Escapia

Vorteile

Very easy to understand and cost effective. Each module has a unique ability to help hospitality business.

Nachteile

The time it takes to learn or understand the software. however the CSR team is good and always supportive

Vorteile

The accounting side of this software is strong and a knowledgeable user has powerful tools. Owner statements are transparent and clearly structured. Correspondence is attractive and easy to customize. The various tools available for setting rates/manipulating rates are easy to use. The reservation grid is easy to understand, and the filters and quotes make the reservationists' work easier and more consistent. Integration with Glad Hospitality helps provide a good guest experience without much effort (once the initial setup is complete). The reports are informative and useful. Bank reconciliation tool is an absolute essential. Having used Escapia and other VRM software while working for other companies, when I started my own company, I knew the only software I wanted to use was Escapia.

Nachteile

Features for automated or scheduled correspondence are weak. There is no "notes" area associated with owners for keeping a record of requests, authorizations, etc. Because it is a powerful system, to develop the skills necessary to fully take advantage of its many useful features means you need to invest some time and effort. That is not really a "con" to me. If you have a good tool, you want to learn to take full advantage of it. However, for a new user, it could seem a little scary. But we found that it's not terribly difficult to learn what you need to learn in order to successfully take advantage of the system as a basic user, and that if you want to stop there, you can and you'll still have a good system. It's worth putting in the work, though, to become a skilled user to take advantage of the full capabilities of the system.

Vorteile

Escape customer support has done a good job troubleshooting and explaining how things work when I contact them. There are also lots of training resources, self-help articles, explanatory videos, etc, available. I have also heard that the Escape accounting features are useful and thorough. I have not had any experience with the accounting side of Escapia.

Nachteile

One of the things that have been most frustrating about Escapia is the Owner web feature, which is supposed to provide an owner portal where our property owners can log in and see property details, upcoming reservations, owner documents, etc. Owner web itself is pretty limited, which is fine if that's what you want. One problem is that as of now owners cannot reset their password, and so they always have to contact us if they forget it so that we can change it for them. Another challenge has been that many of our owners own more than one property and that for accounting purposes each of these units has to be set up with different owners. That means that when one of those owners logs into the owner portal they can only see one of their properties unless they set up separate logins for each property, which includes separate email addresses. But then those email addresses will automatically be where their owner statements are sent, so if they want all the owner's statements to go to one email, they will have to forward them. We do not want to make our owners jump through hoops like this. We want their experience to be as simple and streamlined as possible.

Escapia also lacks some features (such as automated emails, simpler reports, better filters for sending a guest communication, and the ability to add attachments to that communication) that would make the software more functional. I have also heard from our maintenance and housekeeping teams that Escapia is challenging for them to understand and use as they would like to. Basically, we've ended up using other software and strategies to fill in the gaps and give us the features we want, which is a little disappointing considering the seeming hugeness and complexity of Escapia.

Vorteile

I like the gradual commitment to improvement that Escapia has been implementing over the past year. I think the COVID-19 crisis prompted urgent action on improving their software, now that most people in the vacation rental industry are working remotely. The UI changes and business/performance dashboards have made navigating and interpreting information much better.

Nachteile

The unit integration navigation still feels clunky. Thankfully, we don't have a substantial amount of 3rd-party apps that we need to integrate, but it would be nice to have a core integration hub that makes app navigation easier.

Vorteile

So many great things to say it is hard to know where to start. It is so easy to keep track of what is being completed where and by who. Always time stamps with names on holds, reservations, payments, refunds as well as email correspondence. The visual calendar is another added bonus because it gives a great overall picture of each home and dates that are and are not available so filing spots is very easy. The quick quote feature is fabulous as you can pick a home in the drop down menu and apply any filter and discounts that you already have up to any home easily. Web based is a very huge bonus because you are able to view any information on any device no matter where you are. The software also links up to many other sites so linking and sharing homes and rates is as easy as clicking a button and everything feeds right over. The quick search button at the top makes it very easy to find reservations that are valid or cancelled without having to use many steps.

Nachteile

When adding some new charges they can be hard to track if you are not 100% sure which report that you should be running to find them. Processing revenue can be difficult at some times when guests are in house and reservations crossover between months. This is mostly because if you need to adjust a reservation and revenue has already been processed it can cause some errors with commissions. Just have to be extra aware of what you are doing to not make any mistakes.