Rentec Direct

Rentec Direct is now taking signups for our new Free Property Management Software, Rentec 2.0! Click here to visit our main site, and get signed up today risk free.

There is a new report available within the Reports tab: Open Workorders.  Choose a property from the property dropdown and then choose this report to view all open workorders for the property or properties selected.

Choose Print in the upper right to send it to your printer.  Note, the display on page puts each workorder right after the next; however, when sent to the printer it will page break each workorder to its own page.

Product Update, Rentec PM, Rentec Pro, Rentec for Associations

We’re pleased to announce a time saving feature for Rentec Direct subscribers.  When a tenant changes their mind and moves in a week late, or a week early, or just to fix clerical errors it is now much easier to adjust this in the system.  Prior to this new feature, you would move out the tenant, fix their accounting, and move them back in.  If they were specified as moved in far in the past it could take a fair amount of cleanup to remove the monthly charges.

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.

Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec PM, Rentec Pro, Rentec for Associations

You’ve always been able to login using the same account simultaneously with multiple people or locations; however, we’ve gone one step further. You can now create multiple accounts which all access the same data. This allows property management companies or multi-owner landlord associations to create individual unique logins and passwords for each person. No longer is there a need to share the same password.

We’ve completed and rolled out phase 1 of this project.  Phase 2 will be integrating unique permissions per user into the system.  We’re currently accepting feedback on what permissions would be useful to you.  If you have ideas, please submit them to support@rentecdirect.com or by adding a comment to this post.

To access this new feature, click the Settings tab, and choose Manage User Accounts.  The primary user (the one you signed up with and access Rentec with today) has access to manage and change any of the sub-user accounts including access to look up passwords.

As a default, and to ensure the highest security, any account not used for 6 consecutive months will be disabled automatically.  To restore an account, edit it via this management interface and change the Active setting to Yes.

This feature is available for all Rentec Pro, PM, and Association users.

Product Update, Rentec PM, Rentec Pro, Rentec for Associations

Sorting property names, especially when considering large numbers of sub-units, can be somewhat complicated.  The typical methods to sort available on the web are alphabetically or numerically.  The challenge presents itself when there might be a property, or multiple properties within an account that look like the following lists:

123 Spruce St, Unit A 123 Spruce St, Unit B 123 Spruce St, Unit C 123 Spruce St, Unit D

133 Pine St, Unit A1 – 4br 133 Pine St, Unit A2 – 3br 133 Pine St, Unit B1 – 2br 133 Pine St, Unit B2 – 2br

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.

Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec PM, Rentec Pro, Rentec for Associations

We’ve extended the reporting support to include a new option within the property drop-down selector.  If you have more than one property defined within the software a new option will show up as the first option called - All Properties -.  When selected, any financial report with an asterisk (*) next to it will provide you a overview picture that includes data from all your properties.

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

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

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

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

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

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