Escapia

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.

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.

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.

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.