We’ve recently had a number of inquiries about using Rentec Direct with commercial property management. To increase the capabilities of Rentec Direct and assist our property managers extend into commercial property; we’ve recently completed updates to Rentec Direct which provide an entry box in the tenant definition for company names. Additionally, all reports and screens related to tenants will display the company name if it exists prior to the tenants first and last name. This feature will greatly assist commercial property management companies as well as private landlords who lease or rent to corporations instead of private individuals.
This feature was deployed early April, 2010. We are just a little late on the announcement.
This new functionality applies to all editions (Basic, Pro, PM, and Association) of Rentec Direct.
Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec PM, Rentec Pro, Rentec for Associations
company name, tenant company
Many tenant screens return instantly and you can view the data right after submitting it; however, some searches such as county level manual search as well as evictions searches actually require a dispatch to the county seat to retrieve the records. These type of reports take 2-3 business days to retrieve.
To save Rentec Direct landlords time, we’ve added a feature to automatically email you when reports are available. No more logging in to check each day to see if it has arrived. You will be automatically emailed when each report is returned now with a quick link to the login page.
We anticipate this will be helpful, especially for property managers and landlords running reports frequently.
Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec Pro
automated email notification, tenant screening
Tenant Portal Repairs Tab
This has been one of our most frequent requests by property managers; to allow tenants to place workorders via the tenant portal. We’re pleased to report that this new feature is released!
Tenants will have a new tab called ‘Repairs’ when they login to their tenant portal. Within this tab they can see a list of workorders associated with the property they are renting. Clicking on any of the items will give them limited details (only what a tenant should see). Tenants can also click the link at the bottom to Report an issue, where they can enter details of the problem which will automatically enter a workorder inside your Rentec Direct account, and email you about it’s existence.
By default this functionality is enabled for all new workorders. If you want to prohibit tenants from placing workorders or modify the email preference, you can easily adjust these settings at Settings, Program Defaults. You can also prohibit a tenant from seeing an individual workorder by de-selecting the ‘Tenant view‘ option when creating or editing workorders in the upper right.
Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec Pro
repairs, tenant portal, tenant repair, workorders
We’ve had a lot of interest lately from landlords requesting weekly or daily rental support. We’ve previously had support for these; however, the process was a bit tedious. We’ve added support within the move-in tenant screen to select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly rental period.
For standard monthly rentals, just leave the selector on ‘Monthly’; however, for those renting more short-term choose Weekly or Daily from this drop-down menu. The system will then take care of all necessary calculations for you and place the appropriate values into the tenant ledger and the recurring transactions.
Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec Pro
daily, rental period, weekly
We’re introducing another great improvement to kick off 2010. Your ledgers (tenant, property, and bank account) are all downloadable in CSV format which opens directly into Excel! Don’t use excel? No worries because CSV is a universally recognized format that pretty much every application, including Quickbooks, Quicken, Google Docs, and others widely use and accept. It’s also easily readable via a text editor such as notepad.
Additionally, this opens up the ability for you to backup your own data if you choose. Any time, to use this new feature just open up any ledger. At the bottom of the ledger is a link that says download this data. If you have Excel installed it can be opened directly into Excel, or saved to your computer where you choose.
Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec Pro
backup, csv, download, excel, export
Rentec Direct property management software has always un-officially supported adding multiple tenants to a property; however, we’ve officially added and expanded the support and made it easier to use and to report on.
If you want to add multiple tenants to a single property or unit, you can do so just by choosing Place New Tenant from the Properties tab. What’s new is as you add additional tenants, they will all show up right on the properties tab so you can easily see all of the tenants instead of just the primary.
Additionally the reports have been expanded to support roommate scenarios. Both the All Tenants Report and the Rent Roll Report now show in sequence all tenants associated with a property. Here’s a snippet of the Rent Roll Report with the three tenants moved into the test property 1429 SW Foundry.
For more information on how to use this feature, choose need help? in the upper right once logged in, and select the topic labeled How can I add multiple tenants or roommates to a single property?
Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec Pro
college, multi tenant, roommate, shared housing, split rental
A new option has been added to the edit property screen. You can now specify separate income and expense accounts. Prior there was a single default account which defaulted for both income and expenses. With the addition of bank deposits and undeposited funds tracking it made sense to separate these since most expenses come directly from a checking account, whereas undeposited funds are handled differently.
By default, your Income account and Expense accounts are the same as you have already defined, or set to None if you have not previously set them. To update the defaults, click the Properties tab, then right-click on your property, and select Edit Property. From the drop-downs here you can specify your default income and expense accounts individually for each property.
In addition, any workorders expensed to a property will automatically also post to the default expense account for that property.
From the Rentec Team, we wish everyone a very happy new year!!
Product Update, Rentec Pro
bank accounts, default account, expense account, happy new year, income account, undeposited funds, workorders
We are pleased to announce a new feature-set to Rentec Direct. Landlords/property owners can now quickly and easily track their depreciable improvements and report on them with just a click at tax time.
To use this new feature, simply select the box that says ‘this is a depreciable improvement’ when entering an expense for a property. Alternatively if you want to track depreciable expenses without affecting the property ledger, you can do that too. Just right-click on the property, choose Depreciation, and add any items you wish. Both methods will show up on the new depreciation schedule report within the Reports tab.
For more detailed help in setting up depreciable items, click ‘need help?‘ in the upper right after logging in, and find the FAQ item listed as ‘How do I enter and track depreciable improvements? ‘.
Product Update, Rentec Pro
depreciate, depreciation, improvements, tax, taxes
We have fine tuned the bank deposit functionality a bit. When you view your Accounts which you’ve done deposits into, the bank deposits will be grouped into a single deposit to more closely follow accounting standards/practices. This also removes a fair amount of clutter from the Account view, and also gives a direct comparison to your bank statement for easy reconciliation.
From here you can click the attachment icon to view the deposit slip or deposit summary which will provide you with the granular details of the deposit.
Product Update, Rentec Pro
accounting, deposit, deposit slip
Rentec Direct has expanded our property management software interface to include full support for tracking all undeposited funds and making bank deposits. We put a lot of thought into making this interface to keep it simple and intuitive while being powerful enough to handle the variety of different techniques used by landlords and property managers. The end result is a brilliant and easy to use system which manages it for you, and even prints a deposit slip for making your deposit. It could not be easier!
Here is a brief run-down of how easy it is. When you are taking payments simply put them into the undeposited funds account. When you are ready to go to the bank, enter the undeposited funds account and choose Make Deposit. The system will let you select which items you wish to deposit into which account, and then print out a deposit slip for you to bring to the bank.
For existing Rentec users who want to see a complete step-by-step tutorial, click the need help link in the upper right after you are logged in. Find the FAQ item labeled ‘How do I use Rentec Direct to track undeposited funds and bank deposits?’.
Product Update, Rentec Pro
bank deposits, deposit slip, deposit summary, undeposited funds
