival details are usually best a few days before check-in. Checkout reminders are best the evening before checkout or morning of departure. Review requests usually work one or two days after checkout.

When a booking has missing guest email, automated emails cannot reach the guest. Use Bookings -> All Bookings, Guest CRM, or pre-arrival responses to fill missing contact details.

The Widgets page lets you add HostMoat guest tools to an existing website. The Calendar tab provides live availability with optional nightly prices and an inquiry form. The Booking Checkout tab provides either Request to Book or Instant Book: date selection, calculated pricing, guest details, Stripe card checkout, and rental-agreement signing when configured.

Open Direct Booking -> Widgets and choose Calendar or Booking Checkout. Configure the calendar options or complete the checkout readiness steps, then copy the generated widget code into an HTML block on Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, or another site that accepts custom HTML.

The Calendar widget can show 3, 6, 9, or 12 months on the Free plan. Pro accounts can also choose 13, 14, 18, or 24 months. On phones, the hosted Booking Site and Booking Checkout calendar shows one month at a time with Previous and Next controls. The controls automatically use the number of months saved for the property, so long ranges stay compact and every month remains reachable.

Both widgets use HostMoat calendar data, including synced platform bookings, manual bookings, direct bookings, blocks, and the property's Turnover Days Between Bookings setting. Turnover-protected checkout boundaries and full buffer days cannot be selected for a conflicting stay, and typed inquiry dates receive the same check before submission. If availability looks wrong, fix the Calendar, turnover setting, or iCal feeds first.

Nightly prices come from Pricing: normal price, special-date prices, weekend adjustment, cleaning fee, and minimum-stay logic. Update those settings before relying on widget pricing.

When the calendar inquiry form is enabled, submissions land in HostMoat and can be handled from Inbox. Booking Checkout requires Pro and an enabled Booking Site in Request to Book or Instant Book mode. Online checkout requires a connected Stripe account, while a host may instead opt into pay-the-host methods in Booking Site Setup. Online Request to Book is card-only. After a verified online payment, approved card capture, or fully recorded offline receipt, a guest whose site uses the automatic contract is taken to the signing flow; the booking is confirmed only after signing. Its URL uses the property's permanent ID, so changing the Booking Site slug or custom domain does not require replacing the code on your website.

The Booking Checkout snippet includes a small script that grows the frame to fit the checkout as the guest moves through it. It also starts with a safe fallback height for website builders that block scripts in certain placements, including some popups and modals. Hosted calendar improvements and saved month-range changes flow through the permanent iframe URL automatically; you do not need to edit or replace the widget code.

Booking Site creates a public booking page for the active property. It keeps channel-specific controls for setup, layout and section visibility, payments, domain, publishing, and preview. Reusable listing facts and images are shown as synced content with links back to Property Profile.

Setup controls whether the site is enabled, the public slug, booking mode, payment settings, contract automation, custom domain, and domain verification. The three booking modes behave differently:

• Inquiry Only collects guest details and a message. It does not collect a card, charge the guest, or hold the dates; you follow up manually.
• Request to Book places a temporary card authorization and holds the dates while you decide. You have up to 24 hours, shortened when check-in or Stripe's authorization deadline comes first. Approval captures the authorized amount and starts the normal contract flow. Decline or expiry releases the authorization and dates; the guest's bank may take a few days to remove the pending amount.
• Instant Book charges the amount due and reserves the dates immediately, without a host approval step. When an automatic agreement is enabled, HostMoat then sends the frozen agreement and keeps the reservation tentative until the guest signs. Scheduled balance invoices remain payable but do not replace the outstanding signature.

Pay the Host is a separate optional payment rail for Request to Book or Instant Book. Turn it on only if you want to accept selected methods such as bank transfer, check, cash, Zelle, or Venmo. Set the deadline and instructions in Setup. A guest who chooses it receives a tentative date hold and invoice instead of a Stripe charge. Record the actual receipt from Invoices; full payment continues the same agreement and confirmation flow, while decline or expiry releases the dates. HostMoat records and reports the payment but does not initiate, verify, or reverse the transfer in the outside service.

Quotes lets you send a private, expiring stay offer from Direct Booking, Dashboard, Calendar, Inbox, Guest CRM, or an unsaved booking form. An inquiry is not required. The same composer is used everywhere and can prefill the guest and dates when the launching screen already knows them. A successful send creates or reuses the guest's normal Inbox conversation, so replies stay with the rest of the guest history.

Expand Direct Booking in the left sidebar and open Quotes. Choose Compose a quote to enter the guest and stay dates; HostMoat calculates and shows the live price before you send. You may use that amount, select one existing percentage offer, or set a different all-in custom total. A custom total includes the configured cleaning fee and cannot be combined with an offer. The rest of the page holds property defaults and sent history. Defaults include how long the quote remains valid, whether and how long dates are reserved, whether a rental agreement is inherited, omitted, or taken from a specific active template, full payment or deposit timing, card/ACH choices, an optional existing percentage offer, email copy, and whether individual sends can override those choices. ACH is available only for USD properties. Pausing a Booking Site or losing Pro access blocks new/public quote use but keeps the history.

Sending a quote does not create an invoice, agreement, charge, or guest portal. It freezes the calculated or custom price, currency, selected offer, agreement, and payment terms, then emails a secure private link. For a custom total, HostMoat retains the original calculated total and adjustment in the private audit snapshot, assigns the resulting net amount to rent without changing the cleaning fee, and shows the guest only the final quote. Recent quotes keep a View quote action after the guest opens the link and through acceptance, so you can reopen the same guest-facing page from Direct Booking -> Quotes. This authenticated host preview does not change the quote to Viewed; that status remains tied to the guest's link. When the guest accepts, HostMoat uses the existing direct-booking checkout to create the normal booking, invoice or deposit/balance invoices, rental agreement, Stripe payment, and later guest portal from that frozen total. A quote sent by the host is already an offer, so it does not ask for a second Request-to-Book approval. If an agreement is required, the booking still waits for the guest's signature before confirmation.

A no-hold quote rechecks availability when the guest accepts. If you enable a temporary hold, HostMoat reserves the dates only until the earlier hold deadline or quote expiry and releases them automatically on expiry or withdrawal. The email and quote page say either "Dates are not held" or give the exact date and time through which they are held. The fixed quote shows only the frozen guest price, not internal pricing-source labels or the Booking Site's general starting rate. Retrying a failed send uses the same quote and delivery identity so it does not create duplicate holds or messages.

Online Request to Book is unavailable when card payments are disabled because ACH cannot use this authorization-and-later-capture flow. A host-enabled offline method uses its own pay-the-host hold instead of a card authorization. Choose either checkout mode only when calendar sync, pricing, house rules, payment settings, and contract settings are ready.

Every property starts with an active default rental-agreement template, and automatic contracts are on by default for its Booking Site. Review and customize that template before enabling Request to Book or Instant Book. A Request to Book contract is frozen as a draft with the request's exact pricing, but it is not activated or sent unless the host approves and the card capture succeeds. If you set a different property template as the default, the Booking Site follows it. You can explicitly turn automatic contracts off when an agreement is not required.

For payments, decide whether guests pay the full amount or a deposit at checkout. When using a deposit, set Balance Due Before Arrival to the number of days before check-in when the rest becomes due. Instant Book evaluates that boundary at checkout. Request to Book evaluates it at the latest possible approval date; when the balance would already be due by then, it authorizes the full reservation total instead of creating an immediately overdue balance. Set 0 to keep the balance due at check-in. The scheduled-invoice timing under Invoices -> Reminders controls how many days before the due date that balance invoice is emailed.

If the Booking Site uses a custom contract, insert {{payment_terms}} where the agreement should describe payment timing. HostMoat replaces it with the actual checkout result: either the deposit collected, remaining balance, and exact due date, or full payment collected with no remaining balance. Hard-coded custom sentences do not adapt to the booking date. Already-sent and signed contracts remain frozen.

Stripe must be connected for online payments. US connected accounts may offer cards and US ACH; non-US connected accounts currently offer cards, with the local bank used for host payouts rather than guest checkout. Pay-the-host checkout does not require Stripe, but the host is responsible for confirming the money in the outside service before recording it. With automatic contracts on, HostMoat waits for the verified online payment or fully recorded offline amount, emails the agreement, and opens the signing flow for the guest. The agreement's Payment Terms field states either that full payment was collected with no remaining balance, or that a deposit was collected with the remaining amount and exact due date. The booking remains tentative until the guest signs, then the normal booking confirmation is sent. Checkout owns the deposit and balance invoices, so the contract does not create duplicate invoices when signed. The balance is paid from the emailed invoice; this setting does not automatically recharge the original deposit card.

Offers lets you create a property-specific percentage code for Request to Book and Instant Book. Enter a code, percent off, and optional valid-through date or maximum uses. The percentage reduces the rental subtotal only; it does not reduce the cleaning fee, and standard Stripe payment-processing fees may still apply. HostMoat calculates any deposit and later balance from the discounted reservation total. You can copy a ready-to-share booking link or give the guest the code to enter manually.

Choose the code and percentage carefully because those two fields are frozen after creation. You can extend or shorten the valid-through date, change the maximum uses, or pause the offer. Pausing keeps earlier booking records understandable. A live tentative checkout counts as a use while it holds the dates; if that attempt is canceled, the capacity becomes available again. Checkout always verifies the code against current dates, status, expiration, and remaining uses, so a copied or scheduled link does not guarantee that an offer will still apply later.

For a personal return-guest invitation, open the guest in Guest CRM and choose Invite back. HostMoat rechecks that the guest is an eligible Email Blasts recipient for the current property, then opens the normal composer with one recipient and a direct-booking button. Review and edit the email before sending or scheduling it. You can attach one currently available offer or leave No discount selected; an offer is never created or added automatically. Email Blasts sending limits, unsubscribe handling, and suppression rules still apply.

Instant Book can also show guests an unchecked option to request one reminder if they begin payment but do not finish. The reminder is sent only after the old tentative booking and payment attempt have been safely canceled and its date hold is released. Its link restores the guest details and requested dates into a new checkout, where availability, price, house rules, offer eligibility, and payment are checked again. It does not preserve the old rate or hold, and it does not continue or recharge the old PaymentIntent. Request to Book does not use this reminder because its authorization and host-decision lifecycle has separate follow-up and expiry handling.

Content controls the hero tagline, section visibility, custom sections, section order, and search appearance. Design offers six curated themes (including a dark Lodge theme), a heading font pairing, a site accent, a PNG/JPEG/WebP logo up to 2 MB, hero overlay/alignment/focal point, and up to five featured amenities chosen from Property Profile. Button and chat text automatically adapt for readable contrast. Description, amenities, guest capacity, rooms, bathrooms, coordinates, and house rules still come from Property Profile, so the Booking Site does not create conflicting copies or a separate hero image.

Themes and fonts: pick a theme (Classic, Coastal, Warm, Lodge, Editorial, or Sunset) for the site's color palette, card radius, and hero treatment. Lodge is a dark theme for cabins and lodges; the rest are light. Pair it with one of four heading font pairings (Modern Geist, Classic Serif, Friendly Rounded, or Design Grotesk); body text stays on the readable default in every pairing. Both choices apply everywhere the site renders, including link previews and search results, so there is no separate "public" appearance to keep in sync.

Custom sections: write up to six sections of your own copy, such as "Things to do nearby," "Our story," "FAQ," or "Getting here," each with a title (80 characters) and plain-text body (4,000 characters; blank lines start new paragraphs). There is no raw HTML or CSS, which keeps every custom section fast and safe on a page that also takes payments.

Section order: arrange the main content column, including any custom sections, with up/down controls; there is no drag-and-drop. Hero, highlights, and the booking form stay fixed in place. A hidden section keeps its position in the order but does not display until you turn it back on.

Search appearance: set a search title (70 characters) and search description (160 characters) to control how the site can appear in search results and link previews; leave either blank to fall back to the property name and tagline. HostMoat also publishes structured data describing the rental, a canonical address when a custom domain is connected, and a per-site sitemap and robots file. These are the technical inputs search engines look for, not a ranking promise: search engines decide what to display and how to rank it. Because the public page is cached for freshness, changes to theme, fonts, custom sections, section order, or search appearance can take a few minutes to reach live previews and link-preview crawlers.

Use Public Location Precision in Design to choose Exact Address, Approximate Area, or Hidden. Approximate is the privacy-safe default: guests see the short profile location and a neighborhood-level map rather than the street address and precise pin. Hidden removes both location copy and map. Exact should be selected only when you intentionally want the full address visible before booking.

When the House Rules section is visible and contains at least one rule, Request to Book and Instant Book ask the guest to open and accept that exact list before checkout. HostMoat verifies the acceptance again when it creates the booking and saves a dated copy on that booking. Later edits in Property Profile apply to future guests and do not rewrite what an earlier guest accepted. If you hide the House Rules section or leave its list empty, checkout does not show a meaningless agreement checkbox.

The Photos area shows the gallery synced from Property Profile and links to its Photos section for uploads, captions, room assignments, ordering, deletion, and hero selection. Use the best exterior or experience photo first. Avoid dark, blurry, duplicate, or misleading photos. Adjust its public crop in Design instead of uploading a second hero. Save Content or Design changes before opening Preview, which shows the live guest experience on desktop or mobile.

For a custom domain, enter the full guest-facing address, such as booking.yourproperty.com. In your registrar, create a CNAME with Host/Name booking and Points to/Target sites.hostmoat.com. Do not enter sites.hostmoat.com in HostMoat's Custom Domain field; it is only the DNS target. Save the HostMoat setup, then use Provision Domain and Check Status. DNS can take time. Do not advertise the custom domain until SSL and verification show as ready.

Featured Stays Directory is an optional, free listing in HostMoat's public "book direct" directory at hostmoat.com/stays. Turn it on from the Setup tab once the site is enabled. The directory card shows only content that is already public on your booking site (property name, location, tagline, and hero photo) and links travelers straight to your site. Up to three current directory entries also appear in the Featured Stays spotlight on the HostMoat homepage; those cards still send travelers directly to each host's own site. The listing also gives your site an extra inbound link, which helps search engines find it. Switch the toggle off at any time to be removed from both surfaces; disabling the booking site removes the listing automatically.

Currency estimates: booking sites automatically show guests an approximate price in their own currency (about 30 currencies, detected from their browser and changeable with a small selector) next to your real price, using daily exchange rates. The same estimates appear on the Booking Checkout widget, guest invoice pages, and the guest portal, always beside the real amount. Guests are always charged in your property's currency; the estimate is informational only, and invoice pages state the exact charge next to the estimate. It is on by default and can be turned off for all of these surfaces from the Content tab's Section Visibility toggles ("Currency Estimates").

Guidebook is a published guest channel for the property. It is also one of Watchtower AI's information sources, so complete, visible guidebook content improves owner-reviewed AI replies.

The Essentials area shows synced Contact Info, Wi-Fi & Access, Check-in/Checkout, Bedrooms, and House Rules. Use Edit in Property to change those shared facts in Property Profile. Extra Info remains editable in Guidebook for channel-specific topics like trash, pool rules, hot tub, transit, local restaurants, appliance quirks, and neighborhood tips.

Guidebook still owns its welcome copy, published state, public link and QR code, preview, section visibility, order, and custom topics. Hidden sections are not shown to guidebook visitors and should not be treated as published instructions. If synced sections or images cannot load, the public guidebook shows a retry error instead of presenting an apparently valid empty guide.

Custom topics support rich text, images, galleries, YouTube embeds, and Google Maps embeds. Drag and drop images where supported, paste images from the clipboard, or use the add-block menu. Use clear section names because guests scan quickly on mobile.

Toggle Published when the guide is ready. Copy the public guide link or download the QR code. Place the QR code in the property near the entry, kitchen, or welcome binder. Update shared credentials, times, contacts, rooms, and rules in Property Profile; update Guidebook when custom instructions, publication, order, or visibility changes.

Guest Portal gives each booking a private public link. Guests can see stay details, shared Property Profile facts, guidebook content, messages, and upsells depending on settings.

Open Guest Portal to configure the portal. The Settings tab controls whether the portal is enabled, whether upsells are enabled, whether the message channel is visible, which synced property and guidebook sections guests can see, and whether access requires contract signature or pre-arrival submission. Change the underlying address, rooms, contact details, credentials, times, or house rules in Property Profile; the portal settings only control release gates and display.

The Upsells tab lets you create add-ons such as early check-in, late checkout, grocery pre-stock, mid-stay cleaning, pet fees, crib rental, parking, or custom services. Set name, description, price, pricing type, category, availability, and active status. New properties also include an active Post-Stay Request item for quote-on-request services after checkout. Existing properties receive it switched off so no guest-facing catalog changes happen without the owner's review.

The Requests tab shows guest requests. Pending requests require action. Approve creates and emails an invoice when pricing requires payment. Reject lets you add a host note so the guest knows why the request was declined.

For early check-in and late checkout, keep times realistic and coordinate with Staff cleanings. Do not approve an upsell that conflicts with a same-day turnover or checkout deadline.

Pre-Arrival Forms collect information before check-in: arrival time, guest count, pet details, vehicle information, ID uploads, special requests, acknowledgement checkboxes, and anything else you need.

The Form Builder tab is a WYSIWYG editor: you build the form on the form itself, so the canvas always shows exactly what guests will see. Click any question or section on the canvas to edit it in the side panel: label, field type, required toggle, help text, and options. Add conditional rules to show or hide questions based on earlier answers; those rules appear inline as badges, and the read-only Logic overview summarizes them all. Drag to reorder, and changes save automatically. Keep the form short enough that guests will complete it, and use required fields only for truly required information.

Responses shows submitted and pending forms. Linked responses attach to bookings. Unassigned responses should be assigned manually when HostMoat cannot confidently match dates or guest information.

Forms can be booking-specific or general. Booking-specific links are best for automated emails. General links are useful on websites or manual messages. General-link responses stay unassigned until an authorized host or manager reviews and assigns them; guest name and stay dates are hints, not proof of booking access.

For security, a general link never opens or overwrites a booking-specific form that has already been issued. Issued booking links stop working after the stay, when the booking is cancelled, or when the form/property is deactivated. Standalone general-link responses expire after 30 days.

Guest confirmation emails include a summary and an edit link. The guest should use that edit link or the portal link for changes. If a booking already has an email on file, the booking email remains the canonical address unless you edit it directly.

Reviews has four major areas: All Reviews, Analytics, Form Builder, and Responses.

All Reviews is the manual and imported review log. Add reviews from Airbnb, VRBO, Google, or direct feedback. Include source, rating, guest, date, public text, and notes. Export CSV when you need review records outside HostMoat.

Analytics summarizes rating trends, review volume, average rating, source mix, and performance over time. Use it to spot recurring cleanliness, communication, value, or check-in problems.

Form Builder creates the private post-stay form. Add rating fields, text questions, dropdowns, checkboxes, and staff rating fields. Staff auto-populate fields let guests rate cleaners or team members; those ratings feed the Staff Ratings & Bonuses tab.

Responses shows sent forms and submissions. You can send a review form manually, send reminders, filter responses, export CSV, and inspect individual answers. Automatic sending and reminder cadence are configured in review form settings.

After submission, every guest sees the same optional public-review links you configure, regardless of rating. Private form answers remain available to your team for direct follow-up. Ask for honest reviews, do not selectively solicit only positive reviews, and do not offer incentives tied to review sentiment.

Email Blasts sends targeted marketing emails to past guests and imported contacts. Use it for repeat-booking offers, seasonal promotions, direct booking reminders, holiday availability, thank-you notes, and lapsed guest reactivation.

Create a new campaign, choose an audience segment, pick or create a template, preview recipients, and send now or schedule for later. Built-in segments may include repeat guests, lapsed champions, recent guests, high-value guests, imported leads, and all contacts depending on available data.

Templates can use personalization variables like guest first name, guest name, property name, host name, and property address. Keep subject lines honest and useful. Avoid over-sending; past guests should feel invited, not spammed.

Guest CRM's Invite back action opens this same composer with one eligible guest already selected and the current booking-site link appended to the final email. It still requires your review and normal Send or Schedule action. If you choose an existing offer, the link carries that code, but the guest's checkout rechecks its expiration, active state, use limit, dates, and live price. No offer is attached by default, and Stripe processing fees may still apply at checkout.

Scheduled campaigns are dispatched automatically. Review the scheduled time, timezone, recipient count, subject, and sender details before saving.

Sending limits keep deliverability high for everyone: accounts on a paid subscription can send up to 500 marketing emails per day, and free or trial accounts up to 50 per day. Email Blasts also become available 24 hours after account creation. If a campaign pauses at the daily limit, remaining recipients stay queued; re-send the campaign the next day to continue where it left off.

Campaign quality depends on CRM quality. Remove bad addresses, avoid guests who opted out, and do not email people who should not receive marketing messages.

Watchtower has two distinct modes. Inbox AI creates drafts that never send until an owner or manager reviews and clicks Send. The optional Pro public chat widget automatically answers anonymous pre-booking visitors and is labeled as AI-powered.

Open Watchtower AI and enable it for the active property. Pro includes HostMoat's built-in provider, owner-reviewed inbox drafts, optional auto-draft on inquiry arrival, and public booking-site chat. Existing legacy accounts retain their recorded bring-your-own-provider and automation access. Secrets are stored in Supabase Vault. A customer's Ollama endpoint receives only that property's optional token, never HostMoat's internal AI token.

Watchtower is intentionally unavailable in the shared demo: it does not create AI drafts, accept provider credentials, or enable the booking-site chat widget. Create your own account to configure or test it with a property.

Set a tone, for example warm and concise, polished and professional, or casual and friendly. Add owner notes for policies that are not in the guidebook. Advanced custom instructions can shape voice and response structure, but mandatory privacy, availability, quoting, and untrusted-input safeguards always remain in force.

Use What Watchtower Knows to inspect the Inbox knowledge base. Inbox drafts can use canonical Property Profile facts, Pricing, visible guidebook sections, recent thread context, and known booked ranges. If recent thread context cannot load, Watchtower asks you to retry instead of drafting from only the latest message. If the Bedrooms section is hidden in Guidebook, its room details stay out of Watchtower too. A structured inquiry receives live conflict, turnover, minimum-stay, and pricing checks and uses the applicable minimum for those dates, even when a seasonal override is lower or higher than the property default. Its owner-reviewed draft states both the requested check-in and checkout dates from the structured inquiry, even when the guest's optional note discusses something else. Dates that are merely absent from the calendar summary are not automatically confirmed as open.

Use Try a sample question before relying on real conversations. Test check-in, Wi-Fi, parking, pet, refund, late checkout, and amenity questions.

In Inbox, click Draft with AI on a conversation. Read the draft, verify facts, edit if needed, then send. Sending is idempotent: retrying the same draft after a network interruption must not email the guest twice.

For public chat, write a welcome message, choose only public-safe content, and copy a fresh widget snippet after changing the welcome text. Exact address, Wi-Fi, entry/lockbox, private contacts, parking/access instructions, and freeform guidebook fields are always excluded. Review the public property description, amenities, listing facts, and house rules before enabling chat because those are host-designated public content. If a requested fact is not documented, chat defers to the owner; if its live transcript, guidebook, room, or calendar context cannot load, it returns a temporary retry message instead of guessing. Public chat uses a keyed, day-scoped network limit and a per-property message cap from 50 to 2,000; the network identifier is kept only in the abuse counter, not in chat transcripts.

These restrictions apply by surface rather than deleting the information everywhere. Contracts can include the property address captured for that agreement. Confirmed-guest portals retain their address, Wi-Fi, timed access-code, and contact sections. Published guidebook links retain their token-based access. The direct-booking site still shows its configured public location, listing facts, and house rules. The stricter boundary applies to anonymous generated chat and automatic inquiry acknowledgments, where an unknown visitor could repeatedly probe for private details.

Pricing opens to one calendar-first workflow with three controls:

1. Normal price is the fallback nightly price, cleaning fee, and optional Friday/Saturday adjustment.
2. Special-date prices protect holidays, events, promotions, or any dates you want to control yourself. They are stored as manual pricing rules.
3. Autopilot may adjust the remaining available direct-booking dates only after you approve a private preview.

The page has only three top-level sections. Prices contains the calendar and special-date controls. Autopilot contains preview, approval, status, and recovery. Advanced insights contains optional market signals, Smart Comp Set data, and the manual Watchlist. Advanced insights never sets a guest price by itself.

When Revenue Autopilot is running or paused, HostMoat chooses the first available price for each night in this order:

1. Special-date price for the date.
2. Approved Revenue Autopilot rate for an uncovered date.
3. Normal nightly price as the fallback.

The weekend adjustment is added to special-date and normal fallback prices on Friday and Saturday. An approved Autopilot rate is already a final nightly rate, so the adjustment is not added again. Cleaning fee is separate. The property default minimum stay still applies unless a special-date price supplies a date-specific minimum.

When Autopilot is off or in Preview, preview and pending rates are absent from the guest-price chain. The established manual, fresh imported-price, base-rate, weekend, and minimum-stay behavior continues unchanged. If existing Airbnb price sync is configured as imported-first, that existing order also remains unchanged during Preview.

Special-date prices are the protected control layer. Adding or editing one immediately overrides an Autopilot rate for the same date without deleting the Autopilot receipt. Autopilot never inserts, edits, or deletes these manual rules.

Market signals are optional analysis under Advanced insights. Their performance cards and opportunities do not change a price. Applying an opportunity opens a special-date price; only saving it changes the price path, and it then outranks Autopilot. Market data, comparable reads, watchlist additions, and recommendation tracking require Pro at the server—not only in the tab display.

After a downgrade, new Autopilot work and Market Intelligence reads stop. Explicitly frozen approved Autopilot rates may continue in direct-booking quotes for at most seven days, then HostMoat falls back to manual rules, weekend pricing, and the base rate. Imported Airbnb prices stop serving immediately. Saved Autopilot, watchlist, imported-price, and sync configuration data is retained for a later upgrade; watchlist deletion and disabling integrations remain available.

The Prices calendar is the verification surface. Select any night to see the guest price, who controls it, a plain-language reason, and an Override this date button. Check it after editing a normal price, weekend adjustment, special-date price, or approved Autopilot batch.

Set the property fallback minimum in Property -> Property Profile -> Spaces & Amenities as Default Minimum Nights. A minimum on a seasonal rule overrides that fallback for the rule's dates. If a stay touches multiple explicit minimum overrides, the highest applies. Checkout validates the same rule again before starting payment.

Revenue Autopilot is an optional Pro execution layer for direct-booking nightly prices. It works below your protected special-date prices and never replaces your judgment. Use this checklist from top to bottom.

If Autopilot shows a permission or loading error, do not rebuild or approve in response. A failed history read does not publish or change a guest price. Refresh once, confirm the signed-in user is the property owner or a manager and the property still has Pro access, then contact support with the property name and error text if it continues.

Before building a preview:

1. On Pricing, use Edit normal price and confirm the nightly price is a meaningful fallback. Autopilot uses it as its primary anchor. A placeholder such as $1 can make every proposal hit a safeguard.
2. Confirm the weekend premium and default minimum stay. Autopilot does not automate minimum stays.
3. Add special-date prices for dates you never want Autopilot to price, such as a contracted event week or owner-controlled promotion.
4. If needed, open Advanced insights -> Comparable data & Watchlist. Confirm the automatic Smart Comp Set describes genuinely comparable properties. The Watchlist is reference-only.
5. In Autopilot, expand Adjust safeguards if you need to change the lowest or highest allowed price. HostMoat does not verify that the lowest price covers costs or that the highest is competitive.

Build the preview:

1. Open Autopilot. The default action builds a private preview using the saved safeguards and approach. Expand Adjust safeguards only when you need to change them.
2. Click Build private preview. The server snapshots the current effective price for each eligible date and creates pending proposals. No guest quote changes.
3. Resolve a normal-price-outside-safeguards warning before approval unless the mismatch is deliberate. Expand How Autopilot builds this preview only when you need the underlying evidence.
4. Read the proposal table from left to right: eligible date range, current price, proposed final price, and the signals explaining why. Special-price, booked, blocked, and locked dates are absent by design. If the same proposed price appears in separate rows, read the exclusion explanation below the table: an unavailable or protected date split one continuous range into several eligible ranges.
5. Change the lowest price, highest price, or approach and click Rebuild with these settings as often as needed. Rebuilding replaces the saved proposal only.

If nearly every eligible date lands on one price, stop and diagnose the anchor before approval. A placeholder base can make the Smart Comp Set's broad lower guard, 60 percent of the trimmed comp ADR, dominate the whole preview. That is a safety bound, not a precise year-round market recommendation. Correct the base rate and rebuild.

Understand the signals:

• Holiday calendar adjusts supported US or Mexico holiday periods.
• Seasonal history activates only when the property has enough comparable booked nights for that month.
• Weekend pattern uses the property's own history; with limited history it uses a conservative default pattern.
• Booking pace waits for at least eight historical reference snapshots in the relevant lead-time group.
• Short-gap logic considers only fillable one-to-three-night gaps that meet the current minimum stay.
• Smart Comp Set is a broad sanity guard, not a date-specific competitor price. It needs at least five fresh, same-currency, non-self AirROI comps.
• Hard floor and ceiling clamp the final proposal after other signals.

Approve safely:

1. Use the Prices calendar selected-night panel and a sample direct-booking quote to verify representative weekday, weekend, special-price, and uncovered dates.
2. Approval publishes the complete current batch. Preview proposals are not partial approvals.
3. Near-term, unusually large, and cumulative-drift changes stay pending even after Autopilot is running. Approve or reject those separately.
4. If HostMoat Airbnb price sync is enabled, approval requires a second confirmation and disables that sync transactionally. Preview never disables it.

Operate and recover:

• Pause stops new runs while keeping already approved rates live.
• Resume restarts runs from the same episode.
• Reject & snooze keeps one direction for that date from being proposed again for two weeks.
• Restore & lock restores a published range to its prior final rate and keeps Autopilot off that range until you unlock it.
• Stop & restore removes only Autopilot-owned rates and returns guest quotes to the established manual, imported, weekend, and base path. It does not delete pricing rules.

Airbnb and VRBO remain manual. The update sheet shows rates you may copy to those channels. Marking a row applied records your confirmation only; HostMoat does not claim it changed the OTA.

The scoreboard counts only verified direct-site nights whose saved checkout snapshot proves an Autopilot rate was charged. It reports negative periods plainly, excludes unverified nights, and does not claim that a price change caused a booking.

Advanced insights -> Comparable data & Watchlist contains two deliberately separate populations.

Smart Comp Set is automatic. It contains nearby AirROI observations representing booked average daily rate. Market Intelligence uses this population for market-position context. Revenue Autopilot uses only non-self observations in the property currency that are no more than 28 days old. At least five are required before the comp guard activates. The guard keeps a proposal within a broad band around a trimmed comp mean; it does not pretend every competitor charged that amount for the exact future date.

The Smart Comp Set table can display observations up to 180 days old for analysis. Therefore its visible table count may be larger than the fresh count shown on an Autopilot run. Autopilot's run receipt is authoritative for the data it actually used.

Watchlist is manual. Listings added by URL or area exploration are for side-by-side judgment and monitoring. Watchlist asking prices do not feed Revenue Autopilot, do not alter Market Intelligence recommendations, and do not become manual pricing rules. This prevents a hand-picked outlier or stale asking price from silently changing automated prices.

If the Smart Comp Set looks wrong, verify the property's latitude, longitude, city, bedrooms, and currency. Refresh market data, then rebuild the Autopilot preview. If fewer than five fresh comps remain, Autopilot continues with its other signals and clearly reports that the comp guard is inactive.

Use the Watchlist to investigate amenity, review, location, and positioning differences that data cannot normalize. Add a special-date price when your judgment should become authoritative for specific dates.

Seasonal Heatmap shows booking performance across the selected year in a weekly grid. Darker or stronger cells indicate higher occupancy or activity depending on the view.

Hover or inspect cells to see date range, nights booked, occupancy percentage, revenue, and average nightly rate. Use the monthly summary below the heatmap to compare months.

Use Heatmap before building next year's pricing rules. Identify peak weeks, shoulder seasons, off-season valleys, and periods where the property sold out too cheaply.

Compare multiple years when data exists. A week that was strong once may have been event-driven. A pattern that repeats across years is a stronger pricing signal.

Use Heatmap with Gap Detector. Heatmap tells you broad seasonal shape; Gap Detector tells you short-term holes that may be fillable.

Lead Sources shows booking volume, revenue, and performance by source. Use it to understand whether the business depends too heavily on one platform or whether direct booking efforts are growing.

Review source mix by booking count and revenue. A channel that sends fewer bookings may still be valuable if bookings are longer or higher-value.

Use lead-source data when deciding where to invest time. If Airbnb dominates, focus on collecting guest emails and building direct rebooking habits. If direct bookings are increasing, improve the Booking Site, Email Blasts, and guest portal.

Make sure booking sources are accurate. Manual bookings should be tagged as direct, Airbnb, VRBO, hold, or other as appropriate. Bad source data makes lead-source reports misleading.

Use this page during owner reviews to explain which channels are producing results and which need attention.

Commissions tracks referral or partner commission owed on bookings. It has Payouts and Rate Rules tabs.

Rate Rules define partner names, descriptions, and percentages. Create a separate rule for each agent, referral partner, co-host arrangement, or channel split that should be tracked. Changes affect future calculations based on the saved records and tags.

Payouts groups unpaid and paid commission by partner. Expand a partner to see the bookings, rental revenue, commission amount, and status.

Use Mark paid on a single booking when you pay that commission. Use Mark all paid on a partner header when you settle the whole outstanding amount. Use Mark unpaid to undo a mistake.

Commissions are tracking records only. HostMoat does not send the payout money to the partner. Pay the partner through your normal method, then mark the records paid for reporting.

Accounting -> Transactions is the ledger for the active property. If the same owner has multiple properties in the same currency, use the property selector to switch to a consolidated portfolio ledger; its CSV export includes a Property column. Add income, expenses, refunds, owner contributions, vendor costs, utilities, insurance, mortgage-related costs, supplies, cleaning, repairs, platform fees, and other items.

Use the period selector to view a month, quarter, or year. Summary cards update based on the selected period. Use tabs or filters to separate all transactions, income, expenses, recurring items, and imported items when available.

When adding a transaction, choose date, amount, category, Schedule E line if applicable, booking link when relevant, vendor, notes, and recurrence settings. Normal negative amounts represent expenses and positive amounts represent income. Locked Stripe refund rows are the exception: they are negative rental income, not expenses.

Use Sync Bookings to create one dated Line 3 income transaction for a booking that has a guest charge but no linked rent receipt. The amount includes room rent, cleaning, and prepaid guest charges. The database prevents duplicate automated mirrors, and an actual Stripe receipt supersedes its booking-sync mirror in financial reports. Pro includes booking sync and recurring schedules. Manual ledger entries, CSV import, and export remain available on the Free plan. Grandfathered subscriptions retain their recorded access.

Stripe invoice payments create locked income rows automatically. Once one exists for a booking, reports suppress an older Sync Bookings mirror so the same receipt is not counted twice. A successful refund from Cancellations creates a locked negative-income row and reduces invoice and booking net-collected totals automatically.

Recurring expenses are useful for mortgage, insurance, utilities, software, HOA, pest control, landscaping, and other regular costs. When a recurrence is due, generate the next occurrence and confirm the date and amount. Creation and schedule advancement happen together, so a retry cannot create a duplicate. Month-end dates clamp to the last valid day instead of skipping a month. After a downgrade, saved schedules and generated history are retained, but generating or advancing another occurrence pauses; you may still disable a schedule.

Export CSV for accountants or backup. Before exporting, review uncategorized transactions and make sure booking-linked expenses are attached to the correct stay.

Import CSV under Accounting -> Transactions reads a statement exported from your bank or credit card so you do not have to type transactions by hand. It is included in Pro and remains available to existing legacy accounts according to their recorded access.

How to export a CSV from common banks: - Chase: sign in, pick the account, choose Download account activity, select CSV, pick a date range, download. - American Express: sign in, go to Statements & Activity, choose Download, select CSV, pick a date range, download. - Wells Fargo: Account Activity, then Download Account Activity, format Comma Delimited. - Bank of America: Transactions, then Download, choose Microsoft Excel (.csv). - Capital One: pick the account, Download Transactions, file type CSV.

Steps to import: 1. Open Accounting -> Transactions and click Import CSV. 2. Choose your file. HostMoat reads it in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere until you confirm. 3. Confirm the statement currency. HostMoat does not convert CSV amounts, so it must match the active property's currency. A conflicting or mixed explicit currency marker blocks the import; when the file has no reliable marker, confirm the currency yourself against the statement. 4. Check the detected format. Chase and American Express are recognized automatically; anything else is treated as generic. If the amounts look inverted, meaning expenses appear positive, switch the format selector and the rows re-read immediately. 5. Review each row. Supported merchant descriptions arrive with a suggested category, but a merchant name alone cannot establish the correct tax treatment. Adjust any category or Schedule E line that is wrong, and untick anything personal or already recorded. Leaving the Schedule E line on Auto lets the category decide it. Deposits are never given a category automatically; they stay on Other until you say otherwise. 6. Click Import. You will see how many rows were added and how many were skipped as already imported.

Re-importing the same file is safe. Each row is fingerprinted by its date, amount, and description, so previously imported transactions are skipped rather than duplicated. Renaming the file does not change this. Two separate charges on the same day for the same amount at the same merchant are treated as two real transactions and both import.

Imported deposits are not counted as rental income automatically. Bank statements contain money coming in that may be rent, transfers, refunds, owner contributions, or other receipts, so HostMoat requires an explicit classification instead of guessing. The Tax Center holds them out of Gross Rental Income and shows a notice with the number and total so you can review them. Set the Schedule E line to Rents received on any deposit that really is rental income and it will be included.

If a row fails to read (an unrecognized date, a missing amount), it is reported as invalid and skipped, and the rest of the file still imports. Files are limited to 5,000 rows per import; split larger statements by date range.

Open Bank Sync from the sidebar to link your bank or credit card through Plaid so transactions import automatically as they post. It is included in Pro; reviewed CSV import is also available for statement files.

If Pro or grandfathered bank-sync access ends, automatic sync, reconnection, account routing, and pending provider-transaction review pause. HostMoat keeps enough connection identity visible for you to disconnect the bank and revoke access; account details and raw review rows are no longer exposed. Previously imported ledger entries follow the normal disconnect and retention rules.

What HostMoat can and cannot do with the connection: - Your banking password is entered on Plaid's screen. HostMoat never sees it. - HostMoat receives read-only transaction data. It cannot move money. - Only checking, savings, and credit card accounts are offered. - You can disconnect at any time from Bank Sync.

Connecting: 1. Open Bank Sync and click Connect Bank. 2. Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app. This step-up check applies only to bank actions, never to normal sign-in. If you have not set up an authenticator yet, HostMoat shows a QR code to scan first. 3. Choose your bank and sign in on Plaid's screen. 4. Select the accounts to share. Each account counts toward the public Pro limit of 10. Existing legacy subscribers retain the limit recorded for their subscription. 5. The first batch of transactions arrives within a few minutes.

If one owner has multiple properties, Bank Sync shows every checking, savings, or card account beneath the bank login. Route each account to one property for automatic import, choose Import & review when one account contains activity for several properties, or exclude an account. Review transactions can be assigned to one property or split across as many as 20 properties, and the assigned amounts must equal the bank transaction exactly. Changing a route affects future transactions; it does not move historical entries. Properties and bank transactions must use the same currency. With only one property, HostMoat keeps the original automatic behavior and sends every supported account to that property without showing routing controls.

How transactions are categorized: Each imported transaction is mapped to an IRS Schedule E line where that can be done safely. Utilities, hardware-store repairs, cleaning services, landlord insurance, and bookkeeping fees are categorized automatically. Deliberately left for you: general shopping, travel, laundry, and anything else where only you know whether it was for the rental. HostMoat would rather leave a row uncategorized than invent a deduction on your return.

Cleaning charges and platform fees close to a checkout are linked to the booking that caused them, so per-stay profitability stays accurate without manual work. Ambiguous matches appear as a suggestion you can accept or dismiss instead of being applied silently.

Deposits are never assumed to be rental income. Money arriving in your account may be a platform payout, refund, owner contribution, transfer, or other non-rental receipt. The Tax Center holds unclassified deposits out of Gross Rental Income and shows how many are waiting for review; classify an actual rent receipt as Line 3 to include it.

When a connection needs attention: Banks periodically require re-authentication after a password change or new security. The connection then shows "Needs reconnection" and the property owner gets an email. Click Reconnect, sign in again, and syncing resumes from where it stopped, with no duplicate transactions. HostMoat verifies the repair with your bank before marking the connection healthy again.

Disconnecting: Click Disconnect. The access token is revoked at Plaid immediately and imported transactions are kept for 30 days, then deleted. If the revocation cannot be confirmed, the connection shows "Disconnecting…" and retries automatically rather than reporting success it cannot verify.

Invoices lets you create guest-facing invoices with line items, taxes, due dates, and payment links. A connected Stripe account is required for online payments. Use "Connect with Stripe" in Settings, choose the legal business and payout-bank country, and complete Stripe's hosted onboarding. Payments are processed directly on that connected account. US accounts may enable cards and US ACH; non-US accounts currently use cards for guest payments while Stripe pays out to the local bank collected during onboarding. Online guest payment collection supports USD, CAD, MXN, and EUR based on the property's currency, and HostMoat does not automatically convert invoice amounts.

Create an invoice from Invoices or from a booking detail modal. Add guest email, line items, amounts, tax, due date, notes, and booking link. Send the invoice so the guest receives a secure public payment page.

If a guest sees Unable to Load Invoice, ask them to use Try Again; that message means the page had a temporary loading problem. Invoice Not Found is reserved for an invalid or removed link. You can copy the current payment link again from the invoice row if needed.

For Direct Booking Site reservations, payment and signature are separate requirements. HostMoat collects the amount due now before it sends the automatic rental agreement, and the booking remains tentative until that required agreement is signed. A later balance invoice can still be paid while the agreement is unsigned; that payment does not waive the signature requirement or confirm the booking by itself.

Use Track my cost when invoicing for a service that also costs you money, such as extra cleaning or supplies. Enter your internal cost separately from the guest-facing price so HostMoat can log the expense and show markup.

Invoice statuses include draft, sent, viewed, overdue, paid, voided, and related states. Drafts have not been issued and are excluded from the Outstanding balance. Stripe payments update automatically. If a guest pays by cash, check, wire, Zelle, Venmo, or another offline method, use Record Payment, enter the actual amount and date, and choose the method. Partial receipts reduce the balance without marking the invoice fully paid. Each receipt creates an immutable audit record and a dated Finance income transaction in the invoice currency, so Dashboard, Profit & Loss, and Tax Center use the same recorded money.

Use reminders for unpaid invoices. Configure automatic reminder timing by property, including before due date, on due date, and after due date. Manual reminder buttons are useful for urgent follow-up.

Void invoices that should no longer be collectible. Voiding stops collection but does not return money already paid. To refund a cancelled direct booking, open Cancellations and click Refund. Stripe returns are initiated there; offline returns must be completed in the original service first and then recorded. A successful or recorded full or partial refund leaves the gross amount paid intact for audit history and shows refunded and net-collected amounts separately.

Each property has one currency for its rates, invoices, contracts, and guest charges. Supported currencies are USD, CAD, MXN, and EUR.

Pick a currency in the optional pricing step after resuming guided setup, or later in Property Profile under the Currency card. The database rechecks eligibility while holding the property record, so a stale browser cannot race a booking, payment, pricing update, or bank-route change.

Durable financial history locks the currency. That includes invoices, contracts, ledger transactions, refunds, and real direct-booking payment artifacts. A checkout attempt that collected no money may stop locking only after HostMoat records terminal proof that Stripe creation never began or that the exact PaymentIntent was cancelled. A timeout, failed request, or missing PaymentIntent ID is not proof and remains locked for safety.

Even without durable payment history, a currency change is rejected while the property has a non-zero inherited amount. Clear editable base rates, pricing rules, fixed deposits, upsells, maintenance and operating costs, imported booking amounts, work-order costs, and current automated-pricing values first. An active bank account routed to the property must also be re-routed or excluded. HostMoat does not convert numeric amounts or relabel non-zero financial records. Only empty manual booking and work-order shells may be relabeled atomically; released checkout history keeps its original currency snapshots.

Guest CRM revenue thresholds are configuration values, not an exchange-rate calculation. They keep the same numbers under the new property currency label, and the confirmation names this exception so you can review them immediately after changing currency. Guest revenue totals and ranks remain separated by their recorded booking currency; HostMoat never adds unlike currencies together.

Guests always pay in the property's currency: HostMoat does not convert an invoice or checkout total to a currency the guest prefers.

If you need to refund a paid direct booking, do it from Cancellations, not from the Invoices page. Click Refund on the cancelled booking and HostMoat issues the return in the same currency it was originally charged in.

If you take card payments in a non-USD currency and your Stripe account settles in a different currency, Stripe converts the payout on its side and applies its own conversion fee. Review that in your Stripe dashboard; HostMoat does not add a separate conversion charge.

The invoice editor's Stripe fee estimate uses published US-dollar card and ACH assumptions. It is hidden for non-USD invoices because fixed fees, ACH availability, and caps depend on the connected account and settlement currency.

Tax Center reports in USD only. A property using CAD, MXN, or EUR can still use every other HostMoat feature normally, but its Tax Center page shows a notice instead of Schedule E figures until USD reporting support for other currencies is added.

Contracts has Contracts and Templates tabs. Templates are reusable agreement forms. Contracts are the sent or signed instances tied to guests and bookings.

Create templates first. Use merge fields for guest name, property name, address, check-in, checkout, amount, house rules, and other booking details. Use {{payment_terms}} instead of hard-coded deposit language when a custom template must adapt between full payment and deposit-plus-balance bookings. The template editor shows whether this adaptive field is present. Use the Preview tab to verify formatting before sending.

Every property starts with an active Standard Rental Agreement marked as its default. The Booking Site uses that property default for automatic direct-booking contracts unless you turn the automation off. Change the default in Contracts > Templates when the site should use a different agreement. Automatic contracts preserve the template's merged booking details, required custom fields, and payment-method-on-file requirement.

When sending a contract, choose the guest, booking, template, recipient email, and any custom values. You can require signature only or also collect a card or bank payment method for future charges depending on Stripe setup and template configuration.

HostMoat emails the signing link when the contract is issued and lists unsigned agreements in the Dashboard action items and Contracts awaiting filter. It does not currently send recurring signature-reminder emails automatically. Open the contract and choose Resend Email when a guest needs another copy; the contract detail also lets you copy the same signing link for direct follow-up.

Auto-invoicing can create deposit and balance invoices when a manually sent contract is signed. The deposit invoice can be sent immediately; the balance invoice can be scheduled based on due-date settings. Direct Booking Site checkout is the exception: checkout already creates the payment invoices, so its automatic contract does not create another set when signed.

Signed contracts store an audit trail and signed document. Use the download option when you need a copy for records or disputes.

If a guest says the link does not work, verify the contract status, recipient email, token link, and whether the contract was already signed or expired.

Open Profit & Loss from the sidebar. The Financial report group uses bookings, transactions, fixed costs, mortgage settings, assets, and other property data to show financial performance beyond gross revenue.

Profit & Loss summarizes earned stay income, operating expenses, net operating income, owner cash flow, and margin. If numbers look wrong, correct the source records in Accounting -> Transactions, bookings, or property fixed-cost settings.

The Mortgage tab models loan balance, payment assumptions, principal and interest split, insurance, property tax, utilities, HOA, and other fixed monthly costs. Keep these settings current after refinancing or escrow changes.

The Assets tab tracks furniture, appliances, improvements, purchase price, land value, depreciation-related fields, and capital items. These records support planning and tax conversations.

Tax Tips highlights items that may need tax attention. Treat them as operational prompts, not legal or tax advice. Have a qualified tax professional review before filing.

Pro accounts can open Profit & Loss, then Owner Sharing. Opening it creates one disabled standing link for the active property. Turn the link on only when the source records are ready, then choose whether the public statement may include fixed property costs and depreciation; both sensitive sections start hidden. The report always includes operating costs such as annual platform fees, supports monthly and year-to-date views, and can be printed or saved as a PDF. It excludes guest identities, booking notes, transaction descriptions, and the street address.

Anyone with the link can read the allowed report without signing in. Disable it when sharing should pause. Rotate the token if it reached the wrong person; rotation invalidates the old URL immediately. Copy and test the new link in a private browser before sending it again.

Use Profit & Loss for owner meetings, pricing decisions, and whether to accept lower-rate bookings. A booking that looks good by revenue may be weak after cleaning, supplies, fees, and commissions.

Tax Center opens the Schedule E report for the selected tax year. Schedule E Line 3 is based only on dated ledger receipts, including Stripe payments, booking-sync entries, and manual rent transactions. A booking charge is shown as an unreconciled projection until you sync it or record the actual receipt; stay dates do not decide the tax year for cash-basis income.

Review rental income, expense categories, rental days, personal days, occupancy, and deductible categories. Fix source records when something is missing or miscategorized.

Personal-use days matter. Add owner stays or personal days accurately because they can affect tax treatment and deduction allocation. Manual owner holds and N/C booking nights count as personal use; imported platform availability blocks do not. Because bookings store an N/C count rather than individual dates, those nights are assigned from check-in forward. Shared expenses and the built-in depreciation estimate use the exact rental-use ratio; the displayed percentage is rounded only for readability.

For the depreciation estimate, save purchase price, land value, and the date the property was placed in service in Settings. Land value is excluded from building basis and residential rental property uses the 27.5-year GDS mid-month estimate. Tracked furnishings use their purchase date, cost less salvage value, useful life, and a planning-level half-year convention. If the property is in service but no use days are recorded, the estimate assumes it remained fully available for rental and shows that assumption. If you also categorized a manual transaction on Schedule E Line 18, Tax Center warns about possible double counting instead of hiding either amount.

Export the tax summary and transaction detail for your accountant. The export is meant to reduce cleanup work, not replace professional tax preparation. Tax Center does not perform foreign-exchange conversion, so confirm that imported and manually entered amounts use the property's reporting currency before relying on totals.

Before sending data to an accountant, reconcile Invoices, Accounting -> Transactions, booking revenue, refunds, platform payouts, cleaning costs, and mortgage or fixed-cost entries.

Analytics & Reports opens Year over Year for the active property. It includes stays, nights rented, no-charge days, personal days, total occupancy, booked revenue, booked revenue per night, percent rented, and occupancy percentage.

Use it to compare year-over-year performance, explain seasonality, and prepare owner or accountant summaries.

If a year looks wrong, inspect bookings first. Missing check-in dates, wrong revenue, cancelled bookings treated as active, or personal days entered incorrectly can distort the annual rollup.

Use Export CSV when sharing annual data outside HostMoat. Keep a copy with month-end reports and tax records.

Staff has five major tabs: Staff, Cleanings, Templates, Ratings & Bonuses, and Payments.

Staff stores people who work on the property: cleaners, managers, co-hosts, maintenance vendors, and other helpers. Add contact information, role, pay rates, notification preferences, vacation periods, and portal access. Send invitations only after the role is correct.

New staff notification profiles start with the established operational emails selected. Work Order Assignments is opt-in and starts off, so turn it on only for technicians who should receive repair-job email. Existing staff keep their previously saved choices.

Cleanings is the turnover schedule. Create cleanings manually or from bookings. Assign staff, choose type, set date, status, notes, template, and tasks. Track pending, in progress, completed, skipped, and other statuses.

Templates define reusable task lists. Create templates for turnover, deep clean, inspection, linen reset, pool check, hot tub check, or maintenance visit. Applying templates keeps cleaner instructions consistent.

Ratings & Bonuses shows guest or owner ratings tied to staff and lets you track performance bonuses. Review form staff fields can feed this area automatically.

Payments records cleaner or staff payments. Log date, amount, method, staff member, and notes. This does not move money; it records the fact that you paid.

Staff coordination is a Pro feature. After a downgrade, HostMoat stops creating new cleanings, routing new operational notices to staff, or accepting staff/configuration changes. Existing assigned cleaner links may still finish or cancel their issued jobs, and the owner can revoke access; saved records remain available when Pro returns.

Cleaner Portal is a public token link for staff who do not need a full HostMoat login. Generate or copy the link from Staff.

Staff see assigned upcoming cleanings and, on Pro, maintenance work orders. Cleaning cards include booking-related timing, task lists, special notes, and status controls. Work-order cards include the repair description, priority, schedule, photos, and resolution notes. Staff can start work, upload photos from a phone, and mark the assigned job complete.

Use cleaner links carefully. If a cleaner leaves the team, revoke or regenerate their portal token.

For same-day turnovers, confirm that the cleaning date, checkout time, check-in time, task template, and special notes are accurate before the cleaner starts.

If a staff member says they cannot see a job, check the active property, assignment, cleaner portal token, and whether the cleaning or work order was assigned to someone else. Creating new jobs, assigning work, or issuing portal access requires Pro. A link already issued for an assigned job remains usable only for completing that existing obligation; revocation and cancellation remain available after a downgrade.

Maintenance has two tabs. Work Orders is the default job tracker for repairs; Recurring Items is the existing service register for filters, inspections, pool service, and other repeat upkeep.

Create a work order with a title, description, category, priority, scheduled date, and optional cost. Move it from Open to In Progress to Completed, or cancel and reopen it when plans change. Completed work orders are terminal so their history stays reliable.

On Pro, assign an active staff member. If that person's Work Order Assignments preference is enabled, HostMoat emails their existing secure staff-portal link. The assigned technician can start the job, upload up to 20 photos from a phone, add resolution notes, and complete it. Owner-side photo upload, guest issue reporting, and separate vendor records are not included in this workflow.

When a recurring item is due or overdue, choose Create Work Order. The job is prefilled and linked to the service item. Completing it advances last completed and next due, increments the occurrence count, and adds the final cost to that item's total exactly once.

At completion, enter the final cost and optionally choose Log as an expense. HostMoat creates one maintenance expense in Accounting -> Transactions, which maps to Schedule E line 14, and remembers the ledger link so retries cannot duplicate it. A staff-completed job can receive its final cost and expense link later from the owner.

Review Maintenance before high season, after storms, and before owner stays. The weekly digest includes open work orders and calls out overdue urgent jobs alongside recurring maintenance due dates.

Inventory has Supplies, Furnishings & Assets, and Damage Reports tabs.

Supplies tracks consumables like toilet paper, paper towels, soap, shampoo, coffee, filters, batteries, linens, towels, and cleaning products. Record current quantity, reorder point, location, vendor, cost, and notes. Use low-stock indicators to avoid emergency shopping.

Furnishings & Assets tracks durable items like beds, couches, TVs, appliances, cookware, patio furniture, grills, smart locks, routers, and decor. Record purchase date, cost, room, condition, warranty, serial number, and replacement notes.

Damage Reports records broken, missing, stained, or guest-damaged items. Include booking, guest, item, description, photos, estimated cost, resolution, charge status, and notes.

Use Inventory with Invoices and Expenses. If you charge a guest for damage, create an invoice. If you replace an item, log the expense and update the asset record. Pro includes Inventory. If access ends, saved supplies, assets, and damage reports remain readable and removable, but new records and edits pause. Grandfathered subscriptions retain their recorded access.

Compliance keeps legal and operational requirements visible. It has Documents, Ordinances, and Deadlines tabs.

Documents stores permits, licenses, insurance certificates, inspection reports, HOA approvals, tax registrations, safety certificates, pool permits, and other files. Upload the document, add expiration or renewal dates, authority, cost, and notes.

Ordinances stores rule summaries for the property's city, county, HOA, or jurisdiction. Capture occupancy limits, quiet hours, parking rules, permit numbers, tax obligations, trash rules, and renewal requirements.

Deadlines surfaces upcoming renewals and due dates from documents or compliance items. Review it monthly so renewals do not surprise you.

Compliance records are only useful when kept current. After renewing a permit or insurance policy, upload the new document, update the expiration date, and archive or note the old one. Pro includes Compliance. If access ends, documents and ordinances remain readable and removable, while new uploads, records, and edits pause. Grandfathered subscriptions retain their recorded access.

Settings -> Listings stores operational notes and credentials for external platforms. Use it for Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, Google Vacation Rentals, direct website notes, channel manager details, and other account references.

Record platform name, listing URL, login notes, owner account, support contacts, payout notes, cancellation policy, tax settings, and operational quirks. Do not store sensitive secrets unless the field is designed for it.

Keep platform records current so managers and support staff know where a booking came from and how to troubleshoot platform-specific issues.

Use Listings together with Calendar sync, Email Import, Analytics & Reports -> Channels, and Bookings -> All Bookings. If a platform name or source is inconsistent, reports become harder to read.

Smart Devices lives under Property in the sidebar and is a Pro feature. It has five tabs: Overview, Access, Climate, Noise, and Setup. One owner-level Seam connection can discover supported locks, building entrances, thermostats, and noise monitors across that owner's properties.

Start on Setup. Connect each hardware provider inside Seam, paste the Seam workspace API key into HostMoat once, then click Sync devices. Adding or replacing that credential requires a current Pro plan; clearing it remains available for safe disconnect. Every discovered lock, shared entrance, and thermostat arrives unassigned and inactive. Assign each device to the correct property yourself; unassigned devices do nothing. Noise monitors can be synced through Seam or added manually.

On Access, choose one primary unit lock and turn on "Prepare access for every confirmed booking." HostMoat creates a unique PIN for the unit. You can also include selected lobby, gate, parking, pool, gym, or other shared entrances. Shared entrances can use the same PIN when the access system supports it, or a Seam mobile-key link. By default access is sent 24 hours before arrival, works from two hours before check-in, and ends two hours after checkout. Advanced settings can wait for a signed contract or paid balance.

The guest handoff has one clear source of truth. Booking emails and pre-arrival-form emails include the private guest-portal link. A normal pre-arrival template can use {{door_code}}, but that field remains blank until the booking credential has been released. HostMoat also sends a separate access-ready email only after the unit credential and any selected shared entrances are confirmed. That email includes the unit PIN, shared-entrance instructions or mobile-key button, validity times, and the portal link.

The guest portal shows the same released access under Check-in Details after the portal's reveal-date, contract, and pre-arrival-form gates are satisfied. It labels the unit PIN separately, lists shared entrances, and shows an Open Mobile Key button when applicable. If no smart-lock automation is enabled, the fixed door code from Property Profile -> Guest Information & Rules continues to work in emails and the portal exactly as before.

Cancellations, date changes, lock changes, and shared-entrance changes revoke or rebuild credentials. Expired and replaced credentials disappear from guest-facing views, and HostMoat removes them from Seam rather than merely deleting a local row. Cleaner PINs remain separate and appear only in the cleaner portal during their cleaning window. After a downgrade, device polling, assignment/configuration, and new credentials stop; exact deactivation, revocation, expiry, and removal continue so physical access is never stranded.

On Climate, assign compatible thermostats and configure Guest and Eco temperatures. Guest mode starts before arrival and Eco mode begins after checkout; HostMoat does not expose thermostat setpoints or controls to guests. On Noise, set thresholds and review readings. Noise readings, thermostat state, lock battery/offline warnings, door-open warnings, and noise alerts remain owner/staff information under Smart Devices and Alerts & Health.

Settings -> Alerts & Health has Alerts, Health, and Digest tabs.

Alerts lists open property issues and system flags. Mark alerts read when acknowledged and dismiss only when resolved or intentionally ignored. Open alerts can appear on the Dashboard.

Health summarizes performance signals like occupancy, review average, response time, revenue trend, and other property health inputs where data exists. If health is unavailable, add bookings and reviews first.

Digest configures summary emails. Choose delivery days, timezone, and recipients through owner and staff preferences. Digests include upcoming arrivals and departures, calendar gaps, the week's cleaning schedule with assignment status (unassigned cleanings are flagged), recurring maintenance due dates, open work orders with overdue urgent jobs called out, unread inbox messages, occupancy, and a week-over-week revenue comparison.

Smart-device alerts, including lock status and noise threshold breaches, appear here. Device connection and configuration live under Property → Smart Devices.

Use Alerts & Health weekly. It is a prevention page: the value is catching stale operations, weak reviews, missing data, and device problems before they become guest issues.

A guest can reach the booking site through a hostmoat.com subdomain, a /site/slug URL, or a custom domain. The page shows the host's curated theme and accent, optional logo, hero treatment, featured amenity highlights, photos, property description, amenities, rules, reviews or rating content when available, configured location precision, availability, price breakdown, and the booking form.

The guest chooses check-in and checkout dates, enters name, email, phone, guest count, message, and required acknowledgements. In Instant Book mode, the guest enters payment details for immediate confirmation or the configured contract handoff. In Request to Book mode, online card details create a temporary authorization; the guest is charged only if the host accepts before the displayed deadline, otherwise HostMoat cancels the request and releases the authorization. If the host enabled Pay the Host, the guest may instead choose an offered offline method. HostMoat then shows the exact payment deadline and host instructions, creates the invoice, and holds the dates while the host confirms the receipt. Inquiry Only submits a message without starting payment.

The site checks availability and pricing from HostMoat. If dates are blocked, below minimum stay, or otherwise invalid, the guest cannot complete the booking. Minimum-stay validation runs at the reservation boundary before HostMoat creates a tentative hold or starts payment.

For Instant Book, HostMoat first creates a tentative hold and verifies the Stripe payment or waits for the host to record the full offline amount. Automatic contracts are enabled by default: after payment is verified or recorded, HostMoat emails the rental agreement and opens the signing flow. The booking is not finally confirmed, and the normal booking-confirmation email is not sent, until the guest signs. A site with automatic contracts explicitly disabled confirms immediately after payment. Unpaid online attempts and offline holds expire automatically so they do not block the calendar indefinitely.

Instant Book also runs a short human-verification check before it creates the booking. Guests should wait for that check to finish before submitting. If the browser reports that human verification is required, refresh the booking page once and retry; a failed verification attempt does not create a charge or reservation. If it repeats in a normal browser with scripts enabled, contact HostMoat support because this is platform configuration, not a property setting.

Test the public booking flow after major changes to pricing, photos, Stripe, contract templates, or domain settings.

The guest portal is tied to a booking token. Guests do not log in. Anyone with the link can access the portal, so share it only with the guest or authorized people.

Depending on settings, the portal can show booking details, guidebook sections, check-in instructions, checkout instructions, Wi-Fi, house rules, upsells, invoice or payment links, contract status, pre-arrival form status, and a message channel. Booking emails and pre-arrival-form emails include this same durable portal link.

When Smart Devices access automation is enabled, Check-in Details can show the released unit PIN, shared entrance names, a mobile-key button, and the validity window. This access uses the same reveal-date, signed-contract, and completed-pre-arrival gates as the other check-in details. Thermostat settings, noise readings, device state, and alerts are never shown to guests.

Guests can request upsells when upsells are enabled. The host approves or rejects from Guest Portal -> Requests. Approval can create and send an invoice.

If the portal requires a signed contract or completed pre-arrival form, guests may see limited content until they complete those tasks.

When a guest asks where to find something, the portal link is often better than a long email. Keep the guidebook current so the portal remains useful. Pro is required to issue a new guest portal or start new upsell commerce. If the account later downgrades, an already-issued portal link and its message channel continue for the existing booking, while new portal issuance and upsell requests/approvals remain paused.

A guest opens a /sign/token link from email or host communication. For an automatic direct booking, HostMoat also opens this page in the browser immediately after payment. The signing page loads the contract, booking, property, custom fields, and optional payment-method collection.

The guest reviews the agreement, fills required custom fields, enters name and contact details if requested, accepts required acknowledgements, and signs by drawing or typing depending on the interface.

If card or bank collection is enabled, Stripe handles payment method entry. The contract can be signed without exposing raw payment details to HostMoat.

After signing, HostMoat stores the signature, audit details, signed document, and status. A tentative direct booking becomes confirmed at this point and its booking-confirmation email is sent. Auto-invoices may be created when that option was enabled while manually sending the contract; direct-booking checkout already owns its invoices and does not duplicate them on signature.

If a guest cannot sign, check whether the token is valid, the contract is already signed, required fields are incomplete, Stripe setup is missing, or the guest is using a browser that blocks required scripts.

A guest opens a /invoice/token link from an invoice email. The page shows invoice details, line items, amount due, due date, status, and available payment methods.

If Stripe is configured and the invoice is payable, the guest enters card or bank details and submits payment. Stripe processes the payment and HostMoat updates invoice status when confirmation is received.

If an invoice is already paid or voided, the page should show the current status instead of asking for payment.

If a guest pays outside Stripe, do not ask them to pay again through the link. Confirm the money in the outside service, then open Invoices and use Record Payment with the amount, date, and offline method. This records the receipt and Finance transaction; it does not pull money from the guest.

If payment fails, confirm Stripe settings, invoice status, payment method availability, guest billing details, and whether the invoice amount is valid.

Pre-arrival forms and review forms are public token links. Guests do not need HostMoat accounts.

For pre-arrival forms, guests complete required fields, optional fields, uploads if present, and submit. HostMoat links the response to the booking when possible. Guests receive a confirmation and edit link. Pro includes creating and sending forms, including starting a response from the property's standing general-form link. Grandfathered subscriptions retain their recorded access. An already-issued response link remains usable until its bounded expiry after access ends, so a guest can finish an obligation the host already sent.

For review forms, guests answer rating and feedback questions after their stay. Every submitted response receives the same thank-you message and optional public-review links configured by the host, regardless of rating.

If a guest cannot submit a form, check required fields, file upload size/type, token validity, browser issues, and whether the form is still active.

Keep forms short. The longer the form, the lower the completion rate. Ask only for data you actually use.

Owners and managers can invite team members when the account and feature access allow it. The invited person receives an /invite/token link.

If the invitee is already signed in, the invitation can attach the property to that account. If not signed in, the page directs them through authentication before acceptance.

After acceptance, the new member sees the shared property based on their role. Viewer roles cannot edit. Manager or owner-like roles can edit according to permissions.

If an invitation fails, check whether the token expired, the email matches the intended user, the invite was already accepted, or the property/member limit was reached.

Admin Home is an action queue, not a vanity dashboard. It highlights failed emails and webhooks, stale feeds, recent application errors, past-due subscriptions, expiring trials, and suspended accounts. Select an item to open the relevant admin section.

Accounts contains Users, Properties, Activation, Bulk Actions, and Archived. Users can promote administrators, suspend or restore sign-in, archive accounts, and inspect a read-only account view. Suspension creates an Auth ban but leaves property automation unchanged.

Archiving is the reversible cleanup action for an entire account. It blocks sign-in, silences the account's owned properties, and removes both the account and those properties from the normal Users, Properties, Activation, and Bulk Actions views. The Archived tab keeps them available for review and restoration. Restoration returns each property to its captured pre-archive settings; missed one-time emails are not sent later. Cancel an active Stripe-managed subscription before archiving. Administrators, the built-in demo, and your own account cannot be archived.

Activation milestones are independent signals rather than a sequential funnel. Property and booking milestones include properties available through team membership. Profile trials, Stripe subscriptions, and complimentary access are reported separately.

Bulk Actions supports CSV export, profile-based Pro trials, and suspension/restore. Review the selected count and confirmation prompt carefully.

Billing reads recurring prices and subscription states directly from Stripe. MRR is normalized from live Stripe prices, and 30-day collections come from paid invoices. If Stripe cannot be verified, the page shows Unavailable instead of a database estimate.

Complimentary access is a manual entitlement and never counts as revenue. Choose an existing account, plan, duration, and reason. Stripe-managed access cannot be overwritten here. Grants and revocations are written through the protected admin action and recorded in the Audit Log.

Operations contains Health, Activity, Email, Webhooks, Traffic, and Audit Log tabs. Counts distinguish the full matching dataset from the latest 200 loaded rows.

Health uses Verified, Observed, Degraded, Unavailable, and Unknown states. Observed means there is recent evidence; it does not claim synthetic uptime. Email and webhook failures should be investigated from their dedicated tabs.

Audit Log is append-only and records sensitive account, entitlement, platform setting, and changelog mutations. Inspect before/after state when reviewing an administrative change.

Configuration contains Platform and Watchtower AI. Platform settings have explicit save buttons for announcements, maintenance mode, trial rules, and the team limit. Maintenance mode blocks signed-in non-admin dashboards while keeping public booking and guest pages online.

Airbnb price sync intentionally remains gated to properties the current admin owns or manages. Site-admin status does not bypass this boundary. If no eligible property appears, use the correct owner/manager account rather than broadening permissions.

Email sender identities are deployment-managed and shown read-only. Changelog creates public product updates; use unpublished entries while drafting and publish only when ready.

Promo Codes, Feature Flags, Support Tickets, and manual Abuse Flags are hidden because they are not connected to a complete production workflow.

Open Help & Support at the bottom of the sidebar, under Account. The page remains available during the Pro trial, on a paid Pro account, and for existing legacy accounts. It is the same place to start whether the question is billing, a bug, or how a feature works.

Search the help articles first. The search box matches article titles, summaries, and full text, so a phrase like "ical" or "invoice" usually lands on the right article faster than writing an email.

If the articles do not cover it, use the Email Support button. HostMoat prefills the message with your account email, the active property, your plan, the page you were on before opening Help, and your browser. That context is what usually decides whether a question takes one reply or four, so leave it in place.

Add the specifics the prefill cannot know: what you expected to happen, what happened instead, and roughly when. Screenshots help. If the issue involves a specific booking, guest, or invoice, name it.

The Email Support button opens whatever mail app your device is configured to use. If nothing happens when you press it, your device has no mail app registered. Use the Copy address button next to it and send the message from webmail instead.

Support runs over email and typically responds within one business day. There is no live chat and no phone line.

First confirm the active property. Many "missing booking" issues are simply the wrong property selected in the sidebar.

Open Settings and verify the platform iCal feed exists, is enabled, and uses a public HTTP or HTTPS iCal export URL. Local/private addresses, password-bearing URLs, and ordinary listing or dashboard pages are not valid feeds. Then open Calendar and click Sync iCal.

Check Bookings -> All Bookings filters. A booking may be hidden by source, status, search text, or date range.

Check Cancellations if the booking disappeared from a platform feed. A removed iCal event may have been interpreted as cancelled.

If the booking exists but has incomplete revenue or guest data, set up Email Import and forward the platform confirmation email. iCal alone may not include the missing fields.

If external platforms do not show HostMoat blocks or direct bookings, confirm HostMoat's export URL was pasted into those platforms and that the platforms have refreshed their calendars. External refresh timing is controlled partly by the platform.

Start with the booking record. Confirm guest email is present and spelled correctly. Automated emails cannot send to a blank or wrong address.

Check Auto-Email template status, timing, and merge fields. A disabled template or broken merge field can prevent a useful email from going out.

Check Admin Email if you have admin access. Look for delivery status, errors, bounces, and recent activity.

For pre-arrival forms, review Pre-Arrival Forms -> Responses. The form may be sent, viewed, in progress, completed, expired, or unassigned.

For guest portal, guidebook, invoice, contract, or review links, copy a fresh link from the relevant booking or page and test it in an incognito browser. If the link works for you, ask the guest to try another browser or check whether their email client broke the URL.

Avoid sending multiple different links for the same task. Use the durable edit link or portal link when possible.

Confirm Stripe is connected in Settings and that both Card payments and Payouts show enabled. Without completed Stripe onboarding, online invoice, direct booking, and upsell payments cannot process.

Check which payment methods are enabled for the property. US connected accounts may offer cards and US ACH. Non-US connected accounts currently offer cards only; the bank account entered during onboarding is the host's payout destination and is not a guest payment option.

Open the invoice, booking site, contract, or upsell request that triggered payment. Confirm amount due is greater than zero, status is payable, guest email exists, and the invoice is not voided or already paid.

For contract auto-invoicing, inspect the sent contract and the options chosen in the Send Contract flow. Confirm the deposit amount, balance amount, balance due date, and scheduled-send setting. This option does not come from the reusable template.

If Stripe says payment succeeded but HostMoat did not update, check Admin Webhooks if you have admin access. A webhook delivery problem can delay status updates.

For offline payments, do not use Stripe. Open the invoice and use Mark Paid with the correct method.

Open Watchtower AI and inspect What Watchtower Knows. Most weak drafts come from missing or outdated source content.

Update Property Profile first. Confirm the description, amenities, rooms, capacity, Wi-Fi, parking, standard check-in and checkout times, contacts, and house rules.

Then update Guidebook custom topics and notes for appliance instructions, local recommendations, arrival details, emergency context, and policy details. Make sure the relevant guidebook sections are visible. Review Booking Site presentation and visibility separately.

Add owner notes for policies that do not belong in the public guidebook, such as when to approve late checkout, what to say about discounts, or when to escalate to the owner.

Use Try a sample question after every major change. Test the exact questions guests ask most often.

If using a custom prompt, simplify it. Mandatory privacy, untrusted-input, availability, and quote safeguards still wrap custom instructions. Watchtower should say it will check with the host when the answer is not documented.

For date or price errors, confirm the guest's message came from a structured inquiry with check-in and checkout metadata. Only that path can produce a verified availability result, the applicable date-specific minimum, and a canonical stay quote. General messages should direct the guest to the live booking calendar.

If Built-in AI reports that the provider returned an empty response, no draft was created or sent. Retry once. If it repeats, contact support with the time of the attempt so the built-in model connection can be checked.

For public-chat errors, confirm the property is on Pro, Watchtower is enabled with Built-in AI, and Public Chat is enabled. Public chat intentionally cannot use BYO providers.

Open Booking Site -> Setup and confirm the site is enabled. If disabled, public URLs should not behave like a live booking site.

Confirm the slug is valid, available, and saved. A slug becomes the hostmoat.com subdomain path guests use.

For custom domains, confirm the DNS CNAME points to the expected HostMoat target. DNS changes can take minutes or hours depending on provider and cache.

Click Provision Domain after DNS is in place, then Check Status. Do not advertise the custom domain until verification and SSL are ready.

Open Booking Site -> Preview to confirm content. If Preview works but the domain does not, the issue is likely DNS or provisioning. If Preview is empty or wrong, check Booking Site setup/layout and pricing, then follow its synced-content links to the relevant Property Profile details, amenities, rooms, photos, or rules.

If guests can see the site but cannot book dates, check Calendar availability, Pricing rules, minimum stay, Stripe setup, booking mode, and required house-rule acknowledgements.