Bankruptcies, Liens & Judgments: The Bankruptcies, Liens and Judgments Search is a comprehensive nationwide search that provides case information on any filed bankruptcies, outstanding liens, and judgments. Results may include name, address, attorney, docket number, county, filing state, filing type, filing number, civil filings, bankruptcy filings, bankruptcy type, judgments, dismissal date, release date, tax lien type, asset amount and amount. Records are generally updated weekly.  This new reports has INSTANT results.  Many landlords rely on this report because it gives a great idea of the prospective tenant’s history.  Most evictions which are not satisfied turn into a judgment which would show up on this report.

Evictions: The Evictions Search provides information on past eviction filings. Results may include court, case number, judgment date, judgment amount, satisfied date, initial filing date, defendant information, and plaintiff name.  Eviction data is now also returned instantly.

These two new reports replace the following reports:
Evictions, Liens Judgments (1-3 business days).
Bankruptcy Search (1-3 business days)

With the introduction of these newer reports, you can get more of the necessary data to screen a tenant instantly.

We’re introducing a feature to make this a lot easier on our subscribers.  All these actions can now be taken care of by the system.  Right click on the tenant, choose ‘Update Lease’.  You’ll be presented with an option to change the move in date.  Also an option to update the accounting.  If you leave the option to update accounting as no, the move-in date changes are only for visual and reporting purposes.  If you select Yes, the system will clear out any existing rent charges for the tenant, and re-create them using the new move-in date.

Note:  We do not recommend using this for a tenant that already has accurate past rent charges as it will clear them out.  It’s best to use this only for new tenants who do not have a past history with you.  In the case of an existing tenant that has correct past charges (for instance a tenant moving from one of your properties to another), the best course of action is to select No to the accounting update, and then manually adjust their ledger.

Computers can be told to sort numerically, which would not have any idea how to sort the first set of data.  Likewise, they can be told to sort alphabetically which presents a problem with the 2nd set of data.  Even a straight numerical sort on the 2nd set of data would produce an unwanted result.  Alphabetical sorting also has the complication of ordering like this:  1,11,12,13,2,3,4,5,6 (see why the 11, 12, 13 are before the 2? hint: it’s because they start with 1 which comes before 2)  Add to this that within the property name field we see other notes which may not relate to the property address.  Now picture these same lists with 100 or 200 properties or unit in them.  It can end up looking disorderly.

Rentec Direct has developed a custom sorting methodology to address all options and display the list in the most universally ordered method available.  The explanation of how it works is as follows:

1. If a property has a numeric value within it (any number), that number is stored and used as the primary sort, followed by a alphabetical sort; otherwise if a property has no numerical values it is considered to start with a zero, so it’s at the top of the list and then sorted purely alphabetically.
2. Following any alphabetical only addresses are the numbered addresses, or addresses with any number in them at all.
3. In the case of properties with subunits, each list of subunits is sorted independently and listed directly below the primary property (or in the case of many reports, the subunit’s first units shows first).  The sorting of subunits follows the same rules as items 1 and 2 above.

If that’s too technical (or long) to read and understand, suffice it to say the sorting in Rentec Direct works much better now.  Thank you Sam (one of our terrific customers) for your feedback and help reporting the sorting issues.  This update should provide a more consistent look and feel across the board when looking at lists of properties.

This update affects all editions of Rentec Direct.

This new functionality applies to all editions (Basic, Pro, PM, and Association) of Rentec Direct.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?