Admin Panel Overview
Welcome to your platform's admin panel — the control center for your entire hotel booking business. From here you manage properties and rooms, handle bookings and customers, process payments and refunds, run marketing campaigns, publish content, and configure how the whole platform behaves.
This page gives you the big picture. Each section links to a detailed guide.
Start with Installation, then work through the Platform Setup checklists (Add Cities, Tax Configuration, Cancellation Policy, Legal Policy) to get your platform live.
Single Mode vs Multi Mode
eStay ships as one codebase with two operating modes. The mode is chosen once, during initial Installation via the setup wizard, and isn't meant to be changed afterward.
- Single Mode (default) — you run one property-booking business. The admin panel manages every property directly.
- Multi Mode — the platform becomes a marketplace. Property owners register as Partners and manage their own properties, rooms, and bookings through a separate Partner Panel, while the admin panel adds tools to verify partners, configure commission, and track platform-wide finance.
Pages and nav groups that only exist in Multi Mode are marked Multi-mode only. Everything else in this guide applies to both modes identically.
What Multi Mode adds to the admin panel
| Nav group | New page | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Partners (new group) | All Partners | Full list of registered partners and their properties |
| Partner Verification | Approve or reject a partner's registration before they can go live | |
| Registration Fields (partner) | Custom fields shown on the partner sign-up form (separate from the customer-facing Registration Fields) | |
| Property Management | Property Verification | Approve or reject a property a partner submits, before it's bookable |
| Finance (new group) | Commission Management | Global and per-property commission rates taken from partner bookings |
| Property Payout | Payouts owed to partners per property | |
| Withdrawal Requests | Partner requests to withdraw their wallet balance | |
| Reports (new group) | All Reports | Tax, cancellation, feedback-rating, and partner performance reports |
Partners themselves work in the Partner Panel — a separate login, separate URL, scoped to only their own properties and bookings.
The Most Important Concept: Country & Property Context
At the top of the admin panel you'll find country and property switchers in the topbar. Most of what you see is scoped to your currently selected country (and property).
- Switch the country to view that country's bookings, customers, properties, promo codes, payments, and so on.
- Switch the property to narrow further to a single property where relevant.
Some pages are global and ignore these switchers — for example Events, Languages, Notification (Firebase) Settings, and most items under Settings. Each guide notes when a page is global.
If a customer, booking, or transaction "isn't showing up," the first thing to check is the country/property selected in the topbar — you may simply be looking at a different region.
The Dashboard
When you log in, you land on the Dashboard — an at-a-glance overview of your business with key stats and analytics for your selected country. Use it as your daily starting point, then dive into the sections below.
In Multi Mode, until your selected country's core setup is complete (admin profile, cities, taxes, cancellation policy, legal policy, commission, and property type setup), the Dashboard shows a setup checklist instead of analytics — with a button linking straight to each unfinished step. Once complete, you get a different dashboard than Single Mode: filterable Booking Overview, Top Cities, and Revenue widgets reflecting the whole country's marketplace, not just your own bookings.
Navigation Map
The left sidebar groups everything into sections. Here's what each one is for:
| Section | What you manage | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Property Management | Add and manage properties, plus custom onboarding fields. | Property Management · Registration Fields |
| Room Management | Room types, rooms, and amenities/facilities. | Property Management |
| Bookings | Reservations, today's check-ins/check-outs, availability. | Booking Management |
| Customers | Customer accounts, activity, insights, and manual refunds. | Customers · Manual Refunds |
| Marketing | Promo codes, the referral program, and notifications. | Promo Codes · Refer & Earn · Marketing Notifications |
| Event Management | Event types and customer event inquiries. | Events & Inquiries |
| Location & Policies | Countries, cities, currencies, taxes, and policies. | Countries · Add Cities · Tax · Cancellation · Legal |
| Payments | Gateway configuration and the full transaction ledger. | Payment Settings · Payment Transactions |
| Staff & Access | Staff accounts, roles, and permissions. | Roles & Staff |
| Content | Homepage, banners, blogs, FAQs, and other content. | Other Pages |
| Settings | Branding, web/app, languages, integrations, and more. | General Settings |
Configuration & Integrations
Beyond day-to-day management, the admin panel connects to several external services. Set these up once:
| Area | Guide |
|---|---|
| Push notifications (Firebase) | Notification Settings |
| Email delivery (SMTP) | SMTP / Mail |
| Languages & translations | Manage Languages |
| Maps & places | Map Provider — free via OpenStreetMap by default, Google Maps optional |
| Currency conversion | Currency Exchange API |
| Visitor country detection | IP Geolocation API |
| Background tasks (scheduler + queue) | Cron Jobs Setup |
| Keeping the system updated | Update System |
Several features — payment confirmation, expiring abandoned bookings, and sending notifications — rely on background tasks. Make sure the Cron Jobs are running, or these won't happen automatically.
Access & Permissions
What you can see and do in the admin panel depends on your role. The main administrator has full access; staff members only see the sections their assigned role allows. To create staff accounts and control their access, see Roles & Staff.
Where to Go Next
- Setting up for the first time? → Installation and the setup checklists.
- Running day-to-day? → Bookings, Customers, Payment Transactions.
- Growing your business? → Promo Codes, Refer & Earn, Marketing Notifications.
- Configuring the platform? → General Settings and the integration guides above.