RentHQ Blog

When setting up custom fields (by going to Functions/Setup/Custom Fields) you can now specify if a custom field is intended for internal private use, or is suitable for external public use.

By default, all new and existing custom fields are considered to be private use only.

If a custom field is specified to be public, it may be displayed to external parties. Currently this option is only used for Work Order custom fields. A public Work Order custom field will now be printed on the contractors report or the email sent to contractors via the work order screen.

A new running total column has been added to the bank reconciliation screen.

This makes it a lot easier to find any errors when comparing the transactions with a bank statement. You can go down the list of transactions looking at the running total compared with the same transactions and the same running total on your bank statement and find the exact location where the running total varies.

Note that the running total is in date order. If you change the sort order of the transactions in the list the running total will still be based on the original date order of the transactions.

There have been a number of changes made to some of the reports based on feedback from an accountant.

These reports are only available to people who are using Full Accounting mode.

The ‘Accounting Trial Balance’ report now contains 2 years of results, being the current selected period, and the same period one year earlier. This report also has a new column showing the chart of account group that name, which will be one of ‘Income’, ‘Expense’, ‘Asset’, ‘Liability’ or ‘Capital’.

A new report has been added called ‘Accounting General Ledger’. This report includes the full general ledger of transactions in accounting format.

On the property details screen, on the Marketing tab, there is the ability to specify the current vacancy status.

A new status has been added called ‘Not Available’. This status should be used when a property is no longer being managed by you. This could be because it has been sold or is being managed by someone else or is being renovated. When a property is ‘Not Available’, it will not appear as a vacant property until the status is changed again.

Attaching files in RentHQ is probably something you do a lot of. So now that task just got a bit easier.

Instead of using the Add button to add new attachments, you can now drag files directly onto the Attachments tab. This applies to all screens with an attachment tab such as tenants, properties and owners.

This function is only available on the windows app. It is not available in the browser version or the mobile app.

Here is a quick 1 minute video to show you how.

A reference request is where you contact a person such as a previous landlord or property manager, and ask them a few questions about a previous tenant of theirs who wants to rent one of your properties.

This can now all be done online following these steps

1. You create the reference request in RentHQ
2. An email is send to the referee.
3. The referee clicks a link in the email to access an online form to answer your questions.
4. The answers to the questions is emailed back to you as well as being stored back inside RentHQ again.

A tutorial video explaining this procedure can be found here

In addition to the new reference requests, when creating ‘Online Applications’, there is a new question type. The question type is a Yes/No question type. The person filling out the application gets both a yes and a no option, and they choose one of them. This applies to both the tenant applications and the reference request applications.

Version 3.5.0 of RentHQ adds a number of recent enhancements.

There is now a new ‘Ignore’ rule for imported transactions. This rule allows you to permanently ignore all transactions which meet the rules criteria. This can be used where a bank account contains transactions not related to the rental properties, and therefore you dont want to import them. These rules can also be used with the automatic Xero transaction imports.

There is a new report called the ‘Incomplete Inspections’ report. This report is found under Tenant Reports on the reports screen. This report lists inspections which were scheduled, but there was no results recorded.

Work order jobs printed and emailed to a contractor, will now add a note against the work order stating that the email has been sent.

RentHQ now allows you to create default messages for various different purposes by going to the Functions/Setup/Options screen and choose the Messages tab. These messages are designed to allow you to create a general message to be conveyed to your tenants or owners.

The first message is printed at the bottom of the inspection checklist report. This is the report which is normally sent to property owners and/or tenants after an inspection is completed. This could be used to add your own disclaimer to the inspection for example.

The second is a default email message body when emailing the previously mentioned inspection checklist report to the property owner.

The third message is the default email message body when emailing the same inspection checklist report to the tenant.

The fourth message is the default email message body when emailing the extra charge invoice. This applies when you use the ‘Generate Invoice’ button on the extra charge screen, and then click the resulting Email icon.

And the last message is the default email message body when emailing a work order to a contractor. This applies when you go to the Work Order screen, and then click the ‘Print Contractor’ button, and then click the resulting Email icon.