TrueRent & Rentec Direct Getting Started

Now that your data has been transferred over to Rentec Direct, there are a few differences between TrueRent and Rentec Direct that we want to point out and the steps necessary to verify your data and set up your account.

- Differences -

Navigation. You'll notice that Rentec Direct has a modern navigation system. You can switch directly between activities for Tenants, Properties, Owners, and Bank accounts on the left side navigation panel.
Menus. Each row has a menu affiliated with it which can be accessed by right-clicking on the row and choosing the action. (For Mac users, CTRL click does the same thing). You can also click the menu button on the right side of each row to open up the same actions menu.
Ledgers. Rentec Direct maintains ledgers for tenants, properties, owners, and bank accounts. In order to save you time doing double entry, a transaction is often linked to one or more of these accounts. For example, when a tenant rent payment is posted it may simultaneously show as a credit to the tenant, the property, and the affiliated bank account. If you are a property manager with owners configured, it will also credit to the owner. To enter a ledger, click on the balance row on the right column of any account.

- Necessary Steps To Complete -

1. Backup Your TrueRent Data

It is very important that you log in to TrueRent prior to March 20th, 2022 and save a snapshot of your accounting history. It is recommended that you save each report in Excel format.

To save tenant ledgers, visit "Tenant Billing", then click on each tenant. At the bottom of the page click "Print/Export", and save the ledger to your computer for each tenant.
To save owner reports, go to "Reports", then "Owner Statement". Choose each owner, then select a date range of "All". Check the box for "Show General Ledger", then click "Create". Scroll to the bottom and click "Print/Export" and save this report to your computer.
To save your rent roll, go to "Reports", choose "Rent Roll", then choose "Print/Export" and save the report to your computer.
To save your general ledger, go to "Reports", choose "General Ledger". Choose each Account, and select the date range to "All". Then scroll to the bottom and click "Print/Export'.

2. Add Employee Accounts

If you have additional employees or managers who login and manage your account, you will need to add them and specify their permission level in Rentec Direct. You do this by visiting Settings, Managers & Users in Rentec Direct.

For more information, please see the add property managers article.

3. Tenant Portal

Your tenants will have access to the Rentec Direct tenant portal moving forward where they can make payments, submit work orders, and view their statements. To enable portal access, edit the tenants, be sure they have an email account saved and click the "Enable Tenant Portal" checkbox, then click into the password field, generate a password, and click Email Tenant. Submitting that form will send an email to the tenant inviting them to login to their new tenant portal.

For more information, please see the tenant portal article.

4. Owner Portal

If you manage properties on behalf of other property owners, you can invite those owners to the owner portal using the same steps as the tenant portal only you do this at the edit owner page instead. It is recommended that you verify property and owner balances prior to enabling this.

For more information, please see the owner portal article.

5. Online Rent Payments

If your tenants pay their rent online, either you or the tenant will need to login and enter their banking information and payment schedule. You can do this by right clicking on the tenant and choosing Online Payments. Go to Payment Accounts and enter the tenant's payment account information. Then setup either a one-time or recurring payment schedule. The tenants can do the same using the tenant portal.

For more information about scheduling online rent payments please see the scheduling online payments article.

6. Rentec Direct Subscription

Within Rentec Direct, go to Settings, Your Account & Subscription. This page will show you your ongoing cost with Rentec Direct to utilize the software moving forward. Click where it says "Please Update" and enter your payment information to continue your Rentec Direct subscription past April 1st, 2022. Your account has been automatically configured as a Rentec PM account during import in order to ensure you have all the property management features; however, if you are not a property manager or managing properties on behalf of other owners, you can switch your subscription type to Rentec Pro at this same page and save apx 15% monthly.

For more information, see the update payment information article.

7. Verify Data

Use the reports obtained from TrueRent to verify tenant and owner balances are equivalent in Rentec Direct. Only transaction data from active tenants and properties was transferred over, therefore property or owner balances may differ from the balances shown in TrueRent. In order to give you a good starting point and become functional with Rentec Direct right away, there have been offsetting entries automatically posted to each property to zero out the property balance. Likewise, an offsetting entry has been posted to each owner equivalent to the combined owner affiliated account balance in TrueRent.

8. Billing Schedules

Typical rent billing schedules have automatically been migrated over. Your tenants should have the same amount of rent charged as they have in the past. You can verify this by clicking on any tenant's ledger and see that March's rent has been pre-posted. This amount should equal what the tenant was being charged in TrueRent. Only one schedule per tenant could migrate automatically. Therefore, if you have multiple billing schedules for a tenant, those will need to be set up manually.

Instructions on how to set up additional recurring transactions for tenants can be found here.

9. Secondary Merchant Accounts

This step only applies to you if you have two Forte merchant accounts. If you do have two accounts, the second account has already been set up and connected to a bank account in Rentec Direct called "Secondary Merchant Account NNNNNN". If you want tenant payments to deposit in this secondary merchant account, it is necessary to edit any properties that you want connected, and choose this secondary merchant account within the Income Account section, then save your changes. If you pay owners from this account also, be sure to edit the applicable owner(s) and specify this account under the "Payment Info" section.

For more information, please see the multiple deposit accounts article.

10. Misc Cleanup

On the date of your migration, data is copied over from a snapshot taken at apx 8:00AM Pacific time of the data. On the date you receive your migration complete email, if you have entered transactions into TrueRent after 8:00AM Pacific you may need to re-enter those transactions into Rentec Direct. To minimize the number of affected transactions, we've chosen the least active days for activity for your migration.
Some data may come into Rentec Direct and be displayed in an unexpected manner. A tenant who is currently residing in a property might show as moving in on 3/1/2022. The reason for most data inconsistencies like this is that there was not a reliable data point to map to in the TrueRent data set. In this example, if a tenant did not have a move-in date recorded, then Rentec Direct sets them to begin on 3/1/2022. To correct this, right-click on the tenant and choose "Update Lease". Set the move-in date value to their actual move-in date. Leave "Update accounting" set to No. And then click Save Move-In Date.
Tenants who were moved out, but still contained an active recurring transaction (referred to as a billing schedule in TrueRent), may be imported as an active tenant with a rent value equal to that billing schedule. In this rare case, you will want to archive the tenant by right-clicking on the tenant, and choosing Archive.
Some owners or vendors may be duplicated. This is because they were also duplicated in the TrueRent system; however, it may have gone unnoticed. You can safely archive any Owners that are not affiliated with properties, and you can safely delete any duplicate Vendors. If the Vendor being deleted has transactions affiliated with it, you will be prompted to assign them to a different vendor.
When the vendors are imported, the default expense category is unknown. To set the default, for future expenses to automatically select the appropriate category, go to Settings, Vendors & Payees, edit your vendors, and specify the applicable default category, then Save.
There are other possible situations which may come up. For any common issues, we will post solutions here.

If you have questions about getting your account set up within Rentec Direct, our support team is here to help. To reach Rentec Direct, contact us at 800-881-5139 or by email at [email protected]. You can also live chat with Rentec staff once logged in by clicking the "Need Help" button in the lower-right.

Rentec Direct support hours are from 6AM until 5PM Monday - Friday, excluding major holidays. Any chats or emails sent after hours are typically responded to the next business day. If you call in and reach Rentec's voicemail, it just means all the staff is on the phone at that time. All messages are returned the same day.