What the provider describes
- Hostaway documents reservation distribution, guest communication, tasks and direct-booking tools.
- Its owner statements summarize rental income, expenses and calculated distributions.
- The guest portal can condition sensitive arrival information on configured requirements.
- Smart Locks supports mapped devices and reservation codes, with separate device billing.
- Its published product materials also cover assisted messaging and pricing tools.
- Hostaway product scope
- Owner statements overview
- Owner statements questions
- Guest portal
- Smart locks overview
- Reservation import and export
- Pricing
- Hostaway AI
Start with your operating model
Separate the owner relationship from the guest stay. An owner-operated aparthotel may care most about a receptionist, cleaner and manager seeing the same arrival status. A management company may need different commission formulas, owner permissions and monthly statements across its portfolio. Write down which of those jobs determines your margin. Compare Sixto first for the Colombian operational workflow, then ask Hostaway to demonstrate the owner and distribution cases that would be costly to replace. A working system is worth retaining when the alternative leaves a critical handoff unresolved.
An owner-led business has a different center of gravity
For a rental manager, the owner is a second customer with a different definition of success. Guests want a dependable stay; owners want understandable earnings, controlled personal use and confidence in deductions. Hostaway’s owner-reporting focus matters because those relationships can determine whether a management contract renews. Our assessment is that a company with carefully established owner formulas should treat them as operating assets, not incidental settings. Moving the calendar while recreating the financial logic manually may leave the most valuable part of the business outside the new system. That can outweigh improvements elsewhere in the interface.
Where Sixto can make the stronger operational case
Sixto is particularly relevant to a Colombian operator whose recurring friction occurs between the booking and the work needed to host the guest. Reception may know about a late arrival while the cleaner, registration reviewer and manager each hold a different part of the situation. Bringing that context together is a concrete reason to evaluate consolidation. The case is weaker if the real bottleneck is a specialized owner-accounting arrangement that has not been demonstrated in the proposed scope. The useful comparison therefore follows a stay and a financial period separately. Success in one should not conceal unresolved work in the other.
Migration is a transfer of obligations, not just records
The transition includes promises already made to guests, distributions expected by owners and access credentials that exist outside the PMS. A clean reservation list is necessary but insufficient. There can be future payments still handled by the old arrangement, previously published statements that must remain understandable and doors with valid credentials. The practical implication is a staged handover with reconciled responsibilities. Historical exports protect access to evidence, while a controlled pilot reveals what staff must still do manually. A lower subscription quote only represents a better outcome if that remaining work and the exit costs are included in the decision.
Questions to take to a demonstration
Use real cases from your property. A successful demonstration should show the result, the person responsible and what happens when a step fails.
Does the owner model match your actual contracts?
Bring one straightforward management contract and one difficult one, such as a jointly owned apartment with repair deductions. Hostaway documents a single assigned owner per listing, with additional arrangements handled through reporting formulas. Ask both teams to explain how your contract would be represented, who can change a formula and how a replacement manager can understand it. Do not accept a beautiful dashboard as proof that month-end statements will match the amounts your owners expect.
Can a closed month survive a correction?
Use a completed month with a refund, a late supplier invoice and a reservation spanning two periods. Reconcile the booking ledger, the statement sent to the owner and the amount actually transferred. Ask what happens after you discover an error: who revises the statement, which version remains available and how the owner sees the adjustment. This exercise distinguishes a useful financial summary from a process that your accountant can repeat and explain. Define the accepted totals before the demonstration.
What does an arrival requirement actually prove?
Hostaway describes controls over the release of sensitive information in its guest portal. Test your own policy rather than treating every completed field as the same event. Use a booking where the lead guest has paid but a companion has not finished registration. Ask what staff can see, whether the guest understands what remains and how an authorized exception is recorded. In Sixto, inspect the configured registration and access conditions alongside the same conversation. Neither a submitted form nor a paid balance alone proves every local obligation is complete.
Who owns a code when you change lock systems?
Take one compatible lock through a changed departure, cancellation and connection removal. Hostaway explicitly says disconnecting its integration does not remove existing device codes. Plan the physical credential cleanup as well as the software change. Before transferring control, list current guests, staff credentials and backup access; assign someone to verify the door and reconcile the last bill. Ask both providers which device models, accounts and subscriptions are prerequisites. A successful connection is only one part of a safe handover.
How will future reservations move without duplicate actions?
Build a migration register by channel and property, including source booking references, dates, occupants, balances and special instructions. Hostaway documents import and export workflows, but that does not establish that every conversation, card token or automation will move. Ask for an explicit included-and-excluded list. Reconcile a sample before changing channel control, and nominate the person who pauses old messages and scheduled actions. Keep an agreed fallback for a late modification arriving during cutover. Your acceptance test should include an amended booking, not just a new one.
Where do Colombian reporting and invoicing finish?
Ask for the exact production route for SIRE, TRA and DIAN requirements relevant to your operation, including any connected service and activation prerequisites. A generic invoice or a guest-data export does not answer that question. Follow a test record through its accepted result, then deliberately introduce a correction or rejected submission. In Sixto, review the enabled workflow and its prerequisites rather than assuming every account arrives ready to file. Name the person responsible for unresolved records and the evidence your team can retrieve later.
What will the portfolio cost to operate, not just license?
Request a quote against the same inventory and contract period. Separate the core subscription from onboarding, managed locks, optional modules, messaging and payment-provider charges. Include staff time to reconcile owners and maintain any connections that remain. Ask how adding or removing listings affects billing, whether minimum commitments apply and what data you can export at exit. Test the working languages with the receptionist and owner who will use them. A translated guest message does not establish that every staff screen or support channel uses that language.
What would make you keep Hostaway rather than migrate?
Choose a representative property with an owner statement, a same-day turnover and an arrival exception. Give the same case to Sixto and Hostaway, then compare the unresolved work and the number of people needed to finish it. Keep Hostaway if its established portfolio processes solve requirements the proposed replacement cannot yet demonstrate. Choose Sixto when the Colombian stay workflow is the better fit and the remaining finance, payment and distribution arrangements are explicitly agreed. Sign off a pilot, a reconciled financial period and a rollback owner before moving the rest of the portfolio.
Before changing a system
- List upcoming reservations, physical units, guest balances and the channels that publish availability.
- Agree on the system of record and test changes with one property before a wider move.
- Export and reconcile guest records and reporting evidence. Define a rollback owner before switching channel control.