What it is
Aparthotel software should connect inventory, reservations, guest accounts and the work required to make each apartment ready. The difficult cases sit between traditional hotel and rental management: a corporate guest extends a stay, an apartment needs maintenance, a company pays accommodation while the guest pays extras, or identical studios are sold as a shared room type. A channel manager distributes availability but does not necessarily manage those decisions. A guest registration tool collects details but is not the reservation system. An open PMS platform can support a more tailored operation, although the operator must assemble and maintain its connected services. In Colombia, assess SIRE, TRA and electronic invoicing as distinct workflows, with named responsible parties and visible completion evidence.
Understand the market
Connected Colombian operations
These products explicitly address Colombian workflows, but their operating emphasis differs. Compare the shared team record in Sixto with the hotel-oriented processes in LobbyPMS, and confirm the actual enabled configuration for your organization.
Hotel and serviced-apartment platforms
Mews, Cloudbeds and Stayntouch approach the property through hospitality operations. Distinguish extended-stay depth, distribution packaging and mobile reception, then evaluate the local partners or prerequisites required for a Colombian rollout.
Summary table
Scroll the table horizontally to compare all criteria. Each product links to its detailed assessment below.
| Product | Best fit | Product type / category strength | Colombia / integration fit | What to verify | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sixto | Colombian teams coordinating apartments and guests | Operations app with Colombian workflows | Documented native workflows; invoicing via Matias | Long stays, inventory model and activation | Sixto |
| Mews | Aparthotels mixing nightly and extended stays | Serviced-apartment PMS; flexible stays | Colombian workflows require confirmation | Proration, company payer and local partners | Mews |
| Apaleo | Apartment brands with integration capability | Open PMS and integration platform | Colombian solution design requires confirmation | Partner scope, support and total cost | Apaleo |
| Cloudbeds | Operators seeking a broad suite plus local partners | Unified hospitality platform | Documented Colombian partner integrations | Partner fees, corrections and ownership | Cloudbeds |
| Guesty | Mixed portfolios with identical apartment inventory | Rental PMS with multi-unit inventory | Documented partner; Colombian scope needs confirmation | Reassignment, corporate billing and reporting | Guesty |
| Stayntouch | Aparthotels with hotel-style reception and service | Hotel PMS with mobile workflows | Colombian workflows require confirmation | Billing details and regional integrations | Stayntouch |
| LobbyPMS | Colombian aparthotels with a staffed front desk | Hotel PMS with local workflows | Documented native SIRE/TRA; provider invoicing | Long stays and exception handling | LobbyPMS |
How we evaluated the options
- Inventory model: test individually assigned apartments and pooled room types, including a move without creating duplicate availability.
- Mixed stays: demonstrate an extension across month-end, a partial month, changed occupants and the resulting charges.
- Operational handoffs: connect departures to cleaning, inspection and maintenance before releasing a unit for arrival.
- Colombian fit: distinguish documented native workflows, documented partner integrations and capabilities that still require confirmation.
- Corporate billing: separate payer from occupant and test a company balance alongside guest extras and corrections.
- Integration ownership: identify who supports each connection, which data moves and how failures become visible.
We verified documented product scope and identified explicit Colombian integration evidence. We did not verify live credentials, individual contracts, bank settlement, filing acceptance or service levels. A missing claim is an open question, not proof that a feature is unavailable.
Sixto: daily operations with a Colombian focus
Best for: Colombian teams coordinating apartments and guests
Sixto is a practical starting point when the main problem is coordination: arrivals, missing guest details, conversations and unfinished work live in separate places. Its published scope combines reservations, units, guest information and team tasks. Colombian SIRE and TRA filing workflows sit alongside a Matias-based invoicing integration; Sixto manages channel connections. These services require the relevant configuration, permissions and activation. For an apartment operation, assess the full handoff from a changed reservation to the person preparing the unit, rather than judging the product only by its calendar. That is the operational fit behind its placement first in this guide.
Ask for your precise longer-stay and corporate-billing cases. Do not assume that every hotel-group accounting pattern, pooled inventory model or connected lock is supported. Use a pilot to establish what works today, what depends on a provider, and who handles exceptions. [1]
Mews: mixed stays and corporate accommodation
Best for: Aparthotels mixing nightly and extended stays
Mews has a dedicated serviced-apartment proposition rather than relying only on a generic hotel page. It documents flexible stay lengths, a monthly reservation view, partial-month proration and company billing. Centralized operations and integrations make it relevant to a building or a growing apartment brand. Its distinctive buying question is how the property sells time and space: nightly stays, extended accommodation and business accounts. Ask the team to demonstrate the same apartment changing from a short booking to an extended stay, with a clear explanation of how the financial record and availability change.
The published serviced-apartment functionality is a strong reason to shortlist it. Colombian payment availability, SIRE/TRA and DIAN implementation still require confirmation for the proposed account. Obtain named integration partners and a complete local workflow before treating global product breadth as local readiness. [2]
Apaleo: a configurable platform for apartment brands
Best for: Apartment brands with integration capability
Apaleo approaches serviced apartments as an open platform: a core PMS, a marketplace of connected applications and APIs for custom services. Its apartment page explicitly covers multiple locations and a mix of short and long stays. This makes it worth investigating when a brand has a clear guest journey and wants to choose the services around it. The decision is architectural as well as operational. Start with a diagram of reservations, payments, check-in, housekeeping and reporting, then identify which component owns each step and who maintains the connections.
Flexibility is valuable when someone owns implementation. Include partner subscriptions, configuration, monitoring and support coordination in the evaluation. Colombian payments, SIRE/TRA and invoicing require a confirmed solution design; an available API does not by itself establish a working local integration. [3]
Cloudbeds: a unified platform with documented local partners
Best for: Operators seeking a broad suite plus local partners
Cloudbeds markets a unified platform to rental and serviced-apartment operators, connecting property operations with distribution and guest-facing tools. It belongs on the shortlist when the team wants to consolidate commercial and operational work while retaining partner options. Its official Colombia guidance identifies partner routes for guest reporting and electronic invoicing. That is more useful evidence than a general claim of international coverage. Evaluate the actual package and partner combination together: one booking should remain traceable from the reservation record through the external workflow and back to the team responsible for an exception.
Classify the Colombian fit as documented partner integration, not automatically native functionality. Confirm the chosen partner, data exchange, fees and support boundaries. Test unit changes and added guests, since a functioning initial connection does not establish how later corrections propagate. [4] [5]
Guesty: hotel-style units inside a rental portfolio
Best for: Mixed portfolios with identical apartment inventory
Guesty is particularly relevant when an aparthotel sits inside a wider rental management business. Its multi-unit tooling groups identical sub-units, applies shared changes and lets reservations move between units. That addresses a specific commercial problem: selling interchangeable studios without managing every date as an isolated listing. The important distinction is between a group of equivalent units and apartments with materially different promises. Demonstrate the real listing structure, room assignment and reassignment before migration. A rental-oriented platform can be a good fit, but the data model must match what guests believe they booked.
Guesty lists a Hospy integration for reservation and listing synchronization. Confirm the exact Colombian reporting scope, write-back behavior and invoicing route separately. Also demonstrate company billing and extended stays rather than assuming the rental workflow matches every front-desk requirement. [6] [7]
Stayntouch: mobile hotel operations for serviced apartments
Best for: Aparthotels with hotel-style reception and service
Stayntouch is a hotel PMS with mobile reception and guest check-in, group handling and financial controls. Its published inventory tools include extended-stay rates as well as day-use and hourly options. Consider it when the aparthotel operates with hotel-style front office procedures but wants staff to move around the property. The demonstration should follow an actual shift: prepare arrivals, change a room, post a charge, hand over a maintenance issue and close a guest account. This helps determine whether mobility improves the service model or simply moves familiar screens onto a tablet.
Verify extended-stay billing details, Colombian payment processing and local reporting integrations. Also clarify the relationship between core PMS, distribution, guest messaging and access providers. A broad integration catalog is a starting point for diligence, not evidence that a specific Colombian configuration is already supported. [8]
LobbyPMS: hotel workflows with explicit Colombian features
Best for: Colombian aparthotels with a staffed front desk
LobbyPMS deserves serious consideration for an aparthotel whose daily routines resemble a hotel. Its Colombia page brings together reservations, reception, sales, payments and reporting, and explicitly describes SIRE and TRA workflows. Electronic invoicing uses a technology provider. This is a grounded local alternative, particularly when reception and service charges are central to the operation. Bring a reservation that includes several guests and extra consumption to the demo, and follow it through changes and departure. Compare the underlying operational sequence with your own processes rather than selecting solely on the presence of familiar regulatory acronyms.
The published local scope is clear, but implementation details still matter. Ask when each filing is triggered, how rejected or interrupted submissions are handled, and how multiple properties are configured. For longer stays, separately verify partial billing, company accounts and apartment-specific maintenance blocks. [9] [10]
Choose by operating model
Use these illustrative operating situations to narrow the demo list. They are buying scenarios, not customer case studies.
One building, a small operations team
Reception coordinates arrivals while cleaning and guest support work from phones.
Start with Sixto and LobbyPMS. The choice should turn on the daily handoff, not the number of menu items. Have reception change an arrival time, add a guest and flag an apartment that is not ready. Then ask cleaning to respond and the supervisor to see what remains unresolved. Sixto is relevant when the shared operations record is the priority; LobbyPMS is worth comparing when reception, sales and local hotel procedures dominate. Require the same Colombian reporting demonstration from both, including a failure and its recovery.
- Change an arrival after cleaning is assigned.
- Add a guest after initial registration.
- Find the receipt for a completed filing.
An apartment brand with longer corporate stays
Guests extend across month-end and companies pay accommodation separately from extras.
Put Mews on the shortlist and evaluate Apaleo if you want to assemble a tailored platform. Use one realistic extended reservation with an extension, a room move and two payers. A monthly calendar is useful, but the deciding evidence is whether staff can explain every charge and reconcile the account. Compare Sixto if team coordination and Colombian workflows carry greater weight, while explicitly testing these financial cases. Ask each supplier to identify which parts are core functionality and which need an additional product or implementation partner.
- Extend a stay across month-end.
- Split company charges and guest extras.
- Move the guest without losing billing history.
Several buildings plus scattered rental apartments
Some studios are interchangeable; other apartments must be sold individually.
Compare Guesty’s multi-unit model with Cloudbeds and the operational approach in Sixto. First establish whether each listing represents a specific apartment or a category of equivalent inventory. Then test how a reassignment affects channels, guest instructions, cleaning and any access integration. Cloudbeds is relevant when you prefer a broad suite and a documented Colombian partner route; Guesty when pooled rental inventory is a central requirement. Choose the configuration that preserves a clear record of what was sold and what was delivered, with one person accountable for mapping changes.
- Map a pooled category and a unique apartment.
- Move a reservation between equivalent units.
- Check instructions and tasks after reassignment.
A practical implementation sequence
Describe inventory before importing it
List every physical apartment, category, channel listing and maintenance block. Decide which units are interchangeable and which must remain individually assigned. Record who can change these relationships. Reconcile the map with upcoming reservations before enabling any new distribution connection; a visually tidy calendar can still hide a mapping error.
Rehearse the awkward stay
Build a demonstration reservation with several guests, a company payer, a changed departure date and an apartment move. Follow the resulting charges, tasks and guest communications. Repeat with a missing document and a rejected integration action. Record the point at which a person must intervene and how the next shift sees that decision.
Pilot one operational group
Choose a building or coherent unit group with staff available to supervise the transition. Agree which system owns availability, guest messages and each reporting action. Keep the previous records accessible while reconciling the pilot. Expand only after the team can explain discrepancies and complete the workflow without relying on the implementation consultant.
Review the first full billing cycle
Reconcile arrivals, departures, company balances, guest payments and external reporting receipts. Review unresolved exceptions with reception, operations and finance together. Confirm exports and role permissions before rolling out additional buildings. A successful first day is useful evidence, but a full billing cycle reveals issues that a simple booking demonstration cannot.
What to include in the quote
Request a quote based on your actual inventory model: physical units, pooled categories, properties, users and connected services. Ask separately about onboarding, data import, payments, messaging, channel connectivity, reporting partners and invoice volume. A nominal monthly subscription does not explain the cost of an assembled operating system.
Compare the same operating scenario over the proposed contract term. Include internal implementation time, exchange-rate exposure if billed abroad, support coverage and exit exports. Ask what happens when a property is closed temporarily or an owner removes units. Do not infer Colombian bank settlement or tax-document support from a global payments page.
Demo checklist
Questions
Can a vacation rental PMS run an aparthotel?
Sometimes. Guesty’s documented multi-unit model is one relevant example. The decision depends on whether you sell specific apartments or interchangeable room types, how you bill longer stays and whether reception needs group or company accounts. Demonstrate those cases before importing inventory.
Is a channel manager enough?
It may solve distribution, but it does not establish a complete operating workflow. You still need a clear system for guest records, apartment readiness, charges and exceptions. Identify which system owns each function before deciding whether to replace the PMS or add a connected service.
Does Colombian support mean native functionality?
No. Cloudbeds documents partner solutions, while LobbyPMS describes workflows inside its hotel product. Sixto combines its operational workflows with a configured invoicing provider and Sixto channel management. Ask who supplies each step, what is activated and where completion or failure is recorded.
Which option is strongest for long stays?
Mews explicitly documents serviced-apartment features such as proration and company billing. Apaleo and Stayntouch also address mixed or extended stays. This is a reason to investigate, not a universal winner: run your own partial-month, extension, room-move and payer-splitting cases.
Should all properties migrate together?
A coherent pilot usually gives the team clearer evidence. Define ownership of availability and communications, reconcile the imported reservations and keep historical records accessible. Avoid leaving two systems actively changing the same inventory without a carefully designed transition.
What should the final demo prove?
One reservation should remain traceable through changes, guest information, apartment readiness, charges and the relevant Colombian workflows. Include a failed external action and a role with restricted access. Ask staff to complete the steps themselves, then export the resulting records.
Official sources
Official product documentation and authority sources reviewed for this guide. Features, eligibility and commercial terms should be confirmed for your property.