Configuration Guide

Configuration is the panel that switches on your rooms, your sales channels, your compliance duties and your modules. It sells nothing and books nothing: it decides how all the rest behaves.

You open it from the Management screen, in the three-dot menu at the top, entry «Configuration». It is always there, at any moment and for anyone who can configure the property: nothing ever hides it. The «?» button at the top of the page reopens this guide in the browser.

Two levels: the account and its properties

If you manage more than one property, there are two names at the top of the page, and they are worth telling apart:

• the drop-down menu, labelled «Selected property», picks one property;
• the coloured panel below it, marked «Account», is what holds them all: the name, type and country of the business.

Every group further down says which one it follows: the selected property's name — that is the case for Rooms and Channels & pricing — or All properties, for what applies to the whole business (Tax & legal compliance, Modules, Account & support). Inside a group, the few entries that are an exception — the time zone, the official times and the RMS — carry the note themselves.

With a single property none of this appears: there is nothing to tell apart.

The groups

The settings sit in six groups: «Rooms», «Channels & pricing», «Guests & communications», «Tax & legal compliance», «Modules» and «Account & support». You only see the ones your role can use: a revenue manager, for instance, sees three of them, and inside «Channels & pricing» finds only the way into the RMS.

On phones and tablets the groups open like an accordion, one at a time: opening another closes the previous one. On a computer they sit in a list on the left and the contents appear in the panel beside it; the first one is selected when the page opens.

Moving between properties

The «Your properties» card at the top appears only if your login has more than one. Pick another and the calendar, rates, channels and bookings all move over to it. While it switches, a loading indicator appears: it takes two calls to the server plus a restart of the card reader, and until it finishes the selector ignores a second tap.

A property with an expired subscription is flagged in the list, and the same selector also appears on the screen that warns about the expiry: from there you can move to a property that is still active instead of only being able to pay or quit.

Opening the right group

Each group opens with a tap on its title. While a group is closed its scope note stays readable, telling you whether those settings belong to the selected property or to all of them: that is exactly where you need it, when you are hunting for where a setting lives.

«Actions Summary» and «Setup status»

These are the two entries right below the property panel. «Actions Summary» opens the management messages; «Setup status» opens the list of steps still missing before you can sell, described further down in this guide.

Notifications belong to this device

In the «Account & support» group, section «Notifications», the «Push notifications» switch turns notifications on and off on the device you are holding. The choice stays on that device and does not follow the account: switching it off on your phone switches nothing off on your computer. With the switch off, nothing reaches that device any more, not even urgent alerts.

The section only exists in the installed app: in the browser demo it is not drawn at all.

Changing your own password

A password is personal data and every role can change their own. Whoever has this page finds it at the bottom of the «Account & support» group, button «Change Password», next to signing out. Housekeepers and observers, who do not have this page, find it in the account menu at the top right of their own dashboard. Resetting someone else's password is a different thing and stays with the account owner, from the «Team» page.

Check-in and check-out times

At the bottom of the Rooms group, below the list of rooms, you will find Check-in and check-out times: two entries, Check-in from and Check-out by. Tap either one and pick the time from the clock: the value is saved straight away. They come already filled in — 14:00 and 10:00 — and if those suit you there is nothing to do. They are the property's official times, the ones you declare yourself: the arrival time is not the time the guest actually turns up, because there is no arrival moment to record and Vezpa does not measure it.

They matter to anyone who has to report guests to the authorities. Spain, Croatia, Slovenia and Bulgaria ask for the time of arrival and departure too, not just the day: it is the time written here that goes into the report. Departure is the exception, and the only one of the two that can become real: if you record the guest's check-out, the real time of leaving is reported; if you do not, the official time you wrote here is reported. They are the property's local times, read in its own time zone: they are not converted.

The roles

The restricted entries

On this page the entries appear only to whoever can actually use them: that way you do not open a screen only to discover, at the first action, that it is not allowed.

They live in the «Property details» screen and show the whole property: the front, shared spaces, the pool, the garden. They are a different thing from the photos of each room, which are uploaded on each room's own page (see the photo gallery guide).

You can upload up to twenty. The first one is the cover, and you change the order by dragging the thumbnails. Every photo you add, remove or move goes out at once: there is nothing to confirm.

There are two ways in, and they are not equivalent:

• from the «Rooms» group, button «Property details»: it appears once you have at least one room type, and not for whoever manages apartments;
• from the photo shortcuts in the Booking Engine, entry «Property photos»: this way is there for everyone, apartment managers included, and it is theirs.

In the «Rooms» group, entry «Booking labels» — director only — manages this property's list of labels: the coloured tags you then switch on and off on every booking card (see the booking card guide).

Each label has a name and a colour picked from a palette; you create, rename and delete them here, up to twenty labels per property.

You drag the list to change its order, and that order is the priority: it drives the sequence labels appear in everywhere, on the booking card and in the bookings list alike.

Labels are per property: if you manage more than one, you set each one up on its own, using the selector at the top of the page.

You set the location by typing the address: suggestions appear as you type, you pick one and the position marks itself on the little map below. If the point is not exact, drag the map to correct it — the app says so: «Location detected from the address: drag the map to adjust the point». In the browser demo the map is not drawn: you still type the address and the location sets itself. In the installed app the map is there.

Where to find it

• When you create the property: the Address field is already in the form, with the little map below it.
• Later on: Configuration, «Rooms» group, button «Property details», field «Search for the address». It applies to the whole selected property.
• Apartment managers: in the configuration of each single room, because each one has an address of its own. In «Property details» there is no field to fill in: in its place the page writes where it is really set.

If you want to pick the spot by hand

Tap «Pick on the map»: the map opens full screen. Move the map — the crosshair stays put in the centre and marks the spot — then confirm with «Use this location». Useful with scattered houses, farm stays and islands, where the street number alone is not enough. Unlike the photos, the location only takes effect when you tap «Save Changes»: leave before that and the old one stays.

The «Setup status» entry, at the top of Configuration, opens the «Complete your setup» page: the list of steps missing before you can sell. The same page opens from the notice at the top of the Management screen for as long as steps are left. The step-by-step path, from registration onwards, is in the getting started guide; here is how to read the list.

The three bands

• «Essential»: without these you cannot sell. Their rows carry no «Later» button at all, rather than one that appears and does nothing.
• «Recommended»: useful, but they can wait.
• «Optional»: they depend on how you work and on where you are.

Your own booking page and the portals are the same question asked in two ways — where do you sell? — and they stay among the «Essential» ones for as long as the property is selling nowhere. Neither road is compulsory, but the question cannot be silenced: as soon as one of the two starts selling, both go back among the «Recommended» ones.

The two buttons on each row

«Set up» opens the page for that step; for the steps that come back into Configuration it also opens the right group, already highlighted. «Later» takes the step out of the count without deleting it: it stays on the list as «Postponed», and «Reactivate» puts it back among the things to do. A step already done shows «Review» instead.

Postponed steps are remembered per property and on that device: open Vezpa from another phone and the list is back in full.

When a step counts as «Done»

Only when it actually works, not when you started it. A few examples, because this is the point where a convenient tick would do more harm than a missing one:

• prices: only if no uncovered days are left in the period you are selling;
• a channel: only once it is live — asking for activation is not enough on its own;
• tourist tax: only if one of the bands carries an amount above zero;
• compliance: only if the credentials are there too, because without them the nightly submission fails;
• your own booking page: only if at least one property is published and has a web address.

The dynamic pricing step only appears if your plan includes the RMS.

Who sees it: manager, assistant and revenue manager. The revenue manager only sees the entry if the RMS module is active, and it is the only «Channels & pricing» entry they see: Booking Engine and OTA channels stay with the manager and the assistant. Undoing the RMS automatic actions is reserved to the manager.

The way in sits in the «Channels & pricing» group and opens the Revenue Management screen: seasons, limits and dynamic prices. It works on top of your list rates and does not replace them.

The module is switched on per property, from this entry: with «Activate» if the plan includes it. If it does not, the manager who pays the subscription by card directly to Vezpa adds it with «Add the price manager — … per month», on the same card; those who pay through the App Store or Google Play move to the Pro plan from the store. Everything else — how it decides, how a run is undone, what happens to excluded room types — is in the RMS guide.

How many rooms you can create, and what happens beyond your plan

You can create up to 100 rooms, even more than the ones included in your plan: no room is ever deleted, hidden or made unusable for plan or payment reasons. The plans include Smart (8 rooms or 3 apartments), Smart+ (15 or 5) and Pro (25 or 8).

If you go beyond your plan and pay by card, up to Pro the upgrade to the next plan happens by itself at the first renewal: you get an in-app notice with the renewal date and the exact amount, and until then what you have already paid stays valid and unchanged. Beyond Pro the renewal needs our approval, but it is never blocked: in the meantime it goes ahead at the current price. We can also agree together on a fixed monthly amount.

Do you pay through Google Play or the App Store?

Stores can only charge their listed plans: they cannot charge an agreed amount. So if your renewal involves an agreed amount or needs our approval, the «Manage rooms» screen shows a dedicated card. The switch is done in this order:

1. Cancel in the store — opens your store's subscription management page. Only you can cancel a Google Play or App Store subscription: we cannot do it for you.
2. Activate card payment — from the app on Android and Windows. On iPhone and iPad this button does not appear, because App Store rules do not allow pointing to an external payment from inside the app: use another device (Android or Windows) or the vezpa.it website.

Cancelling in the store does not switch anything off right away: the store subscription stays valid until its natural expiry, and the card takes over in the meantime. You are never left without service.

“Seasonal closure”

For a hotel that closes for the season. In “Configuration”, group “Account & support”, the manager finds the “Seasonal closure” card: with “Choose the closure period” they pick the period, see what they will pay and confirm. Each monthly payment that starts inside the period costs 30% of the plan, VAT included; on reopening the full price comes back on its own.

• The period is continuous, lasts 3 to 6 months and starts from tomorrow onwards. At least 6 months must pass between the end of one closure and the start of the next.
• There must be no bookings in the period: if there are, the app lists them and the closure does not start.
• Closed dates cannot be booked anywhere: channels, booking engine or manual entry. In the calendar they appear as “Seasonal closure” and cannot be unblocked. If a channel still sends a booking on those dates, the booking is kept and the manager gets a notification.
• It is only available when paying through the website (card), not with an app store subscription.

Once activated, the closure cannot be cancelled from the app: to change it, write to support. The rest of the app works as usual, so you can prepare the season and take bookings for the open dates.

“Access devices”

For guests who let themselves in with a key box. In “Configuration”, group “Rooms”, the manager finds “Access devices”: one device per row, with a name, a code and the rooms it opens (one key box can serve several rooms). For now the type is “Offline (fixed code)”: you write the code and it stays the same until you change it.

• The code reaches the guest through the “Access codes (check-in approved)” automation in “Automations”: it is sent only after you approve the online check-in from the booking card, on the arrival day at the chosen time (8 am by default), or straight away if you approve later that day. Once per booking.
• If you change a code, the app tells you how many guests whose stay has not ended have already received the old one, so you can let them know.
• The page is for the manager only. A room's code also shows on the booking card, in the “Keys” box.

“Blocked guests”

To stop receiving bookings from someone. In “Configuration”, group “Channels & pricing”, right below the Booking Engine, you find “Blocked guests”: one list per property. With “Block a guest” you choose whether to block an email address or a phone number, and you can add a reason, which stays internal. A phone number is recognised however it is written: spaces and the international prefix (+39, 0039 or none) do not matter.

• On the Booking Engine the guest cannot complete the booking: they see a neutral message asking them to contact the property directly, and they are not told they are blocked.
• When you book by hand in the app, confirming or creating a proposal shows an alert with the matching email or phone and the reason: to go ahead anyway you confirm twice (see the bookings guide).
• From Booking.com, Airbnb and the other portals the booking arrives already confirmed and cannot be refused: you receive a push notification about the blocked guest, once per booking.
• From iCal calendars there is no check: those calendars carry neither email nor phone.
• The manager edits the list; the assistant can only view it. Other roles do not see “Configuration”.

Occupancy cap per channel

Some channels accept fewer guests than you actually sell here. A room with capacity 3, for example, may only be bookable for 2 guests on a specific channel: the channel rejects the price for the third guest every time, and the room ends up effectively unsellable at 3 on that one channel. If the room is on sale on the portals and your property has at least one connected channel, you will find Occupancy cap per channel in the room setup, below the «Details» card: one row per connected channel, each with its current cap (or «No cap set — sells at full capacity») and an edit button.

You can set, change or remove the cap for each channel independently. You do not have to set anything by hand: if a channel rejects a price because its own occupancy limit is lower than what you sell, Vezpa learns the limit automatically the first time it happens — that correction is expected behaviour, not a bug. This is different from the automatic, read-only different-capacity notice in the channels guide: that one only reports what the portal itself declares, this one is a limit you set.

«Online check-in»: the photo of the ID document

In «Configuration», group «Tax & legal compliance», the «Online check-in» section has the «Photo of ID document» setting with three choices: «Not requested», «Optional» and «Required». Only people who can configure the property see it. When you turn it on, every guest photographs the front and back of their own document during online check-in: not just the main guest but the others too, who appear in the form as «Guest 1 (main)», «Guest 2» and so on. With «Required» the registration cannot be completed without the two photos; guests who have already uploaded them do not have to do it again.

The photos are scaled down, stripped of their metadata (GPS location included) and stored encrypted: no public link leads to them. In the app only the roles that manage bookings see them, not the housekeeper or the observer, on the guest's card. They are deleted automatically 7 days after departure, and immediately if the guest is deleted or anonymised; you can also delete them earlier yourself. On the form the guest reads a note explaining what they are for and when they disappear.

Notifications that will not switch on

Two notices can appear under the switch, and they exist only on phones, iPads and Macs. If permission has been denied in the device settings, a line says so along with the «Open settings» button, which takes you to the system screen. If permission is there but registration fails, «Retry» appears instead. On Windows neither notice exists: notifications get there by another route, and the switch turns that route on and off just the same.

More than one property on the same login

The selector at the top only exists if your login has more than one, and the settings follow either the selected property or the whole business depending on the group (see the first section of this guide). If you tap a notification about a property other than the one you are in, the app first asks whether to switch property or stay.

The location, the photos and the Booking Engine are per property: two properties have two addresses, two galleries and two booking pages. The time zone, the official times, compliance and modules belong instead to the account and apply to all of them.

Theme, view and density

The «Account & support» group also holds the light or dark theme and «View and density», which decides whether the Calendar, Rates and Tourist Tax screens lay out the days horizontally or vertically, and how many rows (or columns) to show at most: if there are fewer rooms you see them all, and nothing widens past a comfortable size. The same entry is also in the three-dot menu of those three grids, and the choice stays on the device you are using: it does not follow you from your phone to your laptop. For the details, see View and density of the grid in the Calendar guide. The observer and the housekeeper, who do not have this page, find the same choice in their own account menu.

• I cannot find Configuration. It is in the three-dot menu on the Management screen, entry «Configuration». It is no longer a tab in the bottom bar, and the entry only appears to whoever can configure the property.
• I cannot see the property selector. It only appears with two or more properties on the same login. With a single one there is nothing to choose.
• I cannot see «Team» or «Roles and permissions». The first is the account owner's, the second the manager's. It is not a fault: they are enforced by the server, and showing them only to refuse the action afterwards would be worse.
• I cannot see «Add property». It appears to whoever manages apartments. If your business is registered as a hotel, that button is not there and the server would refuse the request anyway.
• I cannot find «Property details». It appears in the «Rooms» group once you have at least one room type, and it does not appear to whoever manages apartments. The property photos stay reachable from the Booking Engine shortcuts, entry «Property photos».
• I typed the address but the location was not saved. Photos save themselves, the location does not: it needs «Save Changes». If you left before that, the old one stayed.
• I cannot see the map in the browser demo. That is expected: the map is drawn in the installed app. In the browser you still type the address and the location sets itself.
• I switched notifications off and they still arrive. The switch only applies to the device you tapped it on: the others keep receiving until you switch them off one by one.
• A setup step still shows as to-do even though I set it up. A step counts as «Done» only once it works: a channel requested but not yet live, a tax at zero or a compliance duty with no credentials all stay to-do. That is the safe direction.
• I tapped «Later» and the step came back. That happens on the essentials: if you postponed the step while it was still recommended, it comes back into the count once it turns essential. It also happens when you change device, because postponed steps stay on the one you chose them on.

At the bottom of this screen, under «Change Password», you find «Connected devices»: the list of phones and computers where your account is signed in, with the device name, its last use and the address it came from. The one you are using is marked «This device».

• «Sign out» closes a device: within a few seconds it can no longer do anything, and getting back in takes the password and the code again. It is what to do if you lose a phone or a computer.
• «Sign out of all other devices» closes them all except the one in your hand.
• When someone signs in to your account from a new device you get a notification and an email. If it wasn't you, sign it out from here and change your password.
• For sensitive actions the app asks for your authenticator code again: deleting the account, adding or removing team members, changing a role, changing the invoicing details with the IBAN, connecting the payout account, exporting the guest register. The code lasts a few minutes, then it is asked again.