Here’s a supply situation that happens to Airbnb hosts every single month:
Your cleaner sends you a message at 9am: “We’re out of toilet paper at the Maple St property.” Your guests check in at 3pm. You have 6 hours to figure it out.
Or the opposite: you do a supply run to all three properties on the same day and spend $340 — then realize you already had $120 worth of stuff at each one that you couldn’t see until you got there.
Both problems have the same root cause: no system for knowing what’s at each property before you need it.
The Par Level System
“Par level” is a restaurant term. It means the minimum quantity of something you maintain at all times — the floor below which you always restock.
For a hotel room: 12 rolls of toilet paper on hand is the par. When it drops to 4, you restock to 12. You never let it go to zero.
For an Airbnb property, you need par levels for every consumable supply. When your cleaner does a turnover, they check stock against par. Anything below par gets flagged for reorder.
It’s not complicated. The work is setting the par levels — which takes one afternoon.
Setting Your Par Levels
Walk through your property (mentally or in person) and list every consumable supply. For each one, ask: “What’s the minimum I want to have on hand between guest visits?”
Here’s a starting point for a standard 2-bedroom property:
Bathroom Supplies
| Item | Par Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Toilet paper | 6 rolls | 2 rolls visible, 4 in cabinet |
| Hand soap | 2 bottles | 1 at each sink |
| Body wash | 2 bottles | |
| Shampoo | 2 bottles | |
| Conditioner | 2 bottles | |
| Tissues | 1 box |
Kitchen Supplies
| Item | Par Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dish soap | 1 bottle | |
| Dishwasher pods | 6 pods | |
| Paper towels | 1 roll | |
| Trash bags (kitchen) | 4 bags | |
| Trash bags (bathroom) | 4 bags | |
| Sponge | 1 (replaced monthly) |
Cleaning Supplies (Cleaner Brings/Uses)
| Item | Par Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose cleaner | ½ bottle | |
| Bathroom cleaner | ½ bottle | |
| Glass cleaner | ½ bottle | |
| Mop solution | ½ bottle |
Safety & Other
| Item | Par Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Smoke detector batteries | 2 AA/AAA (matching type) | |
| Lockbox battery | 1 9V |
Adjust based on your property size, guest frequency, and what you provide. A 4-bedroom vacation home needs different numbers than a studio.
The Turnover Check Protocol
Once your par levels are set, your cleaner’s job at the end of every turnover includes a 3-minute stock check:
- Check every supply category against par
- Flag anything below par — a text, a checklist note, whatever system you use
- That’s it
You see the flags after the turnover. You reorder only what’s needed, only at the properties that need it. No guessing, no surprises.
The Restocking Cadence That Works
What most hosts do: drive to the store when they remember or when something runs out. This creates emergency trips (expensive, stressful) and over-buying (you don’t know exactly what you have, so you buy “a little of everything”).
What works better: a fixed weekly or bi-weekly restock order.
The flow:
- After each turnover, cleaner flags below-par items
- Once a week (or every two weeks), you consolidate all flags across all properties
- You place one order — usually Amazon, Sam’s Club, or Costco — to restock to par at each property
- Order ships directly to the property (Amazon to the address, or you pick up one consolidated order)
You stop making emergency trips. You stop buying things you already have. You stop getting surprised mid-turnover.
What This Actually Saves You
Here are real numbers from hosts who switched from “buy when I remember” to a par system:
Supply over-buying reduction: 25–35%
When you know exactly what’s at each property, you only buy what’s needed. Hosts managing 2–3 properties typically find $600–$1,200/year in over-purchases they eliminate.
Emergency supply trip elimination: ~8 trips/year → 0–1
The average host without a system makes 6–10 emergency supply runs a year. At 45 minutes per trip including drive time, that’s 4–7 hours. Plus the stress of it happening at the worst possible time.
Cleaner communication improvement
When your cleaner has a clear protocol (“check par, send me a list”), you get fewer “what do we do about ___” texts and fewer turnovers where something runs out mid-clean.
The Multi-Property Version
If you manage 3+ properties, a shared supply spreadsheet starts to break down. You end up with 3 tabs, inconsistent update timing, and you’re not sure which version is current.
The multi-property system that scales:
Option A (free): Property-specific shared notes Create one Google Keep or Apple Notes note per property. Share it with your cleaner. After each turnover, they update the note with what’s low. You check the notes once a week.
Option B (better): One shared spreadsheet with property tabs One Google Sheet, one tab per property, same row structure for every supply. Cleaner fills in quantities after each turnover. You read across tabs when ordering.
Option C (best): A dedicated operations tool Tools like StayReady track supplies per property with par levels built in — your cleaner marks items during turnover, you see what needs restocking across all properties in one view. No spreadsheet maintenance, no tab-switching.
The First Afternoon Setup
Here’s how to implement this starting today:
Step 1 (15 min): List every consumable supply at one property. Walk through it room by room.
Step 2 (10 min): Set a par level for each item. Use the table above as a starting point, adjust for your property size and guest frequency.
Step 3 (5 min): Share the list with your cleaner with one instruction: “After each turnover, check these quantities and text me anything that’s below the number on the right.”
Step 4 (5 min): Repeat for each additional property.
Step 5 (ongoing): When you get a “below par” flag, add it to your weekly reorder list. Place one order per week.
That’s it. The whole system. Total setup time: 45 minutes to 2 hours depending on how many properties you have.
The supply chaos that most hosts live with — the emergency runs, the over-buying, the “I think we have enough, maybe” — isn’t because they’re disorganized. It’s because they never set up a system. One afternoon changes that permanently.
Running multiple properties and want one place for supply tracking, turnover checklists, and cleaner scheduling? StayReady is built for exactly that — see how it works or try the free profitability calculator to see where your margins actually go.