FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

This is where you don’t have any legislative requirements to be audited each year, and you don’t have to produce 3-Way or Trial Balance reports.     However, all the accounting requirements are still valid, you are looking after other people's money, so every cent needs to be accounted for on a daily or monthly basis. We like to call this ‘Compliance Accounting’, where the property manager is committed to ensuring that all funds are correctly accounted for. 

So no matter whether you run a Trust or a Host account, BookingTrust is the only accounting software that directly interfaces to your Property Management Systems (PMS) and is specifically designed for only short term accommodation providers. 

This is a bank account that is used exclusively for money received or held by a real estate agent for or on behalf of another person in relation to a real estate transaction and is not to be used to hold monies for any other purpose. In some states of Australia and the US, this is legislated and yearly audits are conducted to ensure that every Property Manager adheres to  correct accounting practises. The software used for these businesses must be compliant in order to pass the year audit. (Yes, BookingTrust is compliant).

A trust account must be reconciled to the bank account and every cent accounted for and logged. A trial balance is required, as well a 3-way balance report at the end of each month. There is complete onus on the property manager to ensure that every cent is accounted for and at the end of each month, the owners are paid and the management fees transferred to the ‘Trading account’. There is no business operating money in the Trust account, it is only owner money. Each owner effectively has their own account and all the accounts are reconciled against the daily bank account total. 

Yes, either a Trust or a Host account is required to use our software. 

Yes, you can just use the Software. In this case you will still have to do all your own data entry, bank reconciliations, etc.

PMS stands for Property Management Systems, such as NEwBook, Guesty, Hostify, YesBookit, 365 Villas, Uplisting, Hostaway, MrVr and more. 

Familiarity with Trust Accounting regulations is important if you're in a regulated state, otherwise basic property accounting is a big advantage. We have qualified property accountants to help out if you're still starting out and need to be shown the ropes.

If you are a current client you can either use our Technical Assistance feature to get in touch with your query, you can email support, use our direct chat box or the direct phone number provided by our staff.