Nightly bookings for guest houses, B&Bs and holiday homes
Quote a stay, hold the nights, invoice the guest and collect on M-Pesa - whether they found you on Airbnb, WhatsApp or walked in. Check-in, turnover and deposits on the Short Stays module, separate from monthly rent.
How it runs
3 nights, 1 invoice
quoted, held, collected and turned over without a spreadsheet
- Quote the nights, collect on M-Pesa, check the guest in and turn the unit over.
- 3 nights, 1 invoice — quoted, held, collected and turned over without a spreadsheet
- Same customers, same ledger, one follow-up trail
Who this is for
If you run Guest houses & holiday lets and bill the same customers again and again, this page is for you.
- Short Stays
- Invoicing
- Guest houses & holiday lets
You run rooms by the night - a guest house in Naivasha, serviced apartments in Westlands, a holiday home at the coast. Guests book however they find you: an Airbnb enquiry forwarded to WhatsApp, a corporate call, a walk-in at the desk. The job is always the same: quote the nights, make sure the room is not double-booked, collect a deposit or the full stay, check them in, turn the unit over, and know what you actually earned.
That is not the same as billing monthly rent. A tenant on a lease gets one invoice a month. A guest staying three nights needs a quote for those exact dates, inventory held until they pay, and housekeeping queued for checkout day. Zana's Short Stays module is built for that cycle - on the same ledger as invoicing, but separate from Property Management's rent runs.
See it on your workflow
Book a walkthrough mapped to how you bill today, or start free and send the first invoice yourself.
Where the money and the rooms leak
- Nightly rates live in a spreadsheet, so the quote on WhatsApp does not match what ends up on the invoice
- Two staff confirm the same room for overlapping dates because nothing holds inventory centrally
- The guest pays into your paybill with a vague reference and someone spends an hour matching it
- Checkout happens, housekeeping is not told, and the next guest arrives to an uncleared room
- Security deposits are mixed into revenue instead of held until the inspection is done
Quote the stay without double-booking
Mark a unit as a bookable listing, set seasonal rates and block dates you cannot sell. When a guest asks, build a quote from the nightly tariff, fees and any promotion - Zana shows what is open before you promise the room. Create the reservation and the nights are held, the price is snapshotted line by line, and an invoice is ready with the same pay link your other customers use.
Ready to run this on Zana?
Start free — no card required — or talk to us and we will map the cycle to your customers.
Collect however the guest pays
Send M-Pesa STK push or card on the invoice link. If they pay into your paybill or bank, upload the statement and match the deposit to the reservation - the same reconciliation rail as utility and rent billing. Partial payments, balance due and confirmation timing are tracked on the reservation, not in a notebook.
Run check-in, turnover and deposits
Confirm the booking, message the guest through your lifecycle templates, check in on arrival and check out on departure. Confirmation opens a turnover checklist for housekeeping; cancellation or no-show cancels it. Security deposits sit in held money, not revenue - checkout inspections record damage, and the return is settled against what you actually owe back.
Worked example. A two-bedroom serviced apartment at KES 8,500/night. A guest books Friday–Monday on WhatsApp. Zana quotes 3×8,500 + cleaning fee, holds the calendar, raises the invoice, and the guest pays by STK push. Housekeeping gets the turnover list for Monday checkout; the KES 5,000 deposit is held separately and returned after inspection.
What this does not do
This is direct booking operations inside your dashboard - not a channel manager. Zana does not sync with Airbnb or Booking.com, publish listings to OTAs, or host a public guest checkout page. If the enquiry arrived on Airbnb, you still record and run the stay in Zana yourself. Monthly leases and rent runs stay on Property Management.
What you'll need
Short Stays runs on every paid plan from Starter, with bookable-unit limits that scale by tier. Turn the module on, activate your first listing, and quote a real stay - or read the Short Stays product page for the full feature list.
What this doesn’t do
Nightly & Holiday Let Bookings is billing and collection. It does not cover:
- Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo or any channel-manager sync
- a public booking website or guest self-checkout
- iCal import or export
- long-term leases, rent runs or monthly tenant billing
- listing creation or distribution on online travel agencies
If you need any of these, tell us before you sign up — we’d rather say so now than in month two.
The parts of Zana doing the work here
Run this on Zana
Set up in minutes — no card required — or book a walkthrough mapped to your billing cycle.