It's great news that you are buying a new business! If the current owner already use freetobook then we have procedures in place to help you through the process of taking over the freetobook account and will help with the associated services, connections and advertising platforms.
There's not a lot that you need to do prior to the sale going through but we've prepared a short list of things to work with the seller on, to ensure a smooth transfer on the day.
Online Travel Agents
It's very important that the accounts at the OTAs (this is the likes of booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb etc) are transferred correctly and not simply closed down by the seller - a closed down account means that guests' bookings are cancelled & relocated at the seller's expense and if they do not pay those amounts then you will not be allowed to take over the account until the debt is cleared. Your solicitor may want to make the transfer of OTA accounts part of the condition of sale to save any trouble later.
Check with the seller which OTAs they work with and ask them to get the ball rolling on the transfer of account as soon as possible.
Card Processing Systems
There are a couple of options in freetobook for processing guest credit cards. Our most popular option by far is a connected account with Stripe.com. This can be set up in about ten minutes but if the seller currently has a Stripe account then Stripe.com have a process in place to simply swap the ownership of that account and that will mean you will be able to transact any existing stored credit cards.
If the seller is using either FabPay or is simply capturing cards and manually typing them in to a desktop terminal (not recommended) you can continue either of these but you will need to apply for your own merchant accounts, which can be costly if the property you are buying has fewer than around 10 rooms. In these cases it's worth speaking to us as it might be worth switching to Stripe.com at this point.
Tips from other owners
Have a look at this article too. Whilst it is not anything to do with freetobook, it's things that we know have caused buyers trouble in the past so we like to share the information in the hope that other don't have the same pain!