Getting started with rentals

Follow these steps to create a bookable rental property. Set its terms on the property’s booking rule; you can leave the plugin settings at their defaults.

For worked examples, see For bed and breakfasts for shared room capacity and breakfast options, or For holiday lets for a whole property.

Before you begin

• KahunaCart 1.2.11 or later, on a store that can already take an order.
• KahunaCart Bookings 1.0.0 or later, installed and migrated. See Getting started with bookings. On the Rentals store page, choose Rentals only ($149) if you own Bookings, or Bookings + Rentals ($249). Rentals only requires a signed-in licence covering Bookings or Bookings in the cart; see purchase requirements.
• Grav 2.1.0 or later with the API plugin.
• Manage Bookings and Setup (kahunacart.bookings.manage) and kahunacart.products.manage permissions.
• A scheduled worker running bin/plugin kahunacart work for receipts and rental emails. See CLI.

Install the add-on

1. 1

   Install the plugin.

   BASHCopy

   bin/gpm install kahunacart-rentals
   

2. 2

   Run the migrations to add the rental rules and rate tables.

   BASHCopy

   bin/plugin kahunacart migrate --status
   bin/plugin kahunacart migrate
   

   Running migrate a second time applies nothing.

3. 3

   Switch it on under Plugins → KahunaCart Rentals.

   You can leave the three message-timing settings at their defaults. See Settings.

Nightly stay now appears under How it is booked on any service's rule.

Create an example property

To create a working example before configuring your own property, run:

bin/plugin kahunacart-rentals seed rental

The command creates a beach house at $249 per night with an all-day schedule, summer and Christmas rates, a $140 cleaning fee and example stays. It also sets a 30% deposit, a balance deadline fourteen days before arrival and a three-step cancellation policy. Dates use the store timezone unless you provide --timezone.

Running the command again leaves existing records unchanged. Open the product page to try the example, or follow the steps below to configure it manually.

1. Create an all-day schedule

Under Bookings → Schedules → New hours, create Always open. Enable all seven days and enter 00:00 to 24:00 for each.

Give the property an all-day schedule. A resource with no applicable hours is treated as closed, so every night is unavailable. If the guest calendar is empty, check this schedule first.

Properties can share this schedule. Use date overrides for seasonal closures. See Opening hours.

2. Add the property resource

Bookings → People and places → Add somebody or something, and pick Property.

Name the property and assign the schedule. Set its local timezone if it differs from the store’s; nightly dates follow the property’s timezone.

Set How many to 1 for a whole house or to the number of interchangeable units. For four identical rooms, use 4; see For bed and breakfasts.

3. Create the rental product

Under KahunaCart → Products → Add, enter the rental name, description, picture and category. Set Type to Booking.

Set the price per night. The quote calculates the stay total from this rate and any seasonal rules or fees.

Use product options for different ways to rent the same property, such as with or without an annexe. Each option can have its own nightly price. See Products.

4. Enable nightly bookings

Open Bookings → Services, find the product marked not set up yet, and press Set it up.

Set How it is booked to Nightly stay. The service editor displays the rental fields, saved with its existing Save button.

Then, on the same screen:

• What it needs. Press Add a need, enter a customer-facing label such as Cottage, and select the property from step 2. Disable customer choice for a single property.
• How far ahead sets the booking window in days. Notice you want sets minimum notice in hours. For this example, use a 540-day booking window.

See Services for everything else on that screen.

5. Set the stay rules

Complete the stay-rules panel on the same screen.

Arriving and leaving

Check-out before check-in allows same-day changeovers. Check-out later than check-in requires a day between stays. See A stay’s rules.

Who it sleeps, and what they pay

All of that is Guests and fees.

Filling the gaps is the orphan-night rule, on out of the box. Read what it does before you turn it off.

6. Set payment terms

In the Paying part of the same panel:

• Deposit % — leave empty for full payment at checkout. To take a deposit, enter a percentage and enable KahunaCart → Settings → Commerce → Deposits and part payment. The example uses 30%. See Taking payment.
• The rest is due — days before arrival when the balance is due. The example uses 14. An empty field makes it due at local midnight on the arrival date.
• Cancelling — enter refund steps in descending notice order, for example 30 days → 100%, 14 days → 50%, 0 → 0%. Check the policy summary below the fields.

Cancellations create refund requests for you to review; they do not send refunds automatically. See Taking payment.

7. Save the property

Press Save to store both the booking and rental rules. Invalid combinations are rejected without saving partial changes.

8. Test a booking

Open the product page. Check that the date-range picker displays one or two months according to the space available.

Choose arrival and departure dates. Review the rate breakdown, extra guests, cleaning, total and payment schedule. Press Hold these dates, then use Add to cart. See The picker.

If no dates are available, use Bookings → Troubleshoot to check the reasons. Start with the schedule from step 1. See The owner’s side.

9. Add seasonal rates

Skip this step if the standard nightly price applies all year.

Use the Rates tab to add seasonal bands and weekend rates. Check their coverage in the annual timeline. See Rates and seasons, including how percentage rates are calculated.

10. Write arrival instructions

Enter arrival instructions at the bottom of the property’s stay-rules panel. Include directions, parking and access details the guest will need.

Access instructions are sent only in the arrival email. They are excluded from receipts, confirmations, calendars, the front desk and published feeds. Enter door codes here, not in public descriptions. See Messages.

11. Connect listing calendars

For each listing site, export the property’s channel link and import the site’s feed under Block time from other calendars. Both directions are required. See Channel sync for setup and refresh limitations.

Continue setup

• A stay's rules - what a night is, the calendar states, minimum stays and the gap rule.
• Rates and seasons - bands, overlaps, weekend rates and percentages.
• Taking payment - the deposit, the balance, cancelling and refunds.
• The owner's side - the admin screens, and why a night is not on offer.

Related

• Getting started with bookings - the add-on this one sits on
• Products - the name, the price, the options, the picture and the category all belong there
• Opening hours - the schedule step 1 makes, and closing for the winter
• Services - every other field on the rule the stay rules live inside
• CLI - the worker, and every other bin/plugin kahunacart command