Short-term rentals

A payout on a property#

Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com pay a host after each stay, less their fee. Each payout is recorded as a Platform payout on the property it's for, as a creator's payouts are (see Creators and authors). With Properties on, these platforms are under Short-term rentals in All platforms, and in Search platforms by name.

A rental payout has these figures:

• Gross: what the guests paid, the nightly rate and the cleaning fee together. It's rent on the property: Schedule E line 3 (or gross receipts, when the rental is on Schedule C).
• Fees: the host fee the platform kept. It's a Commissions expense on the same property, Schedule E line 8, recorded with the payout and kept in step with it.
• Deposited: what reached your bank, the gross less the fees.

Occupancy tax#

Occupancy tax (also called lodging or hotel tax) reaches the books one of two ways:

• Occupancy tax you owe: tax in the payout that you pay to the city or state yourself. It's part of the gross and the deposit, and paying it is a Taxes & licenses expense on the property (Schedule E line 16), so the two cancel out. EscBooks keeps the amount so you can see what you owe.
• Tax the platform paid: tax the platform collected and paid to the city or state itself, as Airbnb does in many places. It was never your money, so it's in neither the gross nor the deposit. EscBooks keeps it for your records.

Recording a payout#

1. On Income, click Other Income and pick Platform payout as the Type.
2. Pick Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com under Short-term rentals, and the Property.
3. Type what was Deposited and the Platform fees, or the Gross earned from the platform's report. Add any Occupancy tax you owe or Tax the platform paid.
4. Pick the date received and the account it went into, and click Record.

A deposit on your bank statement that names Airbnb, Vrbo (or HomeAway) or Booking.com is offered as a payout from that platform when you review the statement.

Importing an earnings file#

Airbnb and Vrbo each download their earnings as a CSV, with each stay paid out. EscBooks reads either one and records each stay as a payout, so you don't type them in.

1. In Airbnb, open your transaction history and download the CSV from its Gross Earnings tab. In Vrbo, download your payments report as a CSV.
2. On Properties, click Import Payouts, then Choose File. EscBooks tells which platform's file it is from its columns.
3. The first time, pick the property for each listing in the file under Pick its property. EscBooks remembers it, so the next file goes straight to the right property.
4. Check the totals: how many stays, their gross, the platform's fees, and what was paid out to you. Lines that aren't a stay paid out to you (a refund, a resolution, a cancellation, money in another currency) are listed under Not imported with why; add any that are money in or out on their own. Then click Record Payouts.

• Each stay's gross is what the platform paid you plus its fees. The cleaning fee the guest paid is in it: it's rent, not a cost. What you pay a cleaner is an expense in Cleaning and maintenance.
• Each is dated the day the platform paid it out. A payout already recorded (the same day, gross and fee on the same property) is skipped, so importing the same file twice records nothing new. Two stays alike to the cent are both kept when their confirmation codes differ.
• Imported payouts have no account yet. They're matched to their deposit when your bank statement comes in, and until then wait on Month-End among the money received and not deposited. Airbnb pays a day's stays as one transfer: on the statement, that deposit offers Already recorded: 3 Airbnb payouts, and one click matches it to all of them.

Matching payouts to bank deposits#

When you review a bank statement, a deposit that matches a payout you've already recorded (the same amount deposited, within a week, into this account or none yet) offers it under Already recorded:. Click it to match the deposit to the payout rather than record it twice. Approving the statement puts the payout into that account. See Reviewing statements.

Schedule E or Schedule C#

A short-term rental is reported on Schedule E, like a long-term one, unless the average stay is 7 days or less and you provide hotel-like services, such as daily cleaning or meals. Then it's a business on Schedule C, and its payouts are gross receipts there. You say which on the property, and EscBooks offers Schedule C only when you file as a sole proprietor. See Rental properties.

The 1099-K#

Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com each send a Form 1099-K when what they paid you in a year is above the IRS's threshold. It reports the gross, before the host fee, as EscBooks does.

• On Reports → Taxes, the Platform Payouts card lists each platform's gross for the year, to set beside its 1099-K.
• A 1099-K counts what the platform paid in the calendar year, by the day each payout went out. A stay in late December paid out in January is on next year's.