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.

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

We all have kids (or know somebody with them), and probably at one time or another we’ve rented an instrument for their band class.  I’ve done the same and found none of the music instrument rental locations offer an automated payment method.  The ones I’ve spoken with send an invoice monthly and ask the renter to mail back a payment.

I figure this has to be expensive for the shop.  Envelope, invoice, stamp, plus return stamp and the time it may take to cash the check.  What if there was an automated way?  Enter Rentec Music Rental Software.  We are leveraging the already powerful engine which drives Rentec’s property management software and soon making components available to other rental industries.

This will not only provide a new service to an industry desperately in need, but it will continue to help improve the core Rentec Direct product with new features and improvements that may benefit both industries.  Keep an eye out for new improvements in 2010!

Off Topic

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

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

We’ve updated our terms of service to version 1.2.

A summary of changes:

1. Section 2.3 added to define support services and costs.
2. Section 2.4 added to define data import/export services and costs.
3. Section 3.2 updated to include a link to our products and pricing page.
4. Sections 3.6 and 3.7 added.  Adds language about fees for any returned payments and defines circumstances where an account may become locked for non-payment.
5. Section 6.3 added.  This defines how we handle accounts which have been inactive for 6+ months.

Terms of Service

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

Most existing Rentec users have already dramatically reduced their time and effort when managing their properties with Rentec Direct.  Chris over at software advice have written up a good read on some of the benefits of using property management software and he covers some items we have not previously written about.

The article covers six important items and only briefly mentions the very best property management software (Rentec Direct) <grin>, but he makes some excellent points.  We have independently polled and asked thousands of landlords what is important to them.  Visit our main website to review what we have consistently found to be the most important tools for landlords.

External Resources

We released invoice printing some time back and we’ve had a significant influx of customer requests for a more expanded option.  What all the requests boiled down to was a statement print job was necessary for many landlords and property managers.

We’ve just completed the beta rollout of a statement print job.  Because of the compexity of a statement, we’re going to leave this feature in beta for a period of time and request your feedback.  It has gone through extensive testing, but as every landlord manages their properties a bit different we want to make sure it works for everyone before we release it out of beta.

Please try it out.  To print a statement, click the Tenants tab, then right-click on a tenant.  You will be presented with the following menu.  Choose Print Statement.

You will be prompted with some options to define the dates for which you want to produce the statement.  Choose your begin and end dates and select the options you wish to present on the statement, then choose Create Statement.  You will be presented with the report preview for the new statement.  Click the printer icon to print if you wish.

Please report any feedback to support@rentecdirect.com.  Thank you.

Product Update, Rentec Pro

Firefox and Safari users may never have seen this issue, but Internet Explorer issues have often missed something when printing their reports.  IE often chops off the right hand side of the report when printing to some printers.  We had earlier anticipated that IE might correct the issue with the print jobs; however, we waited and waited and nothing came.  We’ve taken measures into our own hands to fix the issue and also make the print engine more flexible.

You’ll notice when you pull up any report preview now that the print button opens a new window instead of sending directly to the printer.  This follows common practice used by online applications such as mapquest and google maps when printing directions.  This allows for a couple things.

1. We can assign new styling just to the print job so when printing it does not include the border and a few other elements designed for the preview.
2. We can assign custom font sizes to your print jobs so you can define the size of the print.  Just visit Settings, then Program Defaults, and set the font size to your preference.  The default is 12px; however, a lot of users are opting to bump this up to 14px for easier readability on paper.

Product Update, Rentec Basic, Rentec Pro

Another popular request that our dev team just completed is for the ability for landlords/property managers to maintain a list of popular or frequently used vendors within Rentec Direct.  Think of it as your property management address book and it doesn’t have to be only for vendors.  It’s easier than ever to create workorders now because within each new or existing workorder is a dropdown of all configured vendors.

To use this new feature, visit the Settings tab, and select Setup Vendors.  Enter the necessary information, save, and then the next workorder you enter you can simply select the vendor from the dropdown menu instead of typing in the info each time.  Upon selection, the vital contact information for the vendor selected immediately pops up below your selection so you have a number to call and schedule the repair.  No more flipping through the rolodex!

This is a time saving feature, as well as a record keeping improvement available to all Rentec Pro users.

Product Update, Rentec Pro