Another free custom report is available called the Vacancy Rate report.

 The report lists properties and prints the number of occupied days, vacant days and vacancy rate.  There is also a vacancy total across all properties.

This report can be downloaded started at the following link.

Custom reports are reports which have been created for a customer to meet their requirements.

Some of these reports have are being made available for free download. Not all custom reports are freely available. Some reports are so specific to a customers needs that the report is not of any use to anyone else.

The customer who originally asked for these reports have paid for their creation. As a result these reports are not part of the standard RentMaster software, and will not be supported as such to the same extent as the inbuilt reports.

As new reports become available they will be added to the custom report list page.  I will also add a blog entry here as well.  If you are using version 8.1 of RentMaster, these blog entries can be read from the Events screen inside RentMaster itself.

http://www.rentmaster.co.nz/CustomReports/ReportList.aspx

The first report available is a tender totals report.  This report lists transactions between a specified date range, and either prints a detailed transaction list or just the totals grouped by the transaction types used.

To use this report you need to have enabled tender types by going to the maintenance menu and choose Options/Features/Record Tender Types. Then go to the maintenance menu and choose the Tender Types menu option to add your tender types such as cash and credit card etc. Transactions which are recorded with no tender type selected will also be listed in a separate group.

A sample of this reports output and the download is available here

http://www.rentmaster.co.nz/CustomReports/TenderTotals.aspx

Version 8.1 of RentMaster has just been released and available for download now.

The main highlights in this release include...

- The Events screen now includes a blog reader for reading the RentMaster blog entries.  This can be turned off if required.
- A new Tenant History report has been created.
- On the cashflow graph, a new 6 month average line has been added for better trend analysis.
- The vacant properties shown on the events screen now show the number of days it has been vacant for.
- Rental calendar tenants can now pay extra charges using separate income groups.  Go to the maintenance menu and choose Extra Charge Income Group.
- The look of the report output screen has been modernised.
- This release does a version check to stop multiple people on the same network using mismatched RentMaster versions.
- When opening the Events screen always returns to the last opened tab.
- The Paid To Date was being calculated incorrectly.  This has been fixed.

 Also in this release...

- Reports output to file (csv) have removed commas from numbers.
- The 'Automatically Close Tenancy when tenancy end date reached' option has been removed.
- If you select one property in work orders it selects the tenant in that property.  If you then select a different property which does not have a tenant it leaves the tenant name - from the previously selected property.  This is fixed.
- The rent periods screen paid amount is no longer editable
- Using the Link To button to go to extra charges when there are multiple tenants with the same name was possible adding the extra charges to the wrong tenant.  Fixed
- Double-clicking an entry in the rental calendar will edit it.
- Removed all references to the reallocate button from the help files.
- On the events screen rent arrears tab, if the user clicks a tenant names, and there are muiltiple tenants with the same name, it is selecting the wrong tenant sometimes.  Fixed

This was actually a report requested and created as a custom report for another client, but I liked the report so much I decided to make it one of the standard reports.

This report requires a tenant to be selected.  It lists all finaicial activity related to the tenant.  That includes rent being charged, payments from the tenant, and extra charges added.  All transactions are in date order, and includes a running total.  The report allows a date range to be selected so if you have a long term tenant you might choose to just print the last 6 months of activity, although the running total is inclusive of activity outside the printed date range.

The rental calendar is used for short stay tenants like holiday homes or holiday parks.  Because of the speed of data entry required for the volume of transactions these people get, the system was designed to be as simple as possible when entering rent income transactions.  So the income groups was fixed at 'Rent' and disabled.

With the next version for short stay tenants there is now the possibility to use other income groups when taking a payment from the tenant, as long as that income groups is marked as an income group used to pay for extra charges.  If rent is used to pay extra charges then there will be no difference.  For example if Linen hire is logged as an extra charge against the tenant, you can now choose to use a different income group to record the payment of the extra charges separate to the rent.  The 2 tone green colour showing percentage paid also takes into account any extra charges charged and paid.

To use this new feature you will need to go to the maintenance menu and choose Extra Charge Income Groups anmd specify which income groups are used to record payment of extra charges.

While I was at it, I also noticed something else.  If you use the Take a Payment button, the calendar screen did not immediately reflect the amount paid using the 2 tone green colour.  It now updates that green colour immediately after entering the income transaction.

On the events screen, the Arrears tab shows a list of tenants who ahve an arrears balance.

This screen also allows you to select a tenant by clicking on the tenants name.  A problem arises when you have 2 or more tenants with the same name, which doesn't happen often, but it could happen.  The problem is that the system might select the wrong one of those 2 tenants.  In the next version it will be able to differentiate between the tenants even if they have the same name.

As of the next version you will be able to read these blog entries without going to this blog web site or use some other RSS reader.

The Event s window will have a new tab for the blog.  Unread blog entries will be shown as bold, link most email programs do.

There will be an option to automatically download the blog or not.  People who have slow internet may choose not to download the blog entries automatically.