Glossary of Terms
Welcome to the Argonautas glossary. This document provides clear definitions for the hospitality industry acronyms, technical terms, and system-specific vocabulary you will encounter while using our platform.
Industry & Core PMS Terms
ADR (Average Daily Rate)
A key performance indicator representing the average rental income per paid occupied room in a given period. Calculation: Total Room Revenue / Number of Rooms Sold.
Availability Range
A continuous set of dates that share identical rules for availability, pricing, and stay restrictions.
Base Rate
The standard nightly price for a property before any seasonal adjustments, discounts, or fee overlays are applied.
Booking Lifecycle
The stages a reservation moves through: Pending → Confirmed → Checked In → Checked Out. A booking can also end as Cancelled or No Show. See Booking Status.
Changeover
Used in two ways. In the calendar's Matrix View, a changeover is a day when one guest leaves and another arrives, shown with a circular-arrow icon. Changeover Rules on a property's Calendar tab set which weekdays guests may check in and check out. See Availability Calendar.
Daily Rate Row
The Daily rate row of nightly prices under each property in the calendar's Matrix View, shown to property managers. The Rates button next to the legend shows or hides it. Click a night's rate to change that night's price. See Availability Calendar.
iCal
A standard calendar format (RFC 5545) for sharing dates between systems. Blocked dates imported from an external calendar's iCal feed appear in Argonautas as iCal Block and can't be edited here. To show your bookings in Google Calendar, use Google Calendar Sync, which replaced the old iCal subscription.
LOS (Length of Stay)
The number of nights a guest stays at a property. Many pricing strategies (LOS Discounts) are based on rewarding longer stays.
OTA (Online Travel Agency)
Third-party marketplaces where guests book accommodations, such as Airbnb, Booking.com, and VRBO.
PMS (Property Management System)
The central software used to manage villas, reservations, rates, and daily operations. Argonautas is your PMS.
RevPAN (Revenue Per Available Night)
A metric used to assess how well a property is performing by spreading total revenue across all nights that were available to be booked, regardless of whether they were sold.
Season
A defined date range (e.g., "High Season," "Green Season") with specific pricing and minimum stay rules that override the Base Rate.
Stop Sell
A date restriction that blocks all bookings for the chosen dates without adding a block to the calendar. Added from a property's Calendar tab with Add Restriction. See Availability Calendar.
Website Hold
A system hold that stops the nights of an open Airbnb booking request from being booked on your website or as a new direct booking while you decide. It isn't sent to Airbnb or your other channels, and you can't edit it. It's lifted when the request is declined, expires, or is withdrawn, or when the accepted booking arrives. The request's card in the inbox says whether its dates are held. See Airbnb Requests.
System-Specific Terms
Accounting (Role)
A money-only role. It covers payments, financial and commission reports, partner billing, owners' bank details, and Settings > Payments. Bookings and guests are view-only, apart from recording payments, sending payment links, refunds, and splitting commission credit. See Users and Roles.
Argonautas
The comprehensive property management platform for vacation villas and boutique rentals.
Awaiting Partner
A booking status on a partner property: the partner has been emailed links to confirm or decline the booking and hasn't answered yet. If they don't answer within the property's Partner Response Timeout, the booking is cancelled automatically. On the Authorization Hold flow your team is alerted instead. See Partner-Managed Properties.
Booked by Guest
A service in a guest's portfolio that the guest booked and paid for directly through the provider's own booking widget. It's marked Booked by guest, and there's nothing for you to confirm or bill. See Trip Services.
Completion Notes
The notes box on a task in the staff portal, where staff report issues, anything unusual, or follow-up work. It appears once the task is started, is saved when they tap Mark as Complete, and is locked after that. Managers read it when they review the task. See Your Tasks.
Connection (Company vs. Owner)
A linked smart-home account: a Sensibo climate account or a smart-lock account. A company connection belongs to your company and is added in Settings > Integrations > Smart Home. An owner connection is the villa owner's own account, added from the villa's Smart Home tab. Yale and Kwikset locks can only be owner connections. Both kinds are listed together in Settings. See Smart Home and Smart Locks.
Door Code
A code Argonautas creates on a mapped smart lock for one reservation. It works from check-in to check-out, the guest sees it in their portal during that time, and it's removed from the lock afterwards. It is not the same as the door code in the Villa Guide, which you type in by hand and which the door-code placeholder in message templates inserts. See Smart Locks.
Eco Setback
A smart-home checkout action that leaves the villa's air conditioning running at an energy-saving Eco target temperature instead of turning it off. The alternative checkout action is Power off. See Smart Home.
Editing Language
The Editing language switch (EN, ES, FR, PT) on pages with multilingual fields, such as a property's details and policies or a service catalog entry. It picks which language those fields show and save. It appears only when you publish in more than one language. See Property Setup Guide.
Guest Portal
The dedicated mobile-responsive interface where guests check their booking details, view arrival instructions, pay balances, and request services.
Hat (Role)
A role on a user's account, such as Administrator, Property Manager, Reservations, Accounting, or Concierge. A person can hold several hats at once and gets the combined access of all of them. See Users and Roles.
Imported Review
A guest review that reached Argonautas outside the channel manager: a VRBO review from a forwarded email, or an Airbnb review imported by support for a property imported from your PMS. It's marked Imported and can be published to your website, but you reply to it on the OTA, not in Argonautas. See Guest Reviews.
Magic Link
A secure, one-time-use URL sent via email or WhatsApp that allows a user to log in instantly without entering a password.
Manual Block vs. Synced Block
A manual block is a block of dates created in Argonautas, such as an owner stay or maintenance, which you can edit or delete. A synced block comes from an iCal feed, a channel, or a connected system. It shows Synced externally and can only be changed at its source. See Availability Calendar.
Mapped Lock
A smart lock that has been tied to one villa on the villa's Smart Home tab. Only mapped locks get door codes for guests. See Smart Locks.
Matrix View
A calendar view that shows every active property as a row across the month, one cell per day, grouped into direct and partner properties. Switch to it from Month View on the Calendar page. See Availability Calendar.
My Homes / Company-Wide
A switch on the concierge Portfolios, Services, and Turnovers pages. My homes (the default) shows only the properties a concierge is assigned to as Concierge, Online Concierge, or Onsite Concierge. Company-wide shows every property in the company. See Concierge Access.
OTP (One-Time Password)
A unique 6-digit code sent to a user’s phone or email as a fallback for login verification if a Magic Link cannot be used.
Owner Portal
A simplified interface for property owners to view their villas' financial performance, occupancy, and booking history.
Partner Property
A property in the system that is managed by an external partner but distributed through your Argonautas account.
PMS Integration / Imported Property
A one-way link from another property-management system (Beds24 or Hostfully) that brings its properties, bookings, rates, and availability into Argonautas. An imported property is an ordinary direct property of your company, but the fields your PMS controls are locked, its bookings are read-only, its rates are view-only, and it isn't distributed through the channel manager. Argonautas support switches the integration on per company. See PMS Integrations.
Pre-cool
A smart-home automation that starts cooling a villa a set number of hours before a guest arrives, so it reaches the target temperature in time. Set per villa on its Smart Home tab. See Smart Home.
PTBA (Preparation Time Before Arrival)
The mandatory gap (in days) required between a guest's departure and the next guest's arrival, used for cleaning and maintenance.
Row Colors
The color of each property's row in the calendar's Matrix View. Choose a theme under Calendar colors in Settings > Company (six themes, or One color for no tints), then click the dot next to a property's name to pick its color, or choose Auto. See Availability Calendar.
Seam
The secure connection service Argonautas uses for Yale and Kwikset smart locks. The owner signs in to their lock account on Seam's own page, so their password is never shared with Argonautas. See Smart Locks.
Send to Provider
Emailing a requested service to its provider, who confirms or declines it from a link. While the provider has the request, the service shows Awaiting Provider, and you can Resend or Recall it. When the provider confirms, the service is confirmed with the price and commission you approved when sending. See Trip Services.
Smart Lock
A door lock (Tuya, Yale, or Kwikset) connected to Argonautas so it can create a door code for each reservation. See Smart Locks.
Staff Portal
The interface used by housekeeping and maintenance teams to view their schedules, receive tasks, and upload completion photos.
Terms Acceptance
A staff-only record on bookings made on your website: which terms version the guest accepted and when, and whether they authorized the balance to be charged automatically. Keep it for chargeback disputes. See Booking Lifecycle.
Transfer Endpoint
The far end of a transfer catalog entry: an Airport, a Hotel area, or a Town, with its name. The villa is always the other end. Set on the entry's Service tab. See Trip Services.
Travel Details
The arrival time, travel mode, and flights a guest shares on the Travel details page of the guest portal. A flight can be found by its number and date with Find flight, or entered by hand. See Arrival Info & Directions.
Turnovers
The concierge's day-by-day agenda. Each day lists that day's departures, then in-house guests, then arrivals. See Concierge Access.
Unit Type
In a multi-unit property, a group of units with the same layout, such as three identical 2-bedroom Garden Suites. Each unit type is sent to your channels as its own room type, and its availability is sent as a count of free units. See Multi-Unit Properties.
Verify Task
A manager's sign-off on a completed task, which moves it from Completed to Verified. Only administrators and property managers can verify, and a completed task can't be reopened. See Completing Tasks.
Vrbo Lead
A direct booking marked as coming from a guest's Vrbo inquiry in the last 30 days, using the Vrbo lead (off-platform booking) card on the booking. Vrbo requires these bookings to be reported in your Vrbo Dashboard. The Vrbo fee you enter is deducted from the owner's payout and is not part of your commission. See Booking Lifecycle.
Payments & Financials
3DS (Three-Domain Secure)
An authentication protocol (like "Verified by Visa") that adds an extra layer of security for online card transactions.
Acquirer
The financial institution (bank) that processes credit or debit card payments on behalf of the merchant (you).
Add-on
An optional paid extra, such as a crib or a welcome basket, set up per property on its Pricing tab and priced per stay, per night, or per week. Guests who book directly can choose add-ons at checkout or later in their guest portal. Add-ons are never offered on OTA bookings. Unlike a fee, only guests who choose an add-on pay for it. See Add-ons.
Banking Restriction
The Banking details visible to Accounting and Admin only setting at the top of Settings > Payments, which only an administrator can turn on or off. When it's on, property managers lose access to payment providers and owners' bank details, and only an administrator can give or remove the Administrator or Accounting role. Everyone can still send payment links and record payments. See Role-Based Permissions.
Capture Pending
A security-deposit status: you filed a damage claim, but the card processor hasn't settled it yet. Nothing is collected until it does. See Security Deposits and Damage Claims.
Commission Rule
How a service provider's commission is worked out: Percentage of total, Flat per paying guest, or Flat per booking. It's set on the provider and can be overridden on a catalog entry's Price & commission tab. Free price tiers, such as infants, don't count as paying guests. See Commission Tracking.
CVV2 (Card Verification Value)
The 3 or 4-digit security code on a credit card used to verify the card is physically present during a transaction.
Default Agent
The person credited with salesperson commission on bookings that have no split and no Reservations Agent. Set in Settings > Agent Commissions, and it must be someone marked Earns commission. See Agent Commissions.
Earns Commission
A checkbox on a user's account that lets them be credited and paid salesperson commission. It is not a role and gives no screen access. Only people marked Earns commission can be chosen as a booking's Reservations Agent. See Agent Commissions.
House Share
The management commission on a booking that's left after any travel agency's share. Salesperson commission rates are applied to the house share. See Agent Commissions.
IVA (Impuesto al Valor Agregado)
The Value Added Tax (13% in Costa Rica) applied to booking services and accommodations.
IVA (Included)
A tax with Included in prices ticked, because your nightly rates and fees already contain it. It's taken out of the amount instead of added on top, shows on bookings as IVA (included), and must be the company's only active tax. See Tax Configuration.
Merchant Account
A type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards.
Monthly Sales Threshold
The sales each salesperson must reach in a month (accommodation without tax, counted by arrival date) before earning commission. Only sales above it earn. Set in Settings > Agent Commissions, where 0 means no threshold. See Agent Commissions.
OTA Fee
The percentage an OTA deducts from the rate before paying you, entered as OTA fee on each channel connection on a villa's Channels tab. Argonautas adds a matching price markup to the prices it sends that channel, so the amount the OTA remits equals your own rate. The OTA fee is the channel's money and is separate from your management commission. See Channel Integration.
Overpaid
A payment status: more than the booking's total has been received, for example after the total went down. See Booking Lifecycle.
PowerTranz
A card payment gateway for BAC/FAC Credomatic card processing in Central America. It is one of several card connectors you can set up under Settings → Payments, alongside Stripe, PayPal, and Cybersource. See Payment Connectors.
Payout / Disbursement
The transfer of funds from the PMS or payment processor to a property owner or service provider.
Price Markup
The percentage Argonautas adds to the prices it sends a channel so that, after the OTA takes its fee, the amount remitted equals your own rate. It's worked out from the OTA fee as fee ÷ (1 − fee), rounded up, so a 15.5% fee becomes an 18.35% markup. See Channel Integration.
Property Fee
A mandatory flat fee, charged once per stay, that belongs to one property only. It can be set to apply only from a minimum number of guests. It's added on top of your company fees and shows as Property-specific fees on the property's Pricing tab. See Fees and Taxes.
Review Days After Departure
The setting in Settings > Property defaults for how many days after departure you can claim against a security deposit before it's released automatically (at most 6, the card processor's limit). The booking's Security Deposit card shows the date as Auto-releases. See Security Deposits and Damage Claims.
Split Credit
Salesperson commission on one booking shared between several people. The shares must add up to exactly 100%, and each person earns their own rate on their share. Set from the Commission credit card on the booking. See Agent Commissions.
Tokenization
A security process that replaces sensitive credit card data with a unique "token," allowing for secure future charges without storing the actual card number.
Messaging & Communication
Arriving / In Stay
Badges on inbox conversations. Arriving marks a guest whose confirmed booking starts today or tomorrow. In stay marks a guest who is staying now. See Messaging Guide.
Booking Request (Airbnb)
An Airbnb guest asking to book. It shows as an Airbnb requests card at the top of the inbox conversation, where you Accept or Decline it within 24 hours. Accepting has Airbnb charge the guest and confirm the booking. While the request is open, its nights are held on your website (see Website Hold). See Airbnb Requests.
Booking Request Received
The lifecycle email a guest gets instead of Booking Confirmation when a new booking hasn't been paid yet. It includes a payment link, and the confirmation follows once the first payment goes through. Complimentary and $0 bookings are confirmed straight away. See Lifecycle Message Templates.
Lifecycle Template
A message template designed to trigger automatically based on booking events (e.g., "3 days before arrival").
Pre-approve
An answer to an Airbnb inquiry that lets the guest book their dates at your listed price. Sent from the Airbnb requests card in the inbox conversation. See Airbnb Requests.
Send Later
The button next to Send on an inbox email reply that schedules it for In 2 hours, Tomorrow morning, or Monday morning. It isn't available when the reply has CC or BCC. See Messaging Guide.
Special Offer
A price you send an Airbnb inquiry guest for their dates, from the Airbnb requests card in the inbox conversation. It's prefilled from Airbnb's prices, and the total you send is a whole number before taxes. It's the price the guest sees. See Airbnb Requests.
Suppressed
The status of an automated email that was skipped on purpose, because of an automated-message source rule or because the guest switched that kind of email off. It shows in the booking's Guest Communications and on the Sent tab of Communication Templates. See Lifecycle Message Templates.
Unified Inbox
The central hub in Argonautas where all guest communications from WhatsApp, Email, and SMS are consolidated into a single conversation view.
WhatsApp Template
A pre-approved message format required by Meta for initiating conversations with guests outside of a 24-hour service window.