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For property managers working with Short-Term Rental trust accounting practices, maintaining accurate financial records and ensuring owner transparency is essential. Integrated Property Management Software (PMS) systems often bring in booking financials that may need adjusting or categorizing for specific owner payments, fees, or taxes. Clearing's "Custom Formulas" feature allows property managers to create custom formulas that calculate new booking data from existing booking information, improving financial reporting and owner transparency. Custom Formulas are divided into two options:

Non-Split — Aggregate amounts from different categories or create percentage-based financials. Use this when you need to derive a new value from existing booking data, such as calculating a jurisdiction-based tax or combining multiple fee categories into one output.

Split — Divide incoming financials from your PMS across multiple allocations by percentage. Use this when a fee or income line needs to be shared between owner and management, or distributed in a custom ratio for a specific property or owner.

Login to your Clearing account and navigate to the "Rules" section in the side menu. Click on On Booking Financials, then Rules Sequence, and select the + button next to 4. Custom Formulas. Select the + next to the Non-Split option to create a new non-split formula.

Use the filters on the left to choose specific criteria, such as bookings for a particular homeowner, asset, and/or channel.

You can also choose to set formulas to be applied to bookings based off of their recognized date (statement date) or based off of their reservation date (date they booked), and even create a rule to apply to a guests name (great for frequently returning guests with special requests).

Once the criteria has been set, define the formula that will apply to those bookings.

Set up an output category for the formula’s result, like net payout or a new tax category.

Choose an accounting field for the output: either “to owner”, “to management”, “exclude”, or “tax”.

You can use the exclude option to exclude original income lines (e.g., accommodation fare or host fee) and avoid double entries in financials. Check the relevant checkbox as shown below to do this.

Once the formula is defined, go to the “bookings section” and filter for the particular owner, asset, or channel, for which you defined the formula.

Choose any booking and click on “open” button to see booking details.

Once opened, scroll down and find the particular formula that you have defined and click the “Apply” button.

Once applied to the booking, you can see changes in the booking financials resulting from the applied formula. Double check that it is correct and working how you intended.

Navigate to Rules > On Booking Financials > Rules Sequence. Under 4. Custom Formulas, click the + button next to the Split option.

Required:

First, select the incoming category you want to split. This is the source line from the booking that will be divided.

Next, review and confirm when to apply the split rule relative to your other rules. The rule sequence order has a real impact on how financials are calculated. Always verify where your new rule lands in the sequence, especially if you have complex or layered rules already in place. For example, if you are splitting a category after the default allocation, the default position is likely appropriate. If your split depends on a fee created by another rule, ensure this rule falls after it in the sequence.

Optional:

Use the other filters on the left to set the formula to apply to specific bookings such as by homeowner, asset, channel, date range, or guest name. If this split should apply to all bookings, then these additional filters can be left unset.

Define how the incoming category gets divided by configuring each output row. Click the + button to add as many rows as needed, as long as they equal up to 100%. For each row, set the new outgoing category, the percentage allocated to that row, the destination (To Owner, To Management, Exclude, etc).

Give the rule a clear, descriptive name and optionally add a note to document its purpose.

Navigate to the Bookings section and find a booking that falls within your formula's criteria. Open the booking and click Refresh Reservation to apply the current rules. Verify that the incoming category is divided into the expected output lines with the correct allocations. The rule name will be visible below each line it has applied to.

You can update a formula's status at any time from the formula settings.

Ongoing — The formula will automatically apply to all new bookings that meet the criteria. Use the "Apply to existing bookings" button to also apply it to current unlocked bookings.

Paused — The formula will stop applying to new bookings but remains saved. Useful when you need to temporarily disable a rule without deleting it.

Cancelled — The formula is permanently inactive. Use this when a rule is no longer needed.

Manual — The formula only applies when you manually trigger it on a specific booking. Useful for one-off scenarios or testing before setting a formula to Ongoing.

Have questions? Reach out to us in the chat, we are happy to help!