Import your past bookings and read What I know about your places

Why this mattersYour calendars only show what is coming. Your past bookings are what let Daybook compare this month with the same month last year, say what an empty night usually earns you, and write What I know about your places: one page on what your records say about your business. You import them once. After that, your forwarded booking emails keep the figures current.

What you need

• A history file from each site you use: a CSV (a spreadsheet file), or an Excel file as the site gives it. PDFs can't be read.
• The Import panel says where each file lives. On Airbnb it is Earnings, then Paid, then Export CSV: include every listing and leave the optional extras off. Not Download reports, which gives a PDF. On Booking.com it is Reservations, then Download, once for each place: the Excel file it gives goes straight in.
• A computer helps. On an iPhone, export from a desktop browser; Airbnb emails you the file. Save it, then come back to Daybook.

Import a file

1. Open Import. On your board, tap Import at the top right. It looks the same on a phone and a laptop.
2. Find Booking history. Scroll past Calendars to Booking history. A line for each site shows what Daybook already holds, for example Vrbo not imported.
3. Pick the matching button. Import Airbnb history file, Import Vrbo history file, Import Booking.com history file, Import Direct bookings (your own spreadsheet of guests who booked with you), or Import an agent’s statement or something else.
4. Choose the file. The button reads Importing… while Daybook reads it. Files up to 10 MB are fine; a history export is far smaller.
5. Read the receipt. It starts Airbnb import landed · just now, then says where the file's stays landed, for example Garden Studio: 40 stays., and What Daybook did with it: for example ✓ 212 bookings added, · 14 already had and ✕ 9 cancelled or non-stay rows, not counted. Anything that fails a check is left out, never guessed at.
6. Say which place, if asked. With two or more places, Daybook may ask 12 Airbnb stays in your files are under the listing “Garden Studio”. Which place is that? Tap the place. It remembers, and you can change it in Settings. A file that names no place at all (Booking.com's download is one) asks Which place is this Booking.com file for? once instead. Until you answer, those stays count for your business but for neither place.
7. Repeat for each site you use. Importing the same file twice does no harm: those stays show as already had.

Why this mattersEach site only knows its own bookings. Daybook can only describe the whole of your business once every site's history is in, so do each one before What I know about your places is written.

If a file won't go in

• A PDF, or a Numbers file, is refused with the steps to fix it: in Numbers, choose File, then Export To, then CSV, and import that.
• A spreadsheet laid out in a way Daybook doesn't read straight away gets a message saying so and what happens next. Nothing is guessed.

Read What I know about your places

1. Wait for the morning. After your first import, Today shows Your records, read: What I know about your places will be ready at six tomorrow morning. (your place if you have one).
2. Open it. The next morning, Today shows What I know about your place (your places if you have more than one). Tap the card, where it says Tap to read what I know →.
3. Read it from the top. The page is called What I know about your places. Each section appears only when your records hold enough to say it: What your business is, The kind of year, Your guests, How you price, How well you do, What to do about it, Your best ever months, Your money, Your channels, and last, What I can’t say yet.

Why this mattersEvery figure on the page comes from your own records, with the count it rests on. What to do about it shows what your empty nights were worth at your own rates as a ceiling, not a forecast, and the things you control. Daybook never tells you what to charge.

Read it again later

On any phone or computer you use Daybook on, tap Import and, under the receipt, Open it as a page →. The page is worked out from your records each time, so a file you add later is folded in.