Listing Your Accommodation

If you run a place to stay in the Upper Yarra — a cottage, a cabin, a B&B, a farm stay — your Accommodation Provider membership includes a listing on the Waterwheel site.

You write it yourself, from the front of the site. No WordPress login, no admin training, and nothing to send to a volunteer.

Allow about fifteen minutes for your first property. Edits after that take a minute or two.

It goes faster if you gather these first:

• A cover photo — wide, landscape, JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 8 MB. This is the one guests see on cards all over the site.
• Up to five more photos: rooms, the view, the kitchen.
• The street address, so the property goes on the map.
• A booking link or a phone number: at least one of them.
• A price range if you have one, and a line or two about the place.

You don’t have to finish in one sitting. Save what you have and come back.

The join form asks for the name of your first property, as guests will see it — Rivergum Cabin, not your own name.

Once you’ve confirmed your email and saved your card (nothing is charged until you’re approved), that property is waiting for you on your account, ready to fill in. You can set it up while a volunteer looks at your application.

Sign in and you land on My Account. Your properties shows each one in a row: whether it’s Live, Getting ready or Paused, a line of dots for its steps, and this month’s views and clicks.

Each row has its own buttons: View and Edit for a live property, Finish for one that still needs something, and Pause.

If your membership covers more than one property, + Add a property starts the next one, and 2 of 5 used tells you how many you have room for.

Every property has four steps to fill in — Details, Photos, Location and Contact & price — and then the fifth, Live.

It stays off the site until the steps are done, so nobody sees a half-finished listing. Then it goes live by itself on the save that finishes the last step. There’s no button to press and no one to wait for.

The tracker at the top says what each step still needs. Click a step’s name to jump to it. You can save at any point.

Property name and What kind of place is it? are the two things this step needs. Guests filter the accommodation list by the kind of place.

The rest helps guests decide: how many it sleeps, bedrooms, bathrooms, a minimum stay, check-in and check-out, a Short summary (one or two sentences; search engines and link previews show it) and About the property.

Features are the tick-boxes guests filter on, and they show as badges. Tick only what’s true — especially "Step-free / accessible". Someone will choose you because of that tick. Where access is partial, leave it unticked and explain the detail under Anything else guests get.

Star rating is your own claim, not a Waterwheel assessment. Leave it blank if you don’t use one.

The Cover photo is the one this step needs. A wide, landscape photo of the outside works best; one clear, well-lit photo beats a dark one taken at dusk.

Add more photos takes up to five more.

Note the line above the picker: by uploading, you confirm you own the photos or have permission to use them, and you allow the Waterwheel to show them while your listing is active. Images from a booking site you don’t control usually aren’t yours to licence.

Type the Street address: number and street, town, state and postcode. When you save, the site puts the pin on the map from it.

If the pin isn’t quite right, drag it, or click the map where the property is, then save. A pin you place yourself stays where you put it.

If the address can’t be found, the step says so: drop the pin on the map yourself.

A Booking link or a Phone number is what this step needs. Add an Email for enquiries, a Website and a Price range too if you like: guests look for the price first.

Guests book with you directly. The Waterwheel takes no commission and handles no payments for accommodation.

Then Save.

When the last step is done, the save puts it on the site and we email you its link. Changes you save after that show straight away, so a typo or last season’s price is public the moment you save. It’s worth re-reading the page once it’s live.

Still waiting for your membership to be approved? The property says Ready · goes live when you’re approved, and it goes on the site the moment you are.

Shut for winter, or booked out for renovations? Click Pause on the property’s row, choose a Back on date if you know it, and click Pause it.

The property comes off the site straight away and is kept exactly as it is. On the date you chose it comes back by itself.

A paused property says Paused on your account. Click Show again to put it back on the site whenever you’re ready.

You can still edit a paused property; it just stays off the site until you show it again.

I need another property. If your membership covers more than one, click + Add a property. If it covers one, your account says Have another property? Switch to Multiple properties under Your membership: follow Your membership to change. Your first property is untouched.

I’ve moved to a smaller membership. Do I lose a property? No. Everything you already have stays live and editable. You just can’t add another until you’re back within your allowance.

My membership has ended. What happens to my listing? It stays on the site for a while after your membership ends, then comes off. Nothing is deleted: renew, and your properties come back. The same happens if you drop Accommodation but keep another membership, and adding it back brings them back.

My property isn’t showing on the site. Look at its row on your account. Getting ready means a step is still to do (the dots say which); Paused means it’s paused; goes live when you’re approved means your membership is still being looked at.

Something else? Email info@yarravalleywaterwheel.org and a volunteer will pick it up.