Airbnb co-host features allow hosts to split guest funds directly within the platform. While this is helpful for task management, it creates financial discrepancies in Guesty because Airbnb does not share the specific payout configuration with third-party software.
This article explains how shared payouts impact your financial data and how to manually reconcile these reservations to ensure accurate reporting across your account.
Learn more from Airbnb about how co-host payouts work and co-host payout exceptions.
Understanding the impact of shared payouts
When you use the Airbnb co-host payout feature, Airbnb splits the funds before they reach your account. You might choose to send a co-host a fixed amount, a percentage, the cleaning fee, or a combination of these.
Guesty receives the full guest invoice breakdown containing all line items. However, the system only records the partial payout sent to your trust account. This discrepancy leads to several issues:
Inaccurate payment status: Reservations are often marked as "Overpaid" or "Underpaid" because the total line items don't match the actual funds received.
Reporting errors: Revenue share formulas, owner revenue, and PMC commissions will be incorrect.
Data discrepancies: These errors carry over into the reservations report, owner's revenue, and Analytics.
Accounting risks: For Accounting users, the system cannot determine how to allocate funds among owners and vendors, leading to incorrect owner statements.
Important:
Don't add extra payment transactions to compensate for a co-host split. This records money that never reached your bank account and causes severe financial and legal inaccuracies.
Reconciling co-host payments
To maintain accurate financial records, you must manually align the reservation line items with the actual payout received from Airbnb.
Follow the steps below to adjust line items for an Airbnb co-hosted reservation:
Step by step:
Check the actual payout amount received in your bank account or trust account for the specific Airbnb reservation.
In Guesty, go to the guest folio section of the relevant reservation.
Compare the total of the line items with the payout you received.
Identify which line items Airbnb redirected to the co-host (for example, the "Cleaning Fee").
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Manually adjust those line items to match the funds you actually handled.
Example: If Airbnb kept the $100 cleaning fee for the co-host, edit the "Cleaning Fee" line item in Guesty to $0.
Click Save.
Once the total line items match the payout received, the reservation status will update correctly, and your revenue reports and owner statements will reflect accurate data.
Frequently asked questions
Can Guesty automate these adjustments?
Currently, Airbnb does not expose co-host payout configurations through their API. This means Guesty cannot see how the split is calculated. Manual adjustments are the only way to ensure your reporting and accounting remain accurate.
Does this affect me if I don't use Guesty Accounting?
Yes. While this is critical for Accounting users, it also impacts owner revenue, PMC commission, and all analytics tools for all Guesty users. If you don't adjust these line items, your profit and loss reports will be inaccurate.