Property Manager Using Hostaway and Stripe

[Sierra Williams]

Hello, I have a vacation rental property management business and I have a question regarding deposits into a bank account. How I have it set up currently is the owners (my clients) are receiving Airbnb payouts and I send an invoice at the end of the month for my Mgmt fee. However, I started using Hostaway as the PMS, which requires a Stripe account. Do you have multiple Stripe accounts for each of your owners? I asked Hostaway about this and they said it's better to have one bank account where all the money is going into, such as my business bank account. Which would mean that all of my clients funds go into my bank account and I would pay them their net payout (rent less my Mgmt fee, cleaning fee, maintenance costs, taxes) at the end of the month instead of them paying me my Mgmt fee. But is that considered commingling?

Also want to mention that I’m a licensed California realtor. I’m doing business in California. It’s my understanding that a trust account not required for a short term rentals nor is a real estate license actually required for managing short-term rentals. My broker at my real estate office discouraged me from getting a trust account. Hostaway said that the people they work with usually use their personal bank account or business account link to stripe. I just don’t want to do anything illegal as this is my livelihood.

Please help, TIA!