Loading...
Effectively managing bookings is essential for running a successful short-term rental. Haven provides tools to help you handle reservations efficiently.
Access your bookings from:
Calendar → Bookings lists every reservation on your listings, Haven bookings and stays synced from Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com or your PMS alike, one row each. It shows stays from requested through in-house, plus stays that checked out in the last 14 days. Rows that need you come first.
Each row's stage has its own color, and the stage tabs above the table are both the legend and the filter. Click a tab to see only that stage, shift-click to add more, and click All to go back. Cancelled stays are hidden until you click Cancelled.
Below the tabs, five chips work across every stage:
The table remembers your stage tabs, chips and sort the next time you open it. Reset clears every filter at once. Export downloads the rows on screen as a CSV, in the order shown, with each stay's guest, dates, source, payment, total and last message.
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| Requested | The guest asked to book and is waiting on you. Shows when the request expires. |
| Awaiting payment | You approved it and the guest has not paid yet. |
| Arriving | Confirmed, checking in today, tomorrow or in two days. |
| In-house | The guest is staying now. Shows when they check out. |
| Upcoming | Confirmed, arriving later. |
| Review guest | Checked out, and you have not reviewed the guest yet. |
| Checked out | Checked out in the last 14 days. |
| Cancelled | Cancelled, declined, withdrawn or expired. |
The other columns:
Click a row to open the reservation. The search bar and date filter above the table narrow it the same way they narrow the calendar. Click any column header to sort by it.
Each booking shows:
Haven can screen bookings and apply damage protection through Truvi. Guest screenings are free. For the protection fee ($8.00/night default), you choose in Settings → Trust & Safety → Damage protection whether guests pay at checkout as "Screen & Protect (Fully refundable on cancellation)" or you pay via a deduction from your payout — either way the fee is fully refunded if the booking is cancelled before check-in.
Truvi screening is one of several guest-security tools. Haven also offers government ID verification (backed by Stripe Identity), security deposits, and a signed rental agreement. You can require ID, the agreement, and Screen & Protect on Airbnb/Vrbo stays by auto-sending the Haven guidebook. See Guest security options.
Learn how Truvi works in Damage protection and review common billing, evidence, and screening questions in the Damage protection FAQ.
Each listing uses one of two booking modes, chosen per listing:
Instant Book:
Approval Required:
Every listing also has a Submit an Inquiry button, whichever mode you choose. It sits next to the booking button (Book now or Request booking) and lets a guest pick dates and send you a question without paying or holding dates. You can reply, Pre-approve them to finish booking, or send a payment link. So a listing on Instant Book still lets cautious guests ask first. See Guest Inquiries.
There is no penalty for declining. Haven does not ding you, lower a host score, or restrict future bookings when you say no — unlike marketplace platforms that track decline rate. The guest is notified, the dates reopen, and that is the end of it. Haven is your property to run your way. See Your property, your rules.
Yes. A guest has to sign in, or sign up for a Haven guest account, before they can book on your site. There is no guest checkout and no setting that turns the sign-in off.
Looking around is open to everyone: a visitor can browse your site, pick dates and guests, and see the full price without an account. The booking page is where it changes. A visitor who is not signed in sees a Sign in to confirm button where the payment form would be, with the note "We need a quick sign-in so the host can reach you about this booking." The button reads Sign in to request booking on a Request to book listing, Sign in to pay on a payment link, and Sign in to send message on an inquiry. Nothing can be paid, confirmed, or requested until they are signed in.
The account is a traveler account, not a host account. It is what lists the stay on the guest's Trips page and gives you a real person to reach. Instant Book, Request to book, payment links, and pre-approvals all go through the same sign-in. When a listing uses Sign at booking, the rental agreement form comes after it.
You may never see this step yourself. If you open checkout on your own listing while signed in as the host, Haven offers you a preview of the booking flow instead, and the preview skips sign-in. Open your site in a private window, signed out, to see what a guest sees.
This is separate from the guidebook. Once a stay is booked, the guest opens the Guest Portal from the link in their email with no password to remember.
Guests save a card when they send the request, so a request you approve is paid for right away — there is no "approved but unpaid" window where the dates sit in limbo. Nothing is charged until you approve; declining, withdrawing, or letting the request expire charges nothing. The guest's request email says the same.
A request that totals $0 — a 100% code on the whole stay, on a stay with no paid add-ons — is confirmed on approval with nothing charged, saved card or not. A 100% code that leaves fees unticked under Discounted charges (for example Nightly rate only) still charges those fees and the tax on them.
If the card can't be charged — it was declined, expired, or you approved at a higher total than the guest authorized (for example after changing the dates) — Haven does not charge it. The booking stays Awaiting payment, the guest gets the approval email with a payment link (it tells them their saved card couldn't be charged) and a text asking them to complete payment, and the reservation card tells you why the card wasn't charged. Approving at a lower total (a discount) charges the lower amount.
The guest copy of these three emails uses {payment_next_step}, a built-in that fills in the right sentence for the stay — whether a card was saved, and whether your approval charged it. Keep it when you rewrite one of these emails and the wording stays correct on its own.
Inquiries work as before: a guest asks a question without saving a card, and if you pre-approve them they pay through a payment link.
Hosts who collect payments through their PMS (OwnerRez payment-processor mode) are unchanged too — their guests don't save a card on Haven, and the PMS collects after approval.
If you haven't connected Stripe yet, guests can still send you a request, but without a card: there is no Stripe account to save it on. You can approve it once Stripe is connected, and the guest then pays through the payment link in their approval email.
You don't have to accept a request at the listed price. On any unpaid request — pending your approval, or approved but not yet paid — click Adjust price or fees on the reservation (or ask the assistant bar, e.g. "give Francesca 10% off") to offer a percentage off, a fixed amount off, new nightly rates for those dates, or to change or remove individual fees such as the cleaning fee. You can also tick Offer a discount with approval in the Approve dialog to approve and re-price in one step. The guest is notified, sees the new total on their reservation, and their saved card is charged exactly that amount when you approve. Your listing's regular pricing is unaffected. Raising the price above what the guest authorized means their card is not charged automatically; they get a payment link for the new total instead.
See Offer a Discount or Change the Price on a Pending Request for the full walkthrough.
To send a special offer to someone who hasn't requested yet, or for dates you choose, open the listing's Calendar, drag the dates, choose Create manual booking, then Send payment link, and fill in the Special offer row. See Send a Payment Link.
The cancellation policy on a request isn't final until the guest pays. On a pending request, or an approved one that hasn't been paid, click Cancellation policy on the reservation (or in its ⋯ menu) to set different terms for that one reservation — your listing's policy is not changed. If you change the policy on the listing instead, unpaid reservations follow it automatically, unless you already gave that reservation its own policy. Once the guest pays, the policy is locked.
It locks sooner when the guest has signed the rental agreement — which a guest does to send a request on a listing that asks for the agreement right after booking. The signed copy states the policy, so neither you nor a listing change can alter it on that reservation. To offer different terms, decline it and send a new offer.
Declining a request doesn't close the door. The reservation still opens from its conversation (Communication → Inbox → the button with the stay's dates), with the full message history, and shows a Send a new offer button (also in the ⋯ menu as Send a new offer…).
It opens the payment-link dialog with the guest, the listing and the dates they asked for already filled in. Change anything — other dates, a different price, or the Special offer row for money off with your own label and message — and send. The guest is emailed a link to pay, and the nights are held for them. The offer is a new reservation of its own; the declined one stays in the conversation as the record of what was asked.
The same button is on a reservation you or the guest cancelled.
A gift card or stay credit the guest paid with comes back on a new code in the same proportion as the cash refund.
Bookings from your PMS or a channel (Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, or a stay made in your PMS) have no Cancel Reservation in Haven. The reservation belongs to the PMS, so cancel it there; the cancellation syncs back to Haven and frees the dates. A stay you converted to a Direct booking is yours in Haven: cancel it in Haven, and cancel the Airbnb or PMS copy there too.
No refunds, but you'd like to offer something once the dates sell again? Click Give a stay credit on the cancelled reservation (or Give a stay credit… in the ⋯ menu). It opens with the guest's details and the amount you kept already filled in, and shows how many of the cancelled nights have been booked again. The guest is emailed a branded card with a CREDIT- code to use on a direct booking with you (untick Email the code to the guest to give it without the email); nothing is charged until they use it. The email itself is the Stay credit card under Communication → Message automations, where you can reword it or switch it off.
See Give a Stay Credit Instead of a Refund.
See Scheduled Payouts for how cancellations affect bank deposits.
Once a guest has paid, you can refund part or all of the payment straight from the reservation — before, during, or after the stay — without cancelling. Click Issue refund (next to Cancel Reservation), choose % of payment, a fixed Amount, or specific Nights (each night's price plus its tax — ideal for early departures), add an optional message, check the preview, and confirm. The guest is emailed, the money goes back to their card, and your payout drops by the same amount. No payment processing fee is deducted from the refund — the same rule as cancellation.
See Refund a Guest After They've Paid for the full walkthrough.
If a guest chargebacks the booking payment with their bank (instead of canceling or requesting a refund through Haven), Haven automatically submits the booking evidence we hold and emails you when the dispute opens and when the bank decides. Open the reservation from the email link — there is no separate dispute inbox in the dashboard.
See Chargebacks & Disputes for booking vs. security-deposit disputes and your responsibilities as merchant of record.
You can change a confirmed booking's dates and guest counts (adults, children, infants, pets) in place — no cancel and rebook. Open the reservation, click Modify reservation (or the Dates / Guests chip), pick the new stay, and confirm.
Haven re-prices the stay against the booking's original terms, so your later rate changes never reach a sold stay — only nights the booking never covered are priced at today's calendar rate. The difference is settled with the guest automatically: refunded if the stay shrinks, charged to the card on file if it grows, or sent to the guest as a payment link when there's no usable card. Date changes also reschedule the deposit hold, the guest emails, cleaning tasks, lock codes and channel sync.
Bookings owned by a connected PMS or channel are changed in that system, not in Haven. A stay you converted with Convert to Direct is a Haven booking, but it has no pricing record, so Modify reservation stays hidden. Convert to Direct does not show it. To split those dates, cancel the stay, then create a direct booking for each date range. Cancel reservation on a future confirmed stay that is not the stay happening now cancels it in Haven and emails the guest when Haven has their email. It sends the cancel to the property system only when the stay still has a reservation link and the connection can receive a reservation cancel. A stay that is still synced has no Cancel reservation button — change it in the PMS. Cancel on a chat suggestion only dismisses that suggestion; it is not Cancel reservation.
See Modify a Reservation for the full walkthrough.
A confirmed booking made through Haven shows a Card on file row on the reservation: the card's brand, last four digits and expiry, or that there is none. Ask for a new card emails the guest a secure link to a page where they add or replace it; Copy link gives you the same link to send yourself. Guests can also do it on their own from their reservation. The new card is used for the deposit hold, add-ons and price changes on that stay. See Update a Guest's Card on File.
Confirmed stays on properties that require a digital rental agreement may still need the guest to sign inside their guide before arrival. Use Settings → Trust & Safety → Rental agreements to see who is pending, send reminders, sort the signed archive (including by reservation reference code), and download audit PDFs. See Rental Agreement & Digital Signatures.
Haven also supports manual bookings — reservations you create directly from the calendar for guests who booked through other channels (phone, email, or outside of Haven's checkout flow). Manual bookings appear in a distinct sky blue color on your calendar and trigger all the same downstream effects as standard bookings, including guest emails, integration partner sync, and access code provisioning.
See Manual Bookings for recording a stay that was already paid outside Haven. To hold dates for an email or phone enquiry and collect through checkout, see Send a Payment Link.
To add many past or upcoming stays at once from a CSV or Excel file, with no emails sent and synced stays filled in rather than duplicated, see Import Stays from a Spreadsheet.
If you take request-to-book reservations, you can have Haven automatically cancel pending requests you haven't acted on within a window you choose (24 hours, 2 days, or a custom number of days), freeing the dates for other guests. It's an account-wide setting (off by default), and Haven emails you a few hours before a request expires so you can still approve or decline it.
See Auto-Expire Pending Requests for how to turn it on and what happens when a request expires.
By default, a booking request you haven't answered yet does not take the dates off sale — they keep selling on Haven, in your PMS, and on channels like Airbnb until someone actually books them. Requests you approve always hold their dates. You can switch to holding dates the moment a request arrives from the same Property settings gear, and Haven re-checks availability at approval, at checkout, and again before charging so a guest is never charged for nights they can't have.
See Hold Dates for Pending Requests for the trade-off and what a guest sees if their dates are taken.
If you connect your Airbnb account directly, or use a PMS like Hospitable, reservations from Airbnb, Vrbo, and other channels appear on your Haven calendar as reservations, with the guest's name on the bar. They hold the dates just like a Haven booking. Haven direct bookings are also pushed to your PMS to prevent double bookings across platforms.
Click a synced reservation on the calendar (or in Calendar → Inbox) to open it. You do not enter anything by hand; Haven shows what the channel sent:
A synced reservation is read-only in Haven. Change its dates, party, or price in the system that owns it and the change syncs over.
For Hospitable specifically: Haven uses its own booking flow (not Hospitable's booking widget). Guest reservations you take on Haven sync to Hospitable and you can manage them in Haven or in Hospitable; they do not appear in Hospitable's Direct Bookings tab, which is scoped to Hospitable's direct booking site, widget, and quote flow. That distinction does not change calendar coordination—you still get two-way availability sync. Read How Haven works with Hospitable Direct Bookings for the full explanation, including that Haven does not require Hospitable Direct.
See PMS Integrations Overview for details on setting up two-way reservation sync.
Open any reservation that came from your PMS — from the calendar or Calendar → Inbox. Financials sits at the top of the right-hand column, where a direct booking shows its payout; Haven has no checkout of its own for these stays, so it shows no Haven payout card for them. Haven lists the money line by line, exactly as your PMS reported it:
How much detail you see depends on what your PMS shares:
| PMS | What the Financials section shows |
|---|---|
| OwnerRez | Every charge on the booking: rent, each surcharge and discount, and each tax with its rate. Then guest total, paid, balance due, refunded, and host fees. Managers who take an owner commission also see it. |
| Hospitable | Two parts. Guest paid: accommodation, each fee, each tax, discounts, and the guest total. Your payout: accommodation, fees passed through to you, the channel's host service fee, and the payout. |
| Airbnb (connected directly) | The same two parts as Hospitable. Guest paid: accommodation, each fee, each tax, discounts, and the guest total. Your payout: accommodation, fees passed through to you, Airbnb's host service fee, and the payout. |
| Guesty | The reservation folio: accommodation fare, markup, promotions, cleaning and additional fees, each tax, the host channel fee, and the payout. |
| Lodgify | The booking quote: room rate, each fee, add-ons, taxes, promotions, then guest total, paid, and balance due. |
| Hostfully | Rent, cleaning fee, each other fee, taxes, guest total, and security deposit. |
| Track | The guest breakdown: rent by night, each guest fee, each tax, and the grand total. |
| Hostex | The rate details Hostex receives from the channel (accommodation, cleaning, taxes, commission), the reservation total, and the channel commission. |
Haven never estimates a line. If a channel does not pass a breakdown to your PMS, you see the totals it does send. A discount noted as "Already taken off the accommodation amount above" is shown for reference: the accommodation figure is already the discounted price.
The record of individual payments (dates, card, and method) stays in your PMS.
Not every unavailable date is a reservation. If a bar on your calendar has no guest name, it is one of these:
New to Haven?
Haven is the direct booking platform these guides are written for — a branded site, secure payments, and guest relationships you own. Build yours free.
Free to build · No credit card · Private until you publish