Co-hosts: how do you build monthly owner statements?

Question

For those of you co-hosting or managing a handful of STRs for other owners, I'd love to hear how you handle monthly owner statements.

A few things I'm curious about:

• Do you start from the platform payout report, your PMS, or the bank deposits?
• How do you handle stays that cross month-end, and refunds or adjustments that land after the statement goes out?
• If you use the split payout, how do you show your fee and any extra charges (cleaning, supplies) so the owner can tie it to their deposit?
• Roughly how long does it take you per owner each month?

Do you start from the platform payout report, your PMS, or the bank deposits?

How do you handle stays that cross month-end, and refunds or adjustments that land after the statement goes out?

If you use the split payout, how do you show your fee and any extra charges (cleaning, supplies) so the owner can tie it to their deposit?

Roughly how long does it take you per owner each month?

Spreadsheet setups, software, whatever works. What's the part that still eats the most time?

Divin Kanyama · Answer

@Zac Thompson I’d build the statement from PMS or reservation data, then reconcile platform payouts to bank deposits. Pick a consistent month-end approach—cash received or revenue by stay dates—and explain any timing differences.

For split payouts, show booking revenue, your fee and calculation basis, cleaning and supplies, and who received each amount. Keep owner-paid expenses separate to avoid double charging. Label late refunds as prior-period adjustments linked to the original booking, unless a corrected statement is needed.

For a small portfolio, I’d start with a reusable spreadsheet and reservation IDs linking each transaction. Track prep time separately from resolving unmatched payouts and missing receipts—that’ll give you a realistic per-owner estimate and show where automation could help.

Matthew Tregoning · Answer

For the tool you’re building, I’d want a re-import check: uploading the same payout file twice shouldn’t duplicate reservations or charges. Then show a short “what changed since last import” list. That’s the kind of small detail I’d test before trusting the monthly workflow.

Zac Thompson · Answer

Thanks Matthew, both of those are on point. Re-uploading the same file now adds nothing, and a corrected amount updates the existing line instead of adding a second one. Each import also lists what was added, changed or unchanged. If you ever want to try it on a real month, DM me.

Zac Thompson · Answer

Thanks Daniel, Andrew and Lee. Andrew, the point that checking takes longer than building the statement is useful, and so is paying stays in the month the money arrives.

Lee, fair question. I'm not managing owners myself. I'm building a tool for the statement step, so I'm trying to learn how people actually do it before I assume anything. Your flag list matches what I've been hearing.

Daniel, when a payout doesn't match, what's usually behind it, a fee change, a resolution payment, or something else?

Lee Futcher · Answer

Andrew’s point is the one I’d build around: the statement isn’t the slow part, the checking is.

What I’d do is flip the check. Instead of reviewing every statement, set up a few rules that flag only the ones that need eyes:

• Payout doesn’t match the reservation total
• A refund or adjustment landed after the close date
• A stay crosses month end
• An owner charge is over a set amount

Payout doesn’t match the reservation total

A refund or adjustment landed after the close date

A stay crosses month end

An owner charge is over a set amount

Everything that passes goes out. Everything flagged gets the 5-minute look. Most months that’s a handful of owners, not all 50.

Zac, how many owners are you doing this for right now? Under 10, a good spreadsheet with those flags is plenty.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

Im a property manager, and offer both limited and full service options in Florida, so not quite a co-host. We use Streamline as our PMS and we provide the generated PMS monthly statement (after we check each one manually, unfortunately.). To answer your questions:

• We use PMS generated payout statement only.
• For stays that cross months we pay in the month the money was received. So if a stay was Oct 25-Nov 15 and we received the payout Oct 26 we would pay the owner in full in Oct. However, if the stay was Oct 30-Nov 15 and we did not receive the funds until November 2nd, we would pay them out in November. Also Airbnb breaks up payments on longer stays (i.e. over a month), so we give the owner the chunks as they come in from Airbnb, in the month they come in.
• The statement we send starts with top line revenue, then backs out management fee, then has a supplemental income section (i.e. pet fees), then has an owner charges portions where things like maintenance and replacement items go.
• The PMS generates the reports in less than 5 mins when prompted for over 50 properties but we spend 5-10 minutes average (some take less than a minute some take some time for investigating potential issues). Probably about 4 hours average for 50 or so properties.

We use PMS generated payout statement only.

For stays that cross months we pay in the month the money was received. So if a stay was Oct 25-Nov 15 and we received the payout Oct 26 we would pay the owner in full in Oct. However, if the stay was Oct 30-Nov 15 and we did not receive the funds until November 2nd, we would pay them out in November. Also Airbnb breaks up payments on longer stays (i.e. over a month), so we give the owner the chunks as they come in from Airbnb, in the month they come in.

The statement we send starts with top line revenue, then backs out management fee, then has a supplemental income section (i.e. pet fees), then has an owner charges portions where things like maintenance and replacement items go.

The PMS generates the reports in less than 5 mins when prompted for over 50 properties but we spend 5-10 minutes average (some take less than a minute some take some time for investigating potential issues). Probably about 4 hours average for 50 or so properties.

So to answer your question the manual checking of the statements is what takes the longest. On average we only catch 1-2 mistakes on the statements but that is enough not to have complete faith in any software and have to have a manual check in place.

Daniel Jung · Answer

We start from the platform payout report and use it as the source of truth, then tie each line back to the reservation in the PMS so the owner can match guest, dates, and payout without guessing. For a stay that crosses month end, we split it by night, so each month only shows the nights that fell in that month, and we note the rest will appear next month. Refunds or adjustments that land later go on the next statement as their own line with a short note, never quietly changed on a statement already sent. Cleaning and supplies are listed separately with dates, and our fee is its own line, so the total ties to the deposit. The slow part is always chasing mismatched payouts, so a set close date each month helps.

Co-hosts: how do you build monthly owner statements?

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