Skip to main content

Contracts

How to set up your contracts for your settlements

Written by Darren
Updated this week

What are the 'Contracts' in Avantio?

You can configure your contracts in the Owners section of the VRMS. In the submenu, you can select the Contracts section, which will lead you to the option List of contracts.

The contracts set up in Avantio to establish the following:

  • How your settlements will be calculated in each reservation

  • When your reservations can be settled in the system

Please note that our 'Contracts' module does not create legally binding documents, although they can be used to complement external documents that you can ask the owner to sign.

You can easily export or print a PDF of your contract settings by clicking on Actions - See document - Print/Export


How do the contracts affect other parts of the system?

The settings configured in your contracts will directly impact how your settlements will be calculated in each booking.


Ways to create a new contract

You can create a contract from many different parts of the system, but the steps to create a contract for an accommodation for the first time and replacing an existing one can be different.

  1. Creating a new contract for a brand new property

a) If you have never created a contract for this property, you can create a contract directly from the accommodation profile by clicking on the contract field to create contract.

b) Or, you can go directly to the owners module, click on contracts in the submenu, access the contracts list and click on 'New'.

2. Replacing an existing contract in property that already has one configured.

If you are replacing the contract for a property that already has one, we strongly suggest following these steps:

Make sure that all settlements corresponding to the old contract have been generated and issued, as when the new contract is assigned, all future bookings will be generated with the configuration of the new contract.

Once you have reviewed your settlements, you can create a new contract directly from the Owners section in the VRMS and clicking on Contracts in the submenu and going to the list of contracts.

From there, you need to find the old contract and configure the dates of when this contract ends and turn off the automatic renewal.


After saving these configurations in your old contract, you are ready to create the new contract. You can go back to the List of Contracts and click on 'New'. From there, make sure to configure it with the next date that you want this contract to be available after the old contract.

Example

I.e If the old contract was from January 1st 2025 - February 28th 2025, your new contract must start with any date from the 1st March 2025.

If the owner of a property has changed, we strongly suggest reviewing this page first about how to Safely Update the Owner of a Property in Avantio.

This page will help you make sure that all documents corresponding to each owner is generated and prevents settlements or other important files from being lost.


The configuration of the Contracts

Here are the fields that you’ll see in this module which is divided in to 5 sections:

  • General information

  • Types of Contract

  • Forms of payment

  • Tax options

  • Others


General information

In this section, you will establish the general details of your contract, dates, owner's legal entity name, accommodation etc.

1. Owner / accommodation

Here, you select the owner and accommodation. Simply start typing the owner name or accommodation name and select from the options that appear.

2. Registration date

This is the date that the contract is created. It is most common to select the current date, but you can select a past date to best reflect when the agreement was made.

3. Term of contract

The dates established here determine in which bookings the configuration of this contract will be applied. You can click on the field and select the starting date in the first field and the ending date in the second field.

4. Automatic renewal

You can activate this option so that the contract is renewed during the same period every year. This option is typically used when you are 100% sure that these options will not change.

If you are believe that there could be changes in the near future, it is best not to activate the automatic renewal. With this option deactivated, you must remember that you will need to configure contracts once they expire.

5. Co-owners

Here, you can select an existing owner in the system to establish them as the co-owner. Please note that this is only used as an internal reference. Simply start typing the name of the owner and the existing owners in the system will appear.

6. Company name

This is the agency's legal entity that will be associated with this contract. This is also the name that will appear as the “issuer” of the settlement document.

Please remember to make sure that all of your details are correct in your legal entity name to avoid any mistakes in the settlement. You can find these details in the Configuration module, in the Company section and going to the bottom of the page.

7. Contract number

This is the series that the contract is registered with, so that you have a clear record of existing, previous and future contracts. Like your company name, you can edit the series and personalize them within the configuration of your legal entity.

8. VAT/Sales

This is the VAT that you establish for your agency's commission. You can click on this field and see which options are available.


Types of Contract

In this section, you determine the type of contract that you wish to have with the owner. There are 2 contract types:

  • Direct: the agency acts as the owner, invoices the guest, and assigns the use to the owner; this is also suitable for your own accommodations.

  • Intermediary: the agency applies a commission to the booking and settles the rest with the owner.

When selecting this option, you'll see the option to apply the VAT that you configured in the General information section to your agency's commission.


Forms of payment

1. Payments per booking

a) Intermediary

Here, you establish the agency's commission. If you have established a percentage of VAT and activated the option to apply VAT to the commission, a bubble will appear with the percentage of the commission with the VAT automatically included:

You have the option to configure different commission amounts in different seasons and configure it as a percentage of the rent or a percentage of the rent with the final cleaning included:

b) Direct

The amount that appears is the percentage of the rent that corresponds to the owner.

You have the option to configure different amounts in different seasons and you can also configure it as a percentage of the rental amount or amount per day.

The following options determine the availability of your settlements and how often the system is configured to generate the settlements i.e Monthly, using a specific date etc.

2. Settlement availability

This setting establishes the specific trigger point—the exact moment—a settlement can be made available and generated by the system.

Your Options:

You can choose when settlements become eligible based on the booking lifecycle:

  • When Booking / After Booking

  • Before / During / After Check-in

  • Before / During / After Check-out

Should you choose any of the options that have After check-in/check-out/booking, you will have to establish how many days after, will the settlement become available.

Please note that this means that if you have selected the availability at check-out, if you try to generate the settlement using the check-in date, the settlement will not appear.

3. Settlement dates

This setting determines your payout frequency—it acts as the official release point for all settlements that have met their availability criteria.

The Settlement Date acts as a scheduled refresh for the system. Even if a booking becomes technically ready in the middle of the month, it remains in a queue until the next scheduled date arrives.

There are three options to choose from - Per reservation, Monthly and Specific.

Simply click on add payment dates if you would like to establish specific dates when you would like to settle.

Example

If you have selected in the Settlement availability - When booking, but in the Settlement dates - 1st of every month, any booking registered in that month after the 1st will not be available unless you filter the dates including the 1st of the following month.

Scenario:

  • Settlement Availability: When booking (Ready immediately)

  • Settlement Date: 1st of every month

  • Today’s Date: May 24th

The Result: Any bookings from May 21st or May 24th are technically ready, but they do not appear in the settlement list until June 1st. To see these bookings in the reports before that date, the user must manually adjust the filters to include the upcoming June 1st settlement date.


a) Advanced options (optional):

1. Deduct portal commission

Here you can choose to deduct the portal commission from the rent or from the payment to the owner. You can also choose to deduct a percentage of the portal commission that you would like to deduct.

This is the amount that appears on the reservation page, between the deposit details and the guest reviews.

2. Paying extras to the owner

This will indicate how much of an extra will be paid to the owner. Here you can establish a percentage of an extra that you want to pay the owner and if you want to apply a different VAT to this extra or use the VAT established in the accommodatin page, in the extras section.

All extras will be added to the owner's payment after all deductions.

3. Booking charges and expenses

Here, you can configure automatic expenses to be generated per booking. You can choose whether to deduct it from the payment to the owner or from the rent.

Please note that if you choose for the expense to be deducted from the rent the amount that appears in the booking page is the amount with the expenses already deducted.

Whereas, if you choose for the expense to be deducted from the owner's payout, this expense will only appear and be deducted when you create the settlement:

4. Tourist taxes

Here you can activate this option to pay the tourist taxes to the owner after deductions. This is the amount that appears in the reservation page in the amounts breakdown.

If you need to edit the amount paid to the owner, you must modify the amount that appears on the booking page.


b) More options:

1. Deduct increases applied on portals

This option allows you to deduct the portal increase from the rental amount. This is the amount that appears in the booking page:

This amount will be deducted before calculating the owner's payment and the amount is determined by the configuration that you have in each portal in the ChannelPro.

2. Set up a guaranteed minimum payment (per season or annually)

This option allows you to set up a guaranteed minimum payment whether bookings are registered or not.

You can configure to pay the owner set payments for a certain season of the year by selecting a starting date and a finishing date to establish the period of time.

You can also configure a set amount that you pay the owner annually.

Please note that you can only configure 1 season.

3. Including VAT on rental amount

You can choose to calculate the owner's payment using the rental amount with or without VAT.

For Direct contracts, you have the additional options to set up tax options, for example to show the break down VAT in the settlement and to configure whether or not there is a percentage of withholding tax.

1. Fixed payments

This option allows you to set up a fixed payment whether bookings are registered or not.

In this section you can establish the date/s when you wish to pay the owner and the amount.

If you decide to use this option, at the bottom, you can also see how much you would be paying the owner annually.

2. Schedule settlements

This options allows you to automatically generate all pending settlements on a certain day of the month i.e 30th of every month. You simply have to write the date of each month when you would like the system to create the settlement and save.


Tax options

Please note that these options will only be available for direct contracts

1. Break down VAT

This option allows the VAT to be shown broken down in the issued settlement.

You can see this by selecting the template that shows the VAT breakdown here:

2. Withholding tax to be applied in the settlement

Here, you can establish the percentage of the withholding tax that you wish to apply to the booking.


Others

1. Period management (optional):

Only when creating a new contract, in this section, you can choose to automatically block periods that are not covered in the contract to prevent any bookings from entering the system.

For example, if you have configured the dates 01/01/25 - 27/02/25 for the terms of contract, all dates from 01/03/25 will be blocked. If you have the option to automatically renew the contract, it will block the calendar for the same dates for the next 20 years automatically.

Please note that this option is only available when you create the contract for the first time.

As for the option to Reserve periods for the owner, it will automatically generate owner bookings (up to 20 years in advance if automatic renewal is enabled) during the dates selected in this section.

You can select start and end dates of when you would like to configure these blocked periods and click “+ Add period” to add more seasons.

2. Templates

Here, you choose a previously created template in the system to set as your default contract or settlements document to send. Simple click on this field and you can see the options available.

Please note that if you would like to modify these templates, you need to go to Configuration - Templates

3. Special Conditions

If you would like to add any additional comments or special conditions, you can add them here in plain text, which will appear when printing or previewing this document.


Once you have reviewed all of the selected options, don't forget to click “Save” in the top right corner. The contract will be active and can be duplicated for other accommodations if you wish.

Best practices

  • Clearly define VAT and withholdings before finalizing the contract.

  • Use templates to standardize processes.

  • Avoid enabling automatic renewal if you expect changes in conditions each season.

  • Carefully review included extras to prevent errors in settlements.

Common mistakes

  • Enabling automatic renewal when changes in conditions are expected.

  • Not clearly specifying which extras are included or excluded in the settlement.

  • Forgetting to detail the payment method and deadlines.

Did this answer your question?