Rentec Direct

An update was pushed live last night which includes some substantial usability updates to the property marketing interface.  First, there’s a new shortcut; right-click on any property and select Marketing Info to go directly to the marketing page (previously you would access this within the edit property window).

Within the marketing info page, you’ll notice a new layout which includes a new pictures box.  Previously, you would upload pictures to the file library, then set them as a listing picture.  We’ve saved you all those steps, and added multi-upload support to right here within the marketing page.  Right within the pictures box, just click the Choose Files button.  Select as many files as you want, and they will all be uploaded.  Then just right-click on the images to adjust their order, or to delete them.

A new update has been published which now allows multi-select file uploads in all file libraries and workorder attachments.  To use the multi-file upload, go to the file library like normal and click ‘Upload Files’.  You’ll be presented with a selection tool where you can select one or many files.  The selection tool follows the standard conventions for multi-select.  Hold CTRL while selecting to select multiple files, or hold SHIFT to select a series of files in a row.  Once you click Open, all the files will upload to the selected library.

The file uploader for attachments has also been improved.  The new uploader happens without a popup window, and with three fewer clicks.  This makes what is typically a frequent task much smoother.

These new updates have been tested working well with the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome web browsers.  If you have experiencing difficulty with any of these browsers, please verify you are running the latest version of the browser.

We’ve added improved support for roommates and/or secondary tenants.  You can now easily add full tenant details for multiple responsible parties on a single lease.  It’s as easy as picking an inactive tenant, right-clicking, and choosing ‘Add To Group’.  This new feature is great for the following scenarios:

• Roommate scenarios where there are numerous responsible parties.
• Families, such as husband + wife where you want to keep a full set of tenant data on both.
• Any other scenario where there is more than one tenant who is jointly responsible for the rent.
• When you have multiple payers that want ACH and each payer contributes only a portion of the rent.  (Easypay tenant ACH fully supports this scenario).  This also works equally well if the tenants are paying by cash, check, or credit card.

The “additional occupants” field will remain within the tenant edit screen and remains useful for recording other household occupants such as children or roommates that you do not need to keep a full set of data on.

For full information on how to use this feature, please visit this knowledge-base article.

## From the News Room ##

Grants Pass, OR –  February 19, 2013

Rentec Direct announces the release of the third major version of their popular property management software. This release incorporates years worth of thoughtful client suggestions and strategic programming to create the most modern and functional solution available for property managers.

Version 3.0 of Rentec Direct incorporates the latest web technologies, such as HTML5 and AJAX, which means a faster, simpler, and more intuitive interface for property managers. Using these advanced technologies gives property managers access to the features and data they need with less clicks and less trouble than ever.

A vast array of new features have also been included in version 3. More searching and filtering options are available throughout giving property managers faster access to the data they need. The workorder system has been vastly improved and now meets the demands of both larger and smaller property managers. Other improvements have been made throughout the system to improve the user experience over-all.

“We pulled out all the stops and deployed the most advanced graphical interface and married it to our powerful property management platform,” says Nathan Miller, President of Rentec Direct. “There is simply no easier way to manage properties or screen tenants than with the latest version of Rentec.”

Rentec has made all the features and improvements of this new version immediately available to all existing clients at no additional cost. All new subscribers start out with this latest version which makes their startup times even quicker with the fastest learning curve in the industry.

The latest version of Rentec’s property management software and tenant screening solutions is available with a free trial at http://www.rentecdirect.com.

About Rentec Direct

Rentec Direct provides cloud based property management software solutions for property managers and landlords. Other popular solutions offered by Rentec Direct include tenant ACH payment processing, tenant criminal searches, tenant credit check, and online syndication of vacancies to more than 20 popular websites.

Are you using Rentec to print your checks?  If you happen to use voucher style checks, you’ll notice some major improvements to the vouchers.  Each voucher now includes:

• The account name, pay to, and amount just as before.
• The memo line is now included.
• The property affiliated with the transactions.
• The category affiliated with the transaction.
• For split transactions, each transaction making up the total split transaction is now itemized on the ledger.
• We’ve also improved the layout, so the voucher checks are easier to read.

You now have additional options available for setting default late fees.  All of the following late fee values now have defaults, which you can set at Settings, Accounting Defaults.

• Monthly late fee – this can be a dollar value, or a percentage.
• Daily late fee – this can be any dollar amount
• Monthly maximum late fee – this is set to a dollar amount and the system will not charge more monthly + daily late fees than this set value.

All new tenants added into the system will automatically have these defaults applied.

We’ve had a number of requests to add a feature which allows for quick addition of a note to a tenant or property, which is then apparent when viewing the tenant or property list.  We’ve done just that using the traditional sticky notepad concept.

To use this new feature, just right-click on a tenant or property, choose Notes & History, then click the button to Add Sticky Note.  Once a sticky note has been added, the icon seen in the screenshot below will show up next to your item.  Clicking the icon brings up the sticky.  To remove the sticky note, simply delete the contents.

We’ve just deployed a brand new feature to help you locate properties faster.  When editing any property or sub-unit you now have a new option called “Description”.  This new field is designed for a short description of what this property consists of, and the value within this field is searchable on the property tab.  For instance, if you rent apartments, it may be useful to enter in the number of bedrooms and bathroom, and/or square feet of the unit.  Then via the filter option on the property tab you can quickly identify all units that are 3BR, or 2BA, or maybe those with a garage or storage.

Take a look at this screenshot for a demonstration of the feature’s usefulness.

As promised, we’ve rolled out another significant update to the workorder system.  Workorders now accept file attachments via our new file attachment engine (look out for this new file attachment engine to replace the existing one in other areas of the application in the coming weeks).  When editing a workorder you can now attach any related files you wish.  Examples:

• Pictures of the repairs to be done
• PDF or document with contracts, bids, or receipts
• Pictures of the completed repair
• Any other files related to the repair, all file types are supported.

Do you have a bunch of files to upload?  No problem, just click “Choose Files” (or “Browse” on some browsers), and hold down the CTRL key while selecting multiple files.  You can upload them all at once.  To remove any files you’ve uploaded, just right-click the thumbnail and choose “Remove File”.  Just make sure you are using either Chrome, Firefox, or IE 10 or greater to use these new features.

Open Workorders Report - This report is now a property and date bound report.  Previously there was no date binding, so now you can specify a range of dates which will influence the report.  The date is bound to the date the workorder was created or received.

More Report Enhancements - While we were at it, we’ve had a lot of requests to save the report settings from page to page.  For example, if you select a property and run a financial report, then move over to renter or misc reports next, the property and date range will follow you.  This improvement should be a real time saver.

We’ve rolled out a significant update to the workorder system based on the many thoughtful requests we’ve received from clients. These new features are available immediately:

• Brand new, updated layout makes it easier to enter and read trouble ticket data.
• New numbering system which automatically increments, or allows specific trouble ticket numbers to be designated.
• New option to delete workorders that you no longer wish to have in the system.
• A permission to enter checkbox is added and now displays accordingly on the workorder printout.
• The property name is now included on the workorder printout for larger properties to quickly identify the building the request belongs to.
• A new resolution entry is part of the edit page, so you now have a separate textbox to enter the resolution of the problem.
• Quicklinks to post the expense to the property or to the property & tenant.  This replaces the previous functionality which was somewhat inflexible.  This new method automatically saves any changes, then forwards you to the familiar property expense page, which has the full functionality of posting expenses, with all the details of the trouble ticket pre-populated.
• The popular vendor/owner search used in the post expense page is now carried through into the workorders.  When assigning a workorder, just type the first few characters of the vendor and it will automatically search the database for all matches.
• You can now specify the priority of the workorder, and when viewing the list of workorders sort by either the date submitted, or the priority.

We have more features to further improve workorders even more in the near future, so stay tuned for more updates.  As always, if you have any recommendations on how the workorder system (or any other part of the software) can work better for you, please let us know by emailing your suggestions to support@rentecdirect.com.