New Features - February 5th, 2009 by Berni

Please see below our pick of features and enhancements released this month. Many more options are available, although some may not be applicable to your portfolio or may not be compatible with your current settings. A full listing is available in the features section. This month's selected features and enhancements are as follows:-

  • Summarised cashbook balances list
  • Additional diary triggers
  • Itemised arrears grid
  • Improved 'Copy a tenant' facility
  • General system improvements

Summarised cashbook balances list
An additional cashbook balances list is now available. This will print summarised balances for ALL cashbooks, detailing how much of the balance is rent, service charge, sinking fund etc. This allows you to see at a glance what is being held in each bank account without printing an itemised list for every cashbook.

Additional diary triggers
The system can automatically diary various alarmed triggers to remind you of tasks that need incorporating into your routines. We have recently expanded the range of triggers available and these consist of such things as:-

  • Reminders to print demands (for example, 2 weeks before quarter day
  • Reminders to print client statements (for example, 2 weeks after quarter day)
  • Reminders to chase arrears (for example, 7, 14 and 21 days after quarter day)
  • Reminders to reconcile cashbooks (for example, at month end)
  • Reminders to create service charge budgets (for example, 2 months before year end)
  • Reminders to reconcile service charge accounts (for example, 2 months after year end)

Please speak to Support if you would like any of the above (or variations on any of the above) or any other recurring events added to your system.

Itemised arrears grid
When viewing the arrears grid, you can now see on screen how each arrears amount is made up. This is very straightforward, you simply click on the + sign next to the relevant tenant and the grid will show a breakdown of which charges are in arrears, when they were demanded, any payments made etc. As this screen is a grid, you are able to use all of the existing grid functions here including sorting, filtering, grouping, summing, exporting, printing and so on.

Improved 'Copy a tenant' facility
Improvements have been made to the 'Copy a tenant' facility which allows you to copy certain details from an existing tenant when adding new tenants (common in the case of block management, where all tenants have the same lease details). This facility has been improved so that additional fields are copied, minimising the input required by you.

General system improvements

  • Alternative statement layouts are now available.
  • Improvements have been made to ensure that entering practice on multiple machines is as efficient as possible.
  • Further options are now available for exporting transactions to your BACS package.
  • Improvements have been made to the rounding of commission amounts.
  • You are now able to print additional block management notices with arrears letters.
  • Additional notes relating to the property can now be printed on the tenancy schedule if required.

All of the features listed above are available free of charge to all users currently subscribing to Software Support (subject to compatibility with your current settings). If you would like to discuss any of the options or request an option to be included on your next update, please speak to Support.