Four Channels, Four Rate Plans: A Mapping Sheet You Can Audit

The mapping sheet is the only artefact that shows, in one place, what each channel is actually selling on your behalf.

Last updated: October 24, 2026

Four channels means four rate plans, four tax settings and possibly four currencies pointing at the same unit. The mapping sheet is the single page that records which plan sits behind which offer, and it's the only artefact you can hand to someone else and have them check your work. Without it, you're auditing by memory — and memory is what fails first when a rate changes at eleven on a Friday night.

Key Takeaways

• One sheet beats four tabs. A sheet puts the four plans on a shared axis, so a mismatch shows up as a mismatch instead of a memory test.
• Five columns carry the whole argument. Channel, plan name as the channel spells it, what the guest is charged, the cancellation basis, and the date you last checked.
• Audit from the channel inward. Read what the channel is selling first, compare it to the sheet second, then look at the dates.
• Re-audit on triggers, not on guilt. A rate edit, a new plan, a season change or a changed tax basis each earn a fresh pass.
• A stale sheet is worse than none. If the last-verified date is months old, the page is fiction with a header row.

Why one sheet beats four screens

Four browser tabs are four separate truths. Each channel keeps its own copy of your plan — its own name for it, its own rounding, its own view of what the nightly rate includes. You can read all four in a minute. What you can't do is compare them, because comparison needs a shared axis and tabs don't have one.

The sheet also survives people. When a co-host covers a weekend, or when you hand the operation to someone else for a month, the sheet is the thing that says what you intended. A channel screen only ever shows what is, never what should be. Those are different questions, and only one of them can be answered by looking at a channel.

There's a caution that belongs here. The sheet records intent, not status. It says Airbnb should be selling the flexible plan at the rate you set, not that it is. Status lives with the dates. Keeping the two apart is what makes an audit possible at all: you need one page that says what should be true and another that shows what's true today.

A third reason is quieter. Writing the sheet forces you to name things. Half the mapping errors in a four-channel setup aren't technical at all. They're a plan someone called "Flex 3" in their own head while the channel calls it something else entirely.

The five columns that matter

Five is a deliberate number. A sheet with twelve columns gets filled in for a fortnight and abandoned by the second month. These five survive because each one answers a question you'd otherwise answer by opening a channel.

Channel. The exact name as it appears in your account. "Booking.com" and "Booking" are the same company but not the same row when you're reconciling.

Plan name on that channel. Not your internal name — theirs. Channels rename plans during setup, and the label on the guest-facing page isn't always the label in your account settings. Write down the one you'd have to search for.

What the guest is charged. Be specific about the basis: per night, cleaning included or added, minimum stay attached. "Nightly rate" on its own is not a number, it's a category.

The cancellation basis attached. Which policy travels with this plan. If you sell a flexible plan and a non-refundable plan on the same channel, this is the column that stops them swapping places.

Last verified. A date, not the word "recently". This is the column that turns the sheet from a document into an instrument.

If you sell in more than one currency, the currency belongs inside the third column rather than as a sixth, because a rate without its currency is the same half-answer as a rate without its basis.

Auditing it in ten minutes

Order matters more than thoroughness here. Start at the channel, not at the sheet. Reading the sheet first tells you what you expect; reading the channel first tells you what's there. Only the second one is evidence.

Take them one row at a time. Open the channel's rate plan list, read the plan name and the base, and write any difference into a separate notes block. Don't fix anything yet. Fixing mid-audit is how you lose the trail of what actually changed, and it's how a ten-minute pass turns into an afternoon.

Then check the dates. localsbnb.com keeps Airbnb, Booking.com, Agoda and Trip.com in one calendar, and each channel's source rate and source status sits beside the dates. That turns the last step into a glance rather than four more tabs: the row you just audited and the figure the calendar is showing are one screen apart.

Four rows, two minutes each, plus two minutes to write up what you found. The audit isn't the hard part. Remembering to run it is.

One discipline makes the ten minutes worth repeating. Record what you found, not what you fixed. "Agoda showed the non-refundable plan on 14 October, changed to flexible on the 15th" is a record. "Checked Agoda, all fine" is a mood.

When to re-audit

Put the audit on triggers rather than on a feeling. The list is short and most of it is predictable.

Any rate edit. Any new plan, on any channel. A seasonal switch, in either direction. A change to a tax or fee basis. A channel-side rename of a plan you thought you controlled. A new person with access to the account. And the first working day of the month as a floor, for the months when nothing obvious happens.

The trap is auditing only after something breaks. By then the sheet's value has already been spent, because you're reconstructing intent from a guest complaint instead of checking it against a page. A better habit is to run the pass before a high season rather than after it, when a wrong plan has thirty nights of exposure behind it and none in front.

There's one more trigger worth naming. When you add a channel, the sheet gains a column of work, not a row. The plan names on the new channel won't match anything you've written down, and the first audit after a connection is the one that decides whether the sheet stays honest for the next year.

FAQ

How is a mapping sheet different from a rate sheet?

A rate sheet lists prices. A mapping sheet records which plan is live on which channel, what basis it's charged on and when you last confirmed it. Prices change weekly; the mapping changes when you or the channel changes it, which is far less often and far easier to miss.

Do I need a row per channel or per rate plan?

Per plan, per channel. One channel selling two plans needs two rows, because the two plans can drift apart independently. Four channels with two plans each is eight rows, which is still a page you can read in one sitting.

What if a channel won't let me see the plan name it's using?

Record the label the channel shows on its own screens, or the identifier it assigns, and note where you found it. The point isn't a tidy naming convention. The point is that six months from now you can find the same object again without guessing.

The sheet is small admin that decides whether a rate change is a five-minute edit or a week of guest complaints. Start with the four channels and the units you already run at localsbnb.com, and keep the first column honest before you add a sixth.

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This article is general guidance for hosts and isn't legal, tax or insurance advice. Rate plan names, fee bases and cancellation terms are set by each channel and change without notice. Confirm the current terms on every channel you sell on before you rely on a mapping, and check any tax treatment with a local adviser.