The right booking system for apartments is the one that fits how your guests find you and what has to happen once they book. Most hosts with one to five flats start from two or three portal calendars and a spreadsheet, so the real question is what to add to that. Five questions settle it before the price list does.
They are: where your guests come from, what must happen the day a guest books, what the law asks of you, what the system costs over a year including portal commission, and what happens to your data if you leave.
See how huttoro runs calendar, bookings, payments and invoices from one account
Where your guests come from decides what you need
Guests reach you through a portal, through e-mail and messages, or through your own website. Most hosts use all three. What differs is who answers the guest and how much of each booking goes to someone else.
| What you need | Portal only | Spreadsheet and e-mail | Own website with a system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guests can book without waiting for your reply | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Portal commission on each booking | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Invoice and deposit receipt produced for you | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| One calendar across several portals, kept in sync for you | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
Portals bring guests you would not reach otherwise, and there is no reason to drop them. The point is that guests who already know you can book directly. A good system does both: it takes bookings from your own site and exchanges calendars with the portals, so a night is not sold twice. How that exchange works is covered in how to sync Airbnb and Booking.com calendars.
What must happen the day a guest books
A booking is not finished when the guest picks the dates. It is finished when the guest has a confirmation, knows how much to pay and where, and you know the money arrived. Ask every system how much of that it does by itself.
The guest should see the full price before sending the request. Afterwards the guest needs the account number, a payment reference, the deposit amount and the due date. A booking that stays unpaid should release the dates after a while, otherwise someone who changed their mind blocks the calendar.
What the law asks of you, one line each
The rules differ by country and by city, so treat this as a list of questions to put to a system, not as legal advice.
- Guest registration: most countries ask hosts to record who stayed, and huttoro does not file registrations for you.
- Local tourist taxes: many cities charge a per-night tax, and huttoro can add it to the invoice as its own line, built around Czech rules.
- Invoices: a paid stay needs a proper document, and huttoro issues a proforma, a deposit receipt and a final invoice under Czech VAT rules.
If your flats are outside Czechia, check the invoice part against your own country before you rely on it.
What it costs over a year, portal commission included
Do not compare the monthly fee alone. Add up what leaves in a year: the system fee, the portal commission and any payment fees. Commission scales with your turnover, so the better the year, the more of it you hand over.
Count it from your own figures: take the portal statements for the last twelve months and add up the commission lines. That number is what the portals charged you for those stays.
huttoro charges a flat monthly price per property that follows the number of units: one unit, two to five, six to ten, and eleven or more by e-mail. You pay once the first booking is confirmed or your website is published, whichever comes first. The amounts are not final yet, and the one fixed promise is that whoever starts now keeps the price they start on.
Card payments go to your own Stripe account, and Stripe's fee is between you and Stripe. How to get more guests to book directly is the subject of direct bookings for your apartments.
What happens to your data if you leave
Ask about the exit before you buy. Your invoices, calendar and guest records are yours, and you should be able to take them out in a readable form.
In huttoro you can download all issued invoices for a period as one ZIP, with the PDFs and a CSV register inside. Your calendar is also published as an iCal link, so any other system that reads iCal can take it over. Ask every system you consider the same two questions: what can I download, and in what format.
Summary
- Portals bring guests, your own website avoids portal commission, a spreadsheet costs nothing but all the work is yours.
- On the day of booking the system should show the price, send payment details and match the payment.
- Check guest registration, local tourist taxes and invoices against the rules where your flats are.
- Compare cost over a year, with portal commission added.
- Ask what you can take with you before you start.
What to do now
- Add up the commission you paid portals over the last twelve months.
- Write down the five questions from this post and put them to each system you consider.
- Make a test booking as a guest before you offer the form to real guests.
