When you record a stay, you write down what you expect the platform to pay you. The platform then sends you a file saying what it actually paid. The Payouts screen lines the two up, stay by stay, and tells you where they don't agree. It is only useful if you rent through Airbnb or Vrbo.
The year selector here means the year the money was paid, not the year of the stay. A payout that landed in January belongs to January's year, even when the booking feels like part of the old season.
- Vrbo: Reservation manager → Financial reporting → Payment history.
- Airbnb: your reservations page has a Download CSV link.
Menus change, so if you can't find it, search your platform's help for "payment history." Airbnb's file only says what you earned, not when it was paid or how the fees broke down. Rentalist compares the total and tells you so, rather than filling in the rest with guesses.
Rentalist never talks to the platform. You download the file; Rentalist reads it.
If two or more of your houses are on the same Airbnb or Vrbo account, one payout file covers all of them. Rentalist files each line under its own house: the house where it finds the stay, by confirmation code or by dates and amount. For a line it can't tie to a stay, it asks which house that line's listing is, once per listing, and remembers the house you name for the next file.
Before anything is saved, the preview shows the house for every line, and you can move a line to another house or leave it out. To change or forget a listing answer, go to Settings → Platforms → Listings in your payout files. If a line is already filed under the wrong house, open that house's Payouts screen, find the line in the "Not tied to a stay" list, and use its "Move to another house…" control. No re-import is needed.
For Airbnb and Vrbo, where the platform also handles your occupancy tax, expected is the payout figure you typed on the booking. Nothing is subtracted from it again, because that number was already what you expected to land in your bank.
For a platform that leaves the occupancy tax to you, it's your booking total minus the fees the file shows. If the file doesn't break the fees out, Rentalist falls back to the commission percentage in your settings and labels the result an estimate. If you've recorded a Rate history for that platform on Settings → Platforms, the estimate uses the rate that applied when the guest arrived.
When a payout file lists what the platform kept (Vrbo's does), Rentalist notes it on the stay once the line is tied to one, and the stay's row says so. It is never counted as income or recorded as an expense. Verify with your accountant how to report it.
Expand any stay and the money is spelled out step by step: what the guest was charged, what the platform took, what it remitted in tax, what that leaves, and how much, if anything, is left unexplained. Each stay carries one of these labels:
- Matched: the numbers agree. Nothing to do.
- Partly paid: money is still expected before checkout. Not a problem yet.
- Needs review: a real difference on a stay that has already ended.
- Explained: the difference is entirely accounted for by a line in the file.
- Flagged: you marked it as something to chase up.
- Not a problem: you decided it was fine.
When a payout matches one of your stays, Rentalist marks that stay's payout received automatically, dated by the payout date in the file. That happens when you import the file, and again whenever you open Payouts. A file that gives no payout date, or money that doesn't pair with the stay's payments, leaves the payout as it was, and the stay's row says why.
While a stay hasn't checked out yet, a payout that looks short is just Partly paid, because platforms often pay in installments. If you know the money is all in already, use Mark this stay complete. Rentalist then treats the gap as a real difference. Marking a stay complete changes nothing about your booking or your money. To take it back, use Still waiting on more.
Rentalist asks what happened before anything is recorded. Nothing is recorded until you pick an answer and confirm it, and each answer tells you what it will write first.
- This stay earned less than the booking says (a lower price or a discount), lowers the stay's rent and total by the difference, so the booking matches what the platform paid. You can undo it. On a stay whose occupancy tax you send in yourself, if the stay ended in an earlier year, the stay's occupancy tax stays as it is, so that year's figures may no longer match what you filed. Verify with your accountant before changing figures you have already filed. Otherwise the answer is grayed out with its reason, and a button opens the booking so you can lower the rent there. It's unavailable on a cancelled stay.
- The platform kept something back (a charge or a deduction), adds an expense on the date you choose, under the tax deduction category you pick. Your booking is left alone. A commission or fee the platform kept from its payout is never an expense. On a stay whose platform sends in all the occupancy tax, the answer for it is "This stay earned less than the booking says."
- Something else, or not this stay's money: flags it as an open item. No money changes anywhere.
- It isn't a problem: dismisses it. No money changes anywhere.
- I don't know: nothing is recorded and the stay isn't flagged. It closes the question for now.
A 1099-K form from a platform may report your stays before the commission it kept, so it can show more than your records. Verify with your accountant how to report a commission or fee a platform kept.
Extra money is a different question, so it gets a different one. Rentalist asks what the money was, because the answer decides whether it's income, a refund of something you already deducted, or nothing to do with this stay at all. Nothing is recorded until you pick an answer and confirm it, every answer tells you what it will write in dollars before it writes it, and every answer can be undone.
- Extra rent for this stay: raises what this stay earned by that amount, and records the money as received on the day the platform paid it. Your occupancy tax and the platform's commission aren't touched.
- The platform gave money back (a commission refunded or waived), records a credit against a tax deduction category you pick, so what you deduct goes down by that much. Your booking isn't changed at all. It's open only on a stay that carries a commission expense. Where the platform sends in all the occupancy tax, money it handed back is part of what the stay paid you: choose Extra rent for this stay.
- A damage or incident payment: recorded on the booking but outside the rent. It counts as income in the year it arrived, and it carries no occupancy tax. It also counts in your revenue on the Dashboard, Analytics and Budget vs. Actuals.
- Something else, or not this stay's money: nothing is recorded. The difference stays on your list, and on your Dashboard, until you close it.
- I don't know: nothing is recorded and the stay isn't flagged. Open the stay again to answer later.
There is one answer per stay. Once you've recorded one, the panel is replaced by a line saying what was recorded, with Undo beside it. Undo puts everything back and never touches anything you recorded yourself. If you want to record it a different way, undo first.
"Extra rent" isn't always offered. On a stay whose occupancy tax you remit yourself, that answer is grayed out with its reason showing: the tax is worked out from the rent, and this screen must never change a tax figure you may already have collected from a guest and sent to the state. There's a button to open the booking and do it there. It's also unavailable on a cancelled stay.
A damage line in a payout file isn't rent, so it never counts toward the difference. It shows in the line list marked not counted, and it gets its own question, on any stay, including one reading Matched. Record it and the money lands on the booking as damage or incident money: income in the year it arrived, no occupancy tax on it, and the rent left alone. On your tax summary it appears on its own line, "Damage or incident payments received."
The date is yours to give, and it's required. Where the file states when that money was paid, the box opens already filled in with it. Where the file doesn't say, the box opens empty, tells you the file didn't say, and Record it stays grayed out until you enter the day it arrived. Rentalist won't put a date on money for you.
Some payout lines don't belong to a booking at all: a referral bonus, a promotion credit, a settlement. They sit on the "Not tied to a stay" tab. If one of them was income, press This was income and give it the day the money arrived. The date is what the button waits on; an undated one is counted in no year, and every report says so until you fix it. There's also a "What was it?" box to label the row, which you can leave empty.
Ticked money shows on your Tax Summary, its printed report and the Excel workbook, on its own line headed "Additional platform payments," deliberately kept out of the rental income figure above it. Platforms often report this kind of payment separately from your bookings, and where it belongs is a question for your preparer. Press Not income to take it back off.
You can import and match an old payout file without unlocking anything. Rentalist marks a payout received, or notes a commission the file lists, on its own only in a year that is still open. In a closed year, the stay's row on the Payouts screen offers a button instead. When you press that button, or change an expense or a booking's money in a closed year, Rentalist asks before it unlocks that year, and locks it again as soon as you leave the screen. Last year stays open through April 15. The year picker reaches back as far as you have payout files, and reading a past year never asks you to unlock it.
Importing the same file twice duplicates nothing and undoes nothing you decided. Overlapping files are normal: Rentalist recognizes the lines it already has, refreshes the platform's figures, and keeps every match, note and decision you made.
- Never talks to the platform. You download the file; Rentalist reads it.
- Never changes a booking without showing you the before and after first, except when a payout matches a stay: then it marks that payout received (and sets it back if a later file no longer matches) and notes on the stay the commission the file lists.
- Never invents a number. When a figure is Rentalist's own estimate rather than something your file stated, it says so, every place that figure appears.
- Never treats "we don't know" as $0.00.
- Never files or pays anything on your behalf.