I have a vacation rental management client and I received a direct booking payment on their behalf and I want to record this correctly in my accounting software. At the end of the month on my monthly statement I recorded the commission owed and expenses that I needed for reimbursement. Since I already had this direct booking payment I just subtracted that from the amount the owner needed to owe me. How should I categorize this direct booking money when it came in? How should I categorize the amount the owner paid me at the end of the month less this direct booking payment amount? In reality I essentially reduced the commission owed to me by this amount but want to record this correctly on the books. I'm using Baselane. I don't plan to do this often and is kind of a one-off situation that happened by accident.

Can I write off my expenses for setting up my personal home for renting during season? How does that work for a home that is still technically my primary residence? Can I not get those tax benefits to offset the money from the bookings I earn?

If I were to fix up and furnish my personal residence to rent out as a mid-term rental while away for a few months at a time could I treat these expenses as a business expense? If so, is there a special way to do it and prove it to IRS?

For items like a laptop ($1000-1500) I'm reading that you have to track your usage and you can deduct the amount of usage as a business expense like if you spent 70% of your time on business activities and 30% personal then you can deduct the business portion based on usage. Is this accurate or does that only matter if the item is above a certain dollar threshold?