tenancy

January 18, 2013

Letting agency accounts

Letting agency accounts update

We have been busy gathering feedback from our users and implementing changes to improve your experience and needs with your Rentview agency account. So what’s new?

With the development team’s time spent primarily on accounting and preparing the client account for the last quarter of 2012, there was not a huge amount of visual changes to Rentview. Your Rentview account will now track all monies in and out of your client’s account in line with regulation.

Via the Accounts toolbar there are now 5 Tabs

Rents- The “Rents” tab allows you to track what rents are overdue, due today and due within the next seven days. This is shown through a traffic light system. Here, you can reconcile the payments as received and partially paid. As you know, this is can be the busiest part of the maintenance of your letting agency accounts.

Statements- The “Statements” tab monitors what rents have been processed as received; either in your client account or in cash en route to be deposited into your client account.

Deposits- The “Deposits” tab reports on what tenancy deposits you are holding in your client account. This will only report on the deposits that are selected as held in client account when starting a new lease term on a property. Once a tenancy has ended after the lease term or prematurely the deposit can be reconciled out of the client account.

Fees– The “Fees” tab reports on what Agency Fees are currently being held in your client account. An agency fee will appear in your client account after you process payments from a landlord’s statement page as paid. An agency fee needs to be added as such under the landlord’s statement page under each monthly invoice. You can clear your agency fees from your client account into your business or office account as often as you wish.

Tradesman- The “Tradesman” tab allows you to track what deductions are in your client account and due to be taken from rental payments. A tradesman invoice is any deduction to be made from a rental payment which is not an agency fee. Deductions could represent a tradesperson, supplier, petty cash, ad hoc expenses etc. You can select any tradesman account to see what is currently outstanding in payment, what is in your client account and can be paid, and what was paid in the past.

Making your letting agency accounts easier to manage

All of the information here will allow you to reconcile and report on what monies are currently in your client account and who they belong to in line with client account regulation. An accounts summary tab in your agency configuration will report on the accumulated amounts. An accounts feature to be released in early 2013 will be the accounts statement / ledger page. This will show you the history of money in and out of your client account, similar to your bank statement.

That’s it for today folks, if you have any questions, you can get in touch with us on our Facebook!

by Rentview

Articles of interest

How to collect rent

Letting agent revenues

July 4, 2012

Infographic: Tenants and Landlords Property Management

Tenants and Landlords Property Management

Welcome to the very first infographic from Rentview. We’re always looking at new ways to provide content for the property management industry and we have started with this analysis on tenants who are currently living in rented accommodation. From our survey of renters in Ireland, here are some of the interesting facts and figures we discovered 🙂

tenants and landlords property management

Some quick notes on the figures above for tenants and landlords property management:

Firstly the rent collection process from landlords or agents is quite varied, from physically collecting the rent from the tenant to transferring the money via online banking. Standing order, one of the cheapest methods and more efficient for collecting a tenant’s rent placed third in the list of options, which do you think works best?

Interestingly a whopping 74% currently do not receive a receipt for their rental payments. I have always requested a receipt from my landlord when paying to ensure there is no possible reason for disagreements over moneys paid throughout the year, and secondly its a great form of reference to apply for credit in the future. What’s your opinion?

Our third section is slightly worrying for me, as over 50% of the 100 tenants we surveyed noted difficulties in contacting their property manager or landlord throughout their tenancy. I personally would wonder how any agency is going to consistently maintain there tenant base when they are facing such issues.

Finally we questioned the renters of Ireland on their experiences in securing a rent reference after their tenancy, most landlords and agents were happy to give out references promptly to their tenants (44%) while only 24% had difficulty in securing a reference.

Other infographics you might like-

Landlords and property management infographic

The Dublin rental market infographic

by Andreas Riha

March 26, 2012

Dispute over the Condition of Property

Disputes of this kind occur the most frequently out of all disputes. Generally they take the form of a landlord withholding a deposit to cover the cost of any repairs that have to be made to return the property to the condition it was in at the beginning of the tenancy. Tenants will often argue that they are leaving it as it was, and any damages were already there before they moved in. Taking the dispute to the PRTB can be a lengthy and costly process, so it’s better to prevent the dispute from occurring in the first place. How is this done? Quite simply really, take an inventory.

An inventory is a log of the property, the contents and the condition of them. They reduce the occurrence of disputes and can speed up the resolution process and reduce costs if a dispute does arise. If the inventory taken just before the start of a tenancy is comprehensive enough, there shouldn’t be a problem in spotting damages or anything that goes beyond normal wear and tear. A landlord can choose to do it themselves or hire a professional inventory clerk. To do it themselves, a landlord will need the following:

Patience. A proper inventory takes time to complete
A clear and methodical process is needed to ensure everything is noted correctly and can be easily checked. For example: take one room at a time, noting the main items first and their condition. Be sure to note if there’s currently any damage or if an item is brand new. Then list the smaller items e.g. pictures and their condition
Be detailed and realistic in your descriptions e.g. say one brown leather two seater sofa with scuff marks on the left back leg, instead of one sofa
Take photographs (preferably with a digital camera) of the rooms as a whole from multiple angles as well as of individual items
After the inventory is complete, walk around the property with the tenant and agree the descriptions, ensuring that the tenant checks and signs the inventory list. Sign it yourself, keep the master list and hand over a copy.
If any changes are made e.g. new curtains, an amendment should be made to the inventory.
While this option is cheaper, it does involve the risk of bias.

For the professional inventory clerk option:

Dedicated inventory companies haven’t taken much of a foothold in Ireland as yet although there are some companies who provide this service.
These companies take over the landlord’s role by doing a full inventory, walking around with the tenant and reaching an agreement and at the end of the tenancy they’ll carry out a full analysis of the original report and compare it to the current condition.
They also carry out inspections throughout the tenancy and adjust the inventory when needed. This keeps things up to date to prevent disputes at the end of the tenancy.
As they are trained for the job you can expect the final report to be well structured and very detailed with possibly more observations, more so than if it was just an ordinary landlord conducting it.
Also, a third party will more likely be impartial so the bias pitfall is easily avoided and better judgement calls relating to wear and tear can be made.
A letting agent will do close enough to the same job as a professional inventory clerk. If your letting agent uses Rentview they will have the ability to share a full picture condition property inventory report directly into your email or through your Rentview account.

The decision of which option to choose is a matter of preference. Landlords who have the time, patience and ability to be methodical, concise and realistic will probably do it themselves but those who live a distance from the property or who just don’t want to go through the hassle of it all will probably choose the dedicated service. Or if the landlord is confident that the letting agent will do a good enough job then that will suffice.

To find out more about the Rentview Inventory app contact

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Email: info@rentview.com

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