Tourism and accommodation
Alpine Accounts provides bookkeeping and management accounts for tourism operators, short stay hosts and accommodation businesses across Hervey Bay, Toogoom, Burrum Heads and the wider Fraser Coast. This is a deeply seasonal economy built around whale season and school holidays, so the two problems that matter are reconciling booking platform payouts that arrive net of commission, and forecasting across a year where a good month and a bad month can differ by a factor of five.
Platform payouts never match the booking
A booking worth four hundred dollars might arrive as three hundred and forty, days or weeks later, net of platform commission, after a partial refund, batched with three other stays. Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz all settle differently and none of them pay what the guest paid.
Recorded properly, gross booking revenue, platform commission, cleaning fees and refunds each sit in their own place and reconcile to the deposit. That is what makes revenue per night and revenue per property real numbers rather than estimates.
Seasonality is the whole business model
Whale season fills the bay and the town empties again afterwards. An operator who budgets on an average month will be caught out twice every year, once by a quiet June and once by a September they were not staffed for.
A forecast built on your actual season tells you in autumn what winter looks like, which is while you can still act on it. For operators carrying debt on a property, that lead time is the difference between managing a quiet period and scrambling through one.
Per property, not per portfolio
Owners with more than one property routinely find that one is subsidising another. Tracking revenue, cleaning, maintenance, rates, insurance and finance per property is what makes that visible, and what tells you honestly what each one returns.
Common questions
Can you reconcile Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz payouts?
Yes. Each platform is reconciled separately so commission and refunds are recorded as costs rather than disappearing into a net figure. Without that, your revenue is understated and your margin is unknowable.
I have several properties. Can I see each one separately?
Yes. Each property is set up as its own cost centre, so income and all its direct costs, including finance and maintenance, report separately as well as rolling up to a total.
Is short stay income treated differently to long term rent?
The record keeping differs quite a bit, because short stay involves platform fees, per stay cleaning and much higher transaction volume. We set the structure up so both are captured correctly. How that income is ultimately treated for tax is a question for your registered agent.