When a letter is generated using the mail merge facility, the letters are available for retrieval from the lower left hand corner of the mail merge screen.

In version 9.5, the same letters are also now available for viewing from the Attachments tab of the tenant details screen.  This makes viewing old letters a lot easier, and more obvious.

An issue has been found with automatic expenses and automatic income transactions.  If the default bank account is changed, and then the automatic transaction is edited and saved again, the bank account was changing back to the default bank account for the selected property.  This has been fixed so a bank account override will stay in place.

In work orders, there is the ability to print a report suitable for sending to contractors with the details of the job to be completed.

This report has been modified to now include the contractors fax number if they have a fax number recorded.  This is to allow easier communication of the work order request to the contractor.

When applying automatic transactions, the transaction code creating during transaction setup is now shown as an additional column.  So if you have a lot of different automatic transactions, the code column should make it easier to work out what each transaction is.

Version 9.4 has arrived

You can download this update by going to the help menu inside RentMaster and choose Download RentMaster Update.  If you have any problems downloading the update automatically, you can also download it manually from http://www.rentmaster.co.nz/update.aspx

Main Highlights

The main change in this release is the ability to now attach any file type as an attachment against a property or tenant, and not just pictures.  The old Pictures tab has been renamed the Attachments tab.  This means you can attach tenancy agreements or PDF files or other files to the tenant or property.

What else is new?

• The contacts list which was added to the tenant screen last release has now also been added to the owners screen.
• The owners screen has been redesigned. The management fee has been moved to the first tab, a new contacts tab added, and the disbursement history has been added to the disbursements tab.
• When adding tenants or owners, it is now possible to enter the contact details for the primary contact without first needing to save them.
• The company details now allows more room to enter more information. However if the information is entered too long, it may not fit on the reports which cant be avoided.
• A new Trust Account Report has been added, which is the same as the REINZ Audit Report without the REINZ specific details.
• The daily late fee on the tenant screen is now hidden unless late fees have been enabled.

To access the list of previous disbursement transactions, you go to the disbursement menu option.

From version 9.4, you will also be able to see previous disbursements directly from the owners screen.  This will make it easier to analyse a single owners past disbursement history.  From the owners screen you will also be able to delete or edit these past disbursements.  Adding disbursements is still done from the regular disbursements screen.

As a result of this change, as well as the change adding multiple contacts, the owners screen has been rearranged quite a bit.  The contact details has been removed from the front page and has been added to a new Contacts tab.  The management fee details has been moved from the disbursement tab and added to the front page where the contact details were.  And the list of previous disbursements has been added to the disbursements tab.

The Missed Rent report allow selection of an owner.  However that selection does not do anything.  Oops.  This is fixed in version 9.4

The company name and address as entered in the Customize screen has been enlarged.  The fields were previously limited to 40 characters.  This has been extended to 80 characters.  However come company names which contain multiple wide letters such as 'W' may not fit on the reports.  Individual users will need to experiment with the reports and adjust their name and or address to fit.

In the current version of RentMaster there is a report called the REINZ Trust Audit report.  This report is designed to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand specification.

In version 9.4 of RentMaster, a new report is being created called the Trust Account Audit report.  This report has exactly the same output as the REINZ version of the report, except all reference to the REINZ has been removed.  So this report can be used by anyone who wants to run the report.

In the last release of version 9.3, a new feature was added which allows multiple contacts to be created against a single tenant record.

The problem with this new feature was you needed to create and save the tenant record before you could start adding contacts, which meant saving and closing the tenant screen, and then opening it again to add the contacts.

In version 9.4, the contacts tab of the tenant details screen will enable you to enter the first primary contact details when adding a new tenant.  When the tenant is saved, those details will be added to the contact list automatically.  If you want to add additional contacts, you will still need to reopen the tenant details screen again.

In the last version 9.3 of RentMaster a new contacts feature was added to allow multiple contacts to be recorded against a single tenant record.  This new feature was very well received by existing users.   Thanks for your feedback!

In version 9.4 this is being extended to allow multiple contacts to be recorded against a single owner record.  To make things easier when adding the owner for the first time, the system will enable you to enter the details of the primary contact only prior to pressing save.  After the owner is saved, multiple additional owner contact details can be added.