At the end of the month a property manager normally pays their landlord clients. Prior to doing these steps make sure you have entered the management fee % against each owner on the owner details screen.

Step 1 - Make sure all your transactions have been entered.

Step 2 - Go to the Owners menu group and choose Disbursements.

Step 3 - Either add a disbursement one at a time for each owner or press the Bulk button which will create the disbursement payment transaction for each owner automatically.

Step 4 - Print the owners transaction summary report if you want to sent this report to your client owners.

Step 5 - Print the tenant statement report if you want to send those to your tenants.

(Note - this process can be done at any time of the month, and as often as you wish).

If you have a tenant who has been your tenant for a long time, and you are just now entering them into the system, you have 2 options.

Option 1. Enter the tenants details as normal with a start date representing the date they moved in. When the tenant is saved, there is the option to enter an existing balance owing and continue. This option will automatically generate transactions since the tenancy start date to bring them up the the correct balance. The transaction dates and amount might not be correct however.

Option 2 Enter the tenants details as normal with a start date representing the date they moved in. When the tenant is saved, there is the option to not generate any payment history. With this option you will be required to go to the cashbook screen and enter all the rent payments since they first moved in yourself. This is the slower option, but it means you can get the previous rent payment history 100% accurate.

If you have just started using this program and would like to know where to start then read the following steps.

You can either follow this list of instructions, or you can choose Getting Started from the General section of the display menu for on-screen interactive instructions.


Step 1 - Create owners.
Choose Owner / Owners menu option and create the owners of the properties. If only one owner owns all properties then this step may be skipped.

Step 2 - Create properties.
Choose Property / Properties and create new property entries for each property which is being rented out.

Step 3 - Create Tenants
Choose Tenant / Tenants and create the details for each tenant which is currently renting the properties you have previously entered.

Step 4 - Create Mortgages
Choose Mortgage / Mortgages and create an entry for each mortgage which is being handled by you. If you are a property manager for someone else’s properties you will probably not need to complete this step as the mortgage will be handled by the owner.

Step 5 and ongoing - Enter income and expense details.
Use the Cashbook under the Transactions menu group to add income and expense transactions which are attributable to the properties you are managing. This will continue throughout the year. Reports and graphs may also be printed or reviewed at regular intervals to watch the progress of the properties.

Go to the transactions menu group and choose Cashbook. Use the Add Income button to record your rent income entries. Select the appropriate property and enter the payment date and amount. Select Rent as the income group and select the correct tenant who has made the payment.

You can also set up an automatic income entry by going to the Maintenance menu at the top of the screen and choose Automatic Income. Then periodically choose Auto Income menu option under the transactions menu group to apply the automatic transactions.

You can also use the Import Statement option to import an electronic copy of your bank statement including the rent payment transactions

To add extra rooms go to the inspections menu group and choose rooms. These new rooms will be available to all properties.

This error message indicates that a file is missing or not registered on your computer. Download this file and install it so solve this problem.
www.rentmaster.co.nz/installs/richtx.exe

If you get a message which says something like "UNABLE TO SEND AN EMAIL. YOU DO NOT HAVE MICROSOFT OUTLOOK CORRECTLY INSTALLED (NOTE OUTLOOK EXPRESS IS NOT SUPPORTED) ACTIVEX COMPONENT CANT CREATE OBJECT." the most likely method of fixing this issue is to reinstall outlook again, using the same windows login you are using to run RentMaster.

If you have just started using this program and would like to know where to start then read the following steps.

You can either follow this list of instructions, or you can choose Getting Started from the General section of the display menu for on-screen interactive instructions.


Step 1 - Create owners.
Choose Owner / Owners menu option and create the owners of the properties. If only one owner owns all properties then this step may be skipped.

Step 2 - Create properties.
Choose Property / Properties and create new property entries for each property which is being rented out.

Step 3 - Create Tenants
Choose Tenant / Tenants and create the details for each tenant which is currently renting the properties you have previously entered.

Step 4 - Create Mortgages
Choose Mortgage / Mortgages and create an entry for each mortgage which is being handled by you. If you are a property manager for someone else’s properties you will probably not need to complete this step as the mortgage will be handled by the owner.

Step 5 and ongoing - Enter income and expense details.
Use the Cashbook under the Transactions menu group to add income and expense transactions which are attributable to the properties you are managing. This will continue throughout the year. Reports and graphs may also be printed or reviewed at regular intervals to watch the progress of the properties.

If the property being entered is an apartment building or similar, where multiple units exist at the same address, this is best handled by creating one property which represents the building as a whole, and one property for each unit. For example, if you have a building with 10 units being managed, you would create 11 properties in RentMaster in total. In this way, any expense transaction which applies to the entire building (e.g. mortgage on the building, repairs to the common driveway etc) will be attributed to the `Building` property. The income and expense transactions for an individual unit will be entered against the `Unit` properties. When creating unit properties, you can select which other property represents the building that unit belongs to. When it comes to reporting, you can choose to select as many or as few properties as you wish. In this way you can report on individual units or a group of units or the building, or select all units to get a combined report.

Training mode allows you to use a copy of the RentMaster database in exactly the same way you would use normal database to enter income, expense, property details etc. But because it is a copy of the main database, there is no risk is making mistakes with the real data. This allows you to train yourself and to experiment with the program. To enter or exit training mode go to the General menu at the top of the screen and choose Training Mode/Switch to Training or Switch to Production.

The easiest way to get started is to delete the sample properties. To do this go to the help menu and choose Delete Sample Data. This will also delete the transactions and tenants associated with those properties.

If you want to stop using the software on one computer, and start using it on another computer, you need to move the software and database across, and also unregister the first computer, and then register the second computer using the same license key.
1. Use the File/Database Maintenance menu option to backup your database on the old computer first.
2. Download the free trial version from the web site and install it on the new computer.
3. Once installed, use the File/Database Maintenance menu again on the new computer and choose Restore to recover the backed up database from step 1.
4. If you have any mail merge templates or previously generated mail files, those files will need to be manually copied across using windows explorer. The files are located in subfolders under the database folder. You can find the database folder by going to the maintenance menu and choose Options/Networking and click the Open Folder button. Copy the 'Templates' and 'Owner Templates' folder and any folder named after a person.

Once the new computer is successfully running, you can transfer the license across.
1. On the old computer, go to the help menu and choose About RentMaster. This will contain your 7 character license key. Write this code down. You can also obtain a copy of your license key by going to www.rentmaster.co.nz/faq/licensesearch.aspx
2. To unregister, download this file www.rentmaster.co.nz/installs/unregister.exe and run this on the OLD computer. Note - you can only unregister one computer every 7 days. Once unregistered, the license key is free to be used on a different computer.
3. On the new computer, inside RentMaster, go to the Help menu and choose Enter License Key and enter the key from step 1.

You can only edit items in the phone book which were added to the phone book using the Add button in the phone book. All other items are either property owners or tenants or contractors. These items can only be changed by editing the owner or tenant or contractor itself rather than via the phone book.

RentMaster is only designed to run on windows based computers. Therefore it will not work on a Mac directly. However other customers have used it successfully with Parallels Desktop and Virtual PC on a mac. If you Mac can run Microsoft Windows, it should be able to run RentMaster. We have another alternative product at www.RentHQ.net which can work on a mac.

If you want to change an extra fee on top of the fees on the rent income then you will need to use the Extra Fees section which is found under the owners menu group. You will have to specify the amount and reason for the fee yourself. You can also set up automatic extra fees from the Maintenance menu if you have recurring additional fees.

By default, properties which have been sold are excluded from selection when entering income and expenses etc. Properties are sold when the sale value of the property is anything other than zero. Sold properties may be included for selection again by selecting Options from the Maintenance menu. You can also choose the option 'This property is no longer managed by us' on the property details screen to exclude a property from selection.

The first step is to create the property which represents the building itself. In this example, we will call this P1. Now create the first unit inside the building. In this example we will call this P2. On the details screen for P2, set the Apartment Building to be P1 which we created earlier. Now when you save P2, the property type for P1 will now be a Building, and the property P2 will have a property type of Unit. Repeat the P2 process for each unit in the building.

Full registration instruction can be found by going to www.rentmaster.co.nz/purchase.aspx

When you pay for the software you will be sent via email a license key. You need to go to the help menu inside RentMaster and choose Enter License Key and type your license key in to activate the software and remove the expiry period. Without the license key, the software will continue to tell you it is a trial version.

To upgrade to another package with a higher property count limit, go through the purchase process on the web site as if you were purchasing a new copy. When the order form asks which item you want to purchase, choose RentMaster Upgrade as the option (the last item on the order form). After choosing this option it will ask you for further information including your existing license key code and the package you wish to upgrade to. The price of upgrading is the difference between the 2 package prices + 20%. Discounts do not apply to upgrades.

To purchase an additional copy of the software, and get the discount, purchase the software as per normal, but use your first license key code as the discount code on the order form. If you dont know your first license key code, go to the help menu and choose About RentMaster.

RentMaster software updates are now free. This product is now nearly 20 years old, which means it is now a very stable product. It also means there is not going to be a lot of software updates going forwards other than if someone finds a bug. We have a newer product at www.RentHQ.net which is being more actively updated. We can convert existing data from RentMaster to RentHQ for you if required.

1) Download the latest trial version of the software from the web site.
2) Enter your same license keys you used previously. If you dont know what your license keys are, you can find then out in the FAQ section of the web site under the License Keys section.
3) Go to the file menu and choose database maintenance and then Restore to restore your latest backup if you have one.

Go to the maintenance menu and choose Customize and then the Company Details tab. From there you can select a different picture file to be used as your logo. Note that the file is not scaled when printed, so you may have to resize your logo to make it fit on the reports. If you open the file called reportlogo.bmp in the RentMaster directory, that will show you the original logo file.

Closed tenants are excluded by default, but can be included again by ticking the Include Closed Tenants checkbox prior to printing the report.

Yes the vacancy report does show when the property will become vacant, and it does this automatically. When the report is run, it will display all properties which are currently vacant, as well as properties which will become vacant in the next 30 days. To mark a property as soon to become vacant, you need to set the tenancy end date on the tenant details screen for the tenant who currently occupies the property.

After entering your tenants, you still need to enter the transactions separately. Go to the Cashbook screen and choose the Add Income or Add Expense buttons to enter your transactions. It is these transactions which will show up on your reports.

Yes you can. Go to the maintenance menu and choose Customize/Company Details to enter your company name etc, and tick the check box which says 'Print Company Name on Reports'

On the report destination selection screen, when you choose to output to email, change the file format to HTML. This looks better than the default text option (unless you use a font called Courier). It still wont look as good as the printed page, and it wont include pictures, but it will be closer.

These fields are simply a short value which is used to identify a property or owner. The same applies to mortgages and tenants. When creating a property etc, the code chosen should be something which is 20 characters or less, and which easily identifies the property. A good suggestion for a property code may be the street name. The owner code may be the owners surname.

When rentmaster is installed, it does NOT install any icons on the desktop. So if you are clicking an icon on your desktop, you are actually running the install program again which you downloaded off the internet.
To start rentmaster, go to the start menu and choose Programs\Rentmaster\Rentmaster

If you have got a new computer and need to install RentMaster on it, you can go to the download section of this web site and get a copy of the latest install software. If you purchased a CD you can also use that. Once it is installed, you can go to the file menu and choose Database Maintenance and then Restore, to restore your most recent backup. It is important to make sure you always have a recent backup.

The short answer is yes. If the 2 computers are networked together they can both use RentMaster and update the same database. See the Maintenance/Options/Networking menu option. Press the help button on this screen for more information. Basically you will need to create a network share on the master computer sharing the file called property.mdb. The other computers will need to be able to access this file. Note that you will need to purchase a separate license for each computer you wish to use, although each additional computer after the first one is half price. If you want to be able to connect multiple computer, and they are not connected on the same wired network but are both on the internet, we have another alternative product at www.RentHQ.net which can work with multiple computers over the internet.

1) Install the trial version from the web site on the new computer.
2) Do a database backup from the old computer using the file/database maintenance menu option
3) Do a database restore on the new computer using the file/database maintenance menu option
4) Download and run this file on the old computer. www.rentmaster.co.nz/installs/unregister.exe This will remove the license from that computer.
5) Enter the same license key into the new computer.

The currency symbol displayed in RentMaster (i.e. the dollar sign or pound sign etc) is actually determined by your windows setup. To change the symbol go to the Maintenance menu and choose Options/Regional and then the Change Settings button. In this screen you can define which country you reside in, as well as which currency symbol you wish to use. (You may have to press the Advanced or Customize button).

The date format displayed in RentMaster is actually determined by your windows setup. To change the format go to the Maintenance menu and choose Options/Regional and then the Change Settings button. In this screen you can define which country you reside in, as well as which date format you wish to use. (You may have to press the Advanced or Customize button).

Go to the maintenance menu at the top of the screen, and choose Bank Accounts. There you can add, edit and delete bank accounts. You can then assign a default bank account to each property, by going to the property details screen. This can save time when entering transactions.

Yes this software is multi-user enabled. To enable multiple users who are all accessing the same data at the same time, go to the maintenance menu and choose Options\Networking. On this window there is a link to a tool which you can download off the internet which will assist in automatically setting up the multiple user environment.
The multiple user environment only works if the computers are physically linked together on a network. If they are in different locations and not networked together, it wont work. Each computer needs it own license. If you want to connect multiple computers which are not on the same network, we have another alternative product at www.RentHQ.net which can work over the internet.

Yes it does work in Vista. More information on vista installs can be found here.
http://blog.rentmaster.co.nz/post/2008/01/RentMaster-and-Windows-Vista.aspx

RentMaster allows you to have multiple bank accounts. So you would almost certainly have different bank accounts for each currency. When you enter transactions you just choose the bank account the transaction belongs to and enter the value in that currency.
The tricky part comes when you start to do reporting. If you choose properties which are in different countries/currencies RentMaster will just add the numbers together without any currency conversion. So when printing reports you would have to select/deselect properties from the list so that each print only contains one currency. If you had 2 currencies, you would print each report 2 times, once including properties in currency A, and then again after only selecting properties using currency B. This property selection is a manual task.

http://blog.rentmaster.co.nz/post/2008/12/Multiple-countriescurrencies.aspx

You will need...
- Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 or higher. Sorry it wont work directly with the Mac OS, but if you can run Windows on your Mac, then it should work fine.
- 10MB of free disk space
- On Windows 2000, XP, Vista and higher, you need to have administrative rights to install the software and any future updates. For Windows Vista and higher, it is recommended you run the software as an administrator.
- People using an older version of windows may also need to download and install the Microsoft Jet4 components. If this is the case, you will be told during the install process.
- You will also need a full version of Microsoft Outlook if you want to be able to send emails such as reports directly from RentMaster. (Outlook express is not supported).

Using the rent change facility with a date in the past has no effect. It is purely for your information only. The only way to have an automatic rent change take effect is to create it prior to the actual change date. To make a change in the past you will need to change it manually. Change it on the tenant details screen and also edit each rent period one at a time and change it there as well.

When you take over someone elses tenant, they will most likely have a positive or negative rent balance at change over date.
One option is to create the tenant with the start date being the date the tenant first moved into the house, and then go back into the rent periods screen and zero out the rent owing from all previous rent periods so that the total balance owing to you is correct.
Another option is to create the new tenant with the tenancy start date as the date you are taking over the tenancy. Then go to the rent periods screen, and edit the first rent period and change the rent due amount to be the rent due for that period, plus any balance owing at the tenancy take over date.

The paid to date is first of call calculated based on the rent balance. E.g. the rent balance may be 50 owing. Assuming the rent is 70 per week (10 per day), this means the tenant is 5 days behind in their rent. So the paid to date is the end date of the current rent period less 5 days.
If the paid to date is incorrect, it probably means the rent balance is incorrect.
The rent balance is simply the sum of rent due - sum of rent paid. Rent due can be seen by going to the rent periods screen and looking at the rent due column. The rent due can be manually changed from the rent periods screen if required. The rent paid is the sum of all transactions in the cashbook for that tenant with an income group of Rent.
So if the total rent balance is incorrect, it means the rent due is wrong, or the rent income transactions are wrong. Fixing the transactions or rent periods will also fix the rent balance and also fix the paid to date.

This is a common situation where one cheque (or check) is paid to a contractor, but the expense covers multiple properties or expense types. This is best handled by creating multiple expense entries, each for a component of the total cheque value. However, make sure that each expense transaction has exactly the same date and transaction reference number, and then the bank reconciliation report will automatically add these transactions together and print the sum total. This will make it easier to reconcile your bank statements, as well as splitting the transaction into its separate components.

If you have a regular expense (or income), such as interest payments on a mortgage, which appears every month, but the value changes every month, the best way to handle this is to create an automatic monthly expense with a value of zero. When the automatic expense is applied, the computer will create the expense entry with a value of zero. You can then edit this expense entry and insert the correct amount.

After creating the automatic entry, the last applied date is automatically set to the current date. This Last Applied date is used as the basis for when the next occurrence of the transaction should occur. Try setting the last applied date to one month ago or whenever you last recorded that transaction.

A Rental Period is the time period per rental payment. In New Zealand this is usually 1 week or 2 weeks, and in other countries rent is charged on a monthly basis. Each rental period has a start and end date. During this time period a set amount of rent is due to be paid. Rental periods allows you to see how much of each periods rental money has been paid, and how much is owing in that same period. Each time a rent income entry is completed, the amount paid is automatically taken off the oldest period with money owing. Rental periods are created automatically when required as the current date goes past the end of the last rental period.

Create another income transaction using rent as the income group, but enter a negative value for the amount received.

Yes RentMaster can print a receipt/invoice. At the bottom of the income entry screen, there is a small tick box labelled Print Receipt. This tick box is disabled until you select Rent as the income group. If this option is ticked, then when you press the save button a receipt can be printed. The actual receipt design can be changed by you. This is all done through the RentMaster Mail Merge facility. Create a new template (or modify the sample which is provided with the install) to include you own company name, logo etc.

The short answer is no. The bank statement transaction import facility can not take into account any fees charged as part of the disbursements. So it is therefore advised to always do your disbursements as manual transactions, and when importing your bank statement, leave the disbursements transactions with a red background colour. Any transaction with a red background will not be imported.

An option is to treat the credit card as a separate bank account. Go to Maintrenace/Bank Accounts menu and add an additional bank account for the credit card. When entering expenses, you can choose the credit card bank account as the paying account. Then when the credit card is paid back from the real bank account, you add an expense entry using the real bank account for the amount paid off, and you add an income entry using the credit card bank account for the money received into that account. Effectively you are transferring cash from your regular bank account into the credit card bank account.

If you go to the cashbook screen, and optionally press the Filter button to filter out the records you want to send to your accountant, and then press the Export button. You can output in either CSV format suitable for Excel, or in QIF format which is suitable for Quicken and most other accounting systems.

Yes. Enter an expense transaction on the account the money is coming out of and an income transaction on the account it is going into. You may like to create an income group of 'TransferIn' and mark this income group as not 'Taxable' and 'Exclude from cashfow analysis' and 'Exclude from P&L reporting'. Create an expense group called 'TransferOut' and use the same settings.

GST or VAT or Tax is disabled by default, but it can be turned on. To turn on tax recording go to the maintenance menu and choose Options/Regional. Tax can be enabled and the percentage set for income, expense and disbursement transactions separately. Once enabled, the tax amount is calculated automatically, although you can manually over-ride the tax amount if required.

No period end is not necessary. It is completely optional.
Period end procedures are for property managers who pay their landlords and extract their management fees once a month. If you are not a property manager then it does not affect you. If you are a property manager then it is recommended, but still not mandatory.

Some banks split the payment for you, and put two transactions on the bank statement - one for interest and the other for principal. Therefore the import can handle it very easily. If your bank only charges you one amount, then you will have to manually enter the 2 separate transactions.

Any over-payment of rent is added to the current rental period as an overpayment, so the rent owing might be 100, and the paid amount might be 200. When the next rental period is started, the overpayment is automatically carried forward into the new period. So there can only ever be an overpayment in the current period. It is all handled automatically. A rent status report will indicate the total rent owing is a negative number if they overpay.

Yes you can. From the cashbook screen you can use the Export button to export your transactions in QIF file format, which can be imported by a large number of accounting packages.

Sometimes you have a situation where you want to reduce the rent the tenant has to pay. For example, you might reduce the rent by $50 if the tenant cleans the gutters for you. To credit the rent, go to the Rent menu group and choose Rent Periods. Select the last rent period for the tenant, and choose Edit. Then reduce the amount of rent they need to pay by entering a reduced rent required amount. Alternatively you can create an extra charge with a negative value which is the value of the reduced rent. The extra charge option has the advantage of allowing you to enter a description to specify why the rent is reduced.

You have 3 options.

1) Delete the original income transaction. This is the easy option.

2) Create another income transaction using rent as the income group, but enter a negative value for the amount received.

3) Create an expense transaction for the same amount to correct the bank balance. Then to go the Extra Charges menu option and create an extra charge against the tenant for the amount of the cheque. That will increase the amount owed by that tenant. This is a longer option, but keeps a better record of activities.

With `Section 8` tenants, the tenant pays a portion of the rent, and the government assists by paying the balance. For example the property might be charging $1000/month rent, and the tenant is required to pay $700/month.
The way to do this is to create 2 tenants, with both tenants renting the same property at the same time. One tenant is the real tenant, and that tenant will be set to pay $700. The other tenant is the government, and they are set to pay $300. Then when the money is received, you select which of those 2 tenants has paid the money. This way you can separately track the rent income and arrears balance for each of those 2 tenants.

Create an expense transaction using one bank account, and an income transaction on the other bank account.
You might also want to consider creating new income and expense groups for these transactions by going to the maintenance menu and choose Income Groups and Expense Groups. Optionally also exclude these groups from cashflow reporting and profit and loss reporting.

To charge the tenant for an outgoing amount, go to the tenant menu group and choose Extra Charges.

If the outgoings are a regular amount, you can go to the maintenance menu and choose Automatic Extra Charges.

When the tenant pays the charge back again, you can either record it as part of the rent payment or as a separate charge payment. Go to the maintenance menu again and choose Extra Charge Income Groups and use the help button to find out more about recording the payments separately.