Recognizing Revenue
When setting up the Reservation commission agreement to generate Owners Statements in Hospitable, hosts can choose how revenue is recognized. This determines which month the revenue appears in and how it is distributed across a reservation.
Different recognition methods can be applied depending on how you want to report earnings to owners.
There are three ways to recognize revenue. You can recognize all of your revenue in the same way, or pick and choose how each individual item is recognized.
Revenue Recognition Options
Hospitable offers three ways to recognize revenue. You can apply the same method to all revenue or customize it for individual items.
Prorated
Prorated recognition spreads revenue evenly across each night of a reservation.
This means:
Revenue is recognized nightly
Reservations spanning multiple months are split down by the nights across those months
This is the recommended option for commission, as it aligns revenue with when the stay occurs and avoids large upfront charges for longer bookings.
The nightly amount is calculated by dividing the total commissionable amount by the number of nights. Individual nightly pricing is not considered.
Example:
A reservation includes:
1 night in January: $200
1 night in February: $100
Total: $300
Recognized revenue:
January: $150
February: $150
Check-in
With check-in recognition, the full revenue is recorded in the month the reservation begins.
This means:
All revenue is assigned to the check-in month
No revenue appears in later months, even if the stay continues
Example:
A 15-night reservation starting January 31
All revenue is recognized in January
Checkout
With checkout recognition, the full revenue is recorded in the month the reservation ends.
This means:
All revenue is assigned to the checkout month
No revenue appears in earlier months
Example:
A reservation from January 5 to February 1
All revenue is recognized in February
How Revenue Recognition Applies to Commission Items
Reservation commission in Hospitable includes several components:
Commission
Reservation fees
Flat fees
Pass-through taxes
Each component may have different recognition behavior.
Commission
Commission revenue can be recognized using any of the available methods:
Prorated
Check-in
Checkout
Reservation fees
Reservation fees can be recognized in two ways:
As a single total amount
Individually per financial item
If you choose individual recognition, you can assign a different method to each fee.
Flat fees
Flat fees are always recognized in full at check-in.
Flat fees do not currently support prorated or checkout-based recognition.
Pass-through taxes
Pass-through taxes are always recognized in full at check-in.
Pass-through taxes cannot currently be customized for different revenue recognition methods.
FAQs
Why does my Booking.com payout not match my Owner Statement totals?
Booking.com may include a VAT amount in payout reporting that represents VAT charged on Booking.com’s commission and payment charges by the country of operation, not a tax collected from the guest.
Important: Hospitable does not receive this Booking.com VAT-on-payouts amount via the Booking.com API, so it will not appear in Metrics totals or exports.
To reconcile the difference:
Review Booking.com’s payout reporting for commission, payment charges, and VAT, and find the amounts missing from Hospitable's financials.
Add a Transaction to your owner statement to account for the difference.