Airbnb & Quickbooks / Accounting Software

[Michael2496]

Hi Guys,

New host with just one property but another on the way beginning 2019.

Just wondering how you setup your Quickbooks / Accounting software (I use Quickbooks)?

I've setup Quickbooks Classes so that I can track the various expenses related to 'property a' or 'property b' - but I'm a little stuck as to how to process the whole Airbnb side of things.

Should I:
1) Setup Airbnb as a 'bank account' under my Chart of Accounts. Process the gross amount / Enter journal entries for service fee's as an expense and then do a 'bank transfer' from the "airbnb bank account" to my actual bank account for the amount paid out?
or
2) Have Airbnb setup as a supplier and enter the service fee invoices / bills. Then use the 'make deposits' for the payouts made by Airbnb as 'sales income'?
or
3) Something else entirely?

Thanks in advance...

[Michael2496]

or 4) Setup Airbnb as a customer and bill them for the payouts of the various reservations?

[Peter-and-Alison0]

I think making them as a customer, makes sense. Then any bookings become sales, under the income category of rental income.  You'll also have to depreciate your property assets, and any expenses would be labeled against that as a cost of doing business, or even more specific like utilities, repairs, etc.

That's how I'm doing it and it seems to make sense.

[Karol22]

For each reservation, we create an invoice. For each invoice, we set the Guest as the customer and then we set "Airbnb Guests" as the parent customer of each. This helps us keep track of each guest while allowing us to keep our customer list organized in QuickBooks. For each listing, we create a Class Category and apply it to each invoice line item, which helps us create the correct P&L reports for each listing. We put the Airbnb Service Fee as a negative line item in each invoice so that the total of the invoice matches the total of the reservation payout.

I used to do this manually. It's a lot of work. Several months ago I automated all of this with Bnbtally: https://www.bnbtally.com/airbnb/quickbooks/integration

Bnbtally integrates Airbnb directly with QuickBooks. Now everything is automatic, reconciliation is automatic and everything matches perfectly. My accountant set it all up. If you'd like a reference to my accountant feel free to reach out to me directly. She's awesome!

[Tara603]

How did you automate putting the guests under the parent of Airbnb Guest?

We just got Bnbtally so trying to get it all figured out now! If I can't figure it out, may be interested in reaching out to your accountant if the offer is still on the table! 🙂

[Nancy27]

HI Karol,

Please give me the contact info for your accountant.

Best, Nancy

[Sorty0]

Hi. I would love your accountant info. I can be reached at 954-245-2333

[Jennifer3247]

Hi Karol! Would you mind sharing with me your accountant's information? I could really use the help in getting quickbooks set up! I didn't see a way to reach you directly aside from replying to this thread.

[Timothy176]

Are you making that much money? I need tips! 

[Michael2496]

haha, doesnt have to do with how much money I'm making - I just want to have the accounting software setup/organised properly from the get go.

[Ellen378]

so if you set them up as customers, when you get a payout do you post as receive payments?

[Michael2496 · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, the reports that AirBnb offers are rather pitiful. Having said that, below please find my structure and process for doing this via QB (Quickboooks).

My structure

1) Airbnb 'Bank Account' in COA (This is where I post money [full amount] received by Airbnb on my behalf. Its not a real 'bank account' - just a holding account since they hold the money for me until they payout).
2) My bank account (This is where I transfer money from Airbnb 'bank account'. This is a real bank account and where I receive my payouts after Airbnb has taken their share) 
3) Airbnb 'supplier' (This is where I enter the Airbnb invoices for their comms. These invoices/bills get paid from the "Airbnb bank account" (1) above before transferring to (2) above).
4) Airbnb 'customer' (This is where I enter my invoices to the end customer/person im hosting. You may choose to make a new customer per person you host, but for simplicity, I've put it all under one). Money received from the customer (Airbnb processes the payment) goes to pay this invoice and is deposited in Airbnb "bank account" (1) above.

My process

Might not make sense to you, its notes I have so I remember what to do each month since Airbnb's reports make this whole process a nightmare.

Make Airbnb (supplier) bills for Sales of Period
====================================
Host > Reservations
1) Filter for ALL and the statement period
> Print invoices for that month
> Add to QB
> Pay from "Airbnb"

Reconcile
========
1) Get Statement/Transaction History > *Completed Payouts*
https://www.airbnb.com/users/transaction_history
All Payout Methods + All Listings + Select Period > Download CSV

2) With CSV:
- Add total field at the end
- Delete Reference Field
- Resize Listing field to overlap Details field
- Add Title "Transaction History "+ Y-m
- Bold Title Fields
- Currency the amount fields
- Resize Fields

3) Print CSV

4) Add QB Customer Invoices

5) Reconcile "Airbnb"

Another thing that makes this whole thing a nightmare is the fact that Airbnb issues multiple invoices/bills for a single reservation when that reservation has had extensions. That means you get two invoices from Airbnb for example, difference invoice numbers, both for the same amount. So for example, if "John" stays at your place for 1 day and Airbnb takes "10$" as comms - they issue an invoice "123" for 10$.
If John decides to extend his stay for another day, instead of Airbnb simply giving you a new invoice "124" for an extra 10$ - they give you a new invoice "124" for the original 10$ plus the new 10$. They also revise invoice 123 to have the new 10$.
This means you now have invoice 123 for 20$ and invoice 124 for 20$
Not only is this entirely wrong (and illegal in my eyes) - but totally confusing. They only take 20$, so why do you now have two bills for 20$ each?
Anyway, what I end up doing is printing the latest one (in this case, 124) and only inputting that one.

[Jason114]

I totally agree with the fact that Airbnb reports are definitely not meant for actual accounting (at least not easy to import into Quickbooks). So I'm sharing here my two cents on how I process my Airbnb reservations into Quickbooks...

INVOICES: For every reservation, we create an invoice in Quickbooks. We create a new customer for the Guest, saving their first name, last name and phone number. We set the Guest as the customer of the invoice, and then we set Airbnb as the parent customer of the Guest to properly separate customers from other platforms. Within the invoice, we set the following Product/Service line items...
- Accommodation Fare
- Cleaning Fee
- Airbnb Host Service Fee
- Any Custom Taxes

We find it very useful for our reports to separate out the Accommodation Fare, as this is the most important metric to track the overall business performance of the property, while Cleaning Fees give us an idea of how much we can budget for our cleaning costs.

CLASSES: Just like you, we also use classes so that we can generate profit & loss reports for each property. We set the classes during invoice creation.

PAYMENT CLEARING ACCOUNT: Similar to you, we use a current asset account of type Bank Account (Checking) within Quickbooks chart of accounts and we call it "Airbnb Payment Clearing Account". When Airbnb posts the payout, we pay our invoices from this account. Then, when the Airbnb payout hits our bank account, we transfer the payout back to the Airbnb Payment Clearing Account. We do this not only because it is the most precise, but because it's what makes reconciliation completely automatic in our Airbnb integration software for QuickBooks.

FINAL NOTE: We find the above method to be the most precise way to maintain bookkeeping. It's a lot of work to do this process manually, so we use a QuickBooks plugin (check out BNBTALLY in the QuickBooks App Store) which automatically processes our Airbnb reservations into QuickBooks using the exact rules specified above. Either way, they also provide plenty of tutorials and templates for free, which is very useful for setting up QuickBooks regardless of whether you use the plugin or not.

Cheers!

[Karol22]

Definitely check out Bnbtally: https://www.bnbtally.com/airbnb/quickbooks/integration

I got it because it has great reviews. It integrates beautifully with QuickBooks, I've been using it for several months now and every reservation is imported and reconciled without flaw. I also use class tracking for each of my listings and they have templates I used to get my QuickBooks chart of accounts set up.

I own one Airbnb property and then I manage three other properties nearby for others. I manage rents in trust (trust accounting), where I collect the money from Airbnb and then pay out to the other owners minus my commissions at a later date once per month. It's nice to have a system that automatically calculates all the income perfectly.

I set my guests as the customer and create an invoice for each reservation. For the properties I manage, I set the owners as the customers for each invoice and split out the commissions.

[Christine2476]

thanks for the great info.  My computer crashed so I'm starting my quickbooks over, but this time I'm hiring an accountant to set it up.  I'll keep you posted how it went with the accounts.