Recurring Transactions
It would become tedious to post every transaction manually and fortunately, your property management software allows you multiple ways to save time with data-entry tasks. One such was is creating recurring transactions to post automatically for you.
Create a Recurring Transaction
A recurring option is available while posting any charge to a Tenant ledger or expense on a property ledger.
Instructions for posting a charge on a tenant ledger and marking it recurring can be found here: Customize and Add Other Tenant Charges
Instructions for posting a recurring expense on a property can be found here: Posting an Income or Expense Transaction
Understanding Recurring Transactions: Tenant Charges and Property Expenses
The system uses the information from this Recurring Transaction setting to automatically post charges and expenses for you at the interval and amount you choose. Within this advanced setting, recurring transactions for Tenant Charges and Property Expenses can be maintained.
Tenant Charges -
* Rent Charges - Stand alone or combined with other charges on a single invoice. The system stores the recurring rent charge created when the tenant was placed in a unit
* Recurring Expense - Stand alone, as posted to the Tenant ledger, or combined with other charges on a single invoice. These types of charges would include "other" recurring charges such as a pet fee, utilities, or tax that you've added to the tenant ledger directly or within this tool.
* Recurring Surcharges - This option allows you to provide your Tenants with one comprehensive consolidated monthly invoice instead of individual line-item charges (Rent with additional charges) and can also be created when a Tenant is placed in a unit. In addition to charges posting at the same time, the timing for Create Invoice, Grace Period and Late Fees are also coordinated.
For more information about Surcharges: Surcharges
View of ledger when posted as Surcharges
View of ledger when posted separately
System Advice: When moving a tenant in, the system will automatically create a recurring rent charge for them. Be careful when editing or deleting any tenant rent charge in this setting. All tenant charges should look similar to the below picture.
Notes:
- The Action drop-down allows you to choose other options including a customized Rent Charge (with or without associated Surcharges). Information on creating a custom Rent Charge can be found here: Customize and Add Other Tenant Charges.
- Creating a Rent Charge with associated Surcharges saves time so that you won't need to add additional individual recurring charges to a ledger. More information on Surcharges can be found here: How to Setup Surcharges
Recurring Transaction - Recurring Expense
System Advice: The selections below will indicate to the software which ledgers to post this expense simultaneously so be sure to select only the property, tenant, and/or bank account associated with this transaction.
In this example below this recurring expense is set up to post to the tenants ledger as an additional amount owed. Notice that the bank and the property are both ' None' which means this specific charge will only be placed on the tenant ledger It would not have a property or bank assigned as this is just a request for the tenant to pay an additional amount.
Note: For recurring property expenses, the property field and bank should be populated.
Understanding Interval Settings: Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
System Advice: A common mistake is not setting the interval day correctly. This setting sets the day in which this charge will occur. It is important that this setting is accurate, otherwise, your recurring transaction may not function as intended.
Interval details per transaction frequency is as follows:
Daily transaction: This setting does not apply.
Weekly or Bi-Weekly transaction: The interval day indicates the day of the week it will post. Sunday (1) through Saturday (7).
Monthly transaction: The interval day indicates which day of the month the system will run this transaction. First (1) through Thirty-First (31). If set to 29 or higher, the transaction will run on the last day of the month, which could be the 28th through the 31st depending on the month.
Quarterly transaction: The interval day indicates which day of the month the system will run this transaction every quarter. First (1) through Thirty-First (31). If set to 29 or higher, the transaction will run on the last day of the month, which could be the 28th through the 31st depending on the month.
Yearly transaction: The interval day indicates which day of the year the system will run this transaction. January 1st (1) through December 31st (365).
For example: If you set the Interval to Monthly, and the Interval Day to (1), this means that you want the transaction to post on the 1st of the month. In this case, you would also need to set the Begin Date to the 1st. The Interval Day and the Begin Date must be the same day of the week or month, depending on which Interval you have selected.
Posting Recurring Transactions
The Recurring Transactions setting was designed for you to see all the recurring transactions in the system and to modify or cancel that list. However, it is rarely necessary to add a recurring transaction from that setting and the system allows you to mark any property expense or tenant charge into a recurring transaction from the ledger.
Instructions for posting a charge on a tenant ledger and marking it recurring can be found below or here: Adding 'Other' Charges for Tenants
Instructions for posting a recurring expense on a property can be found here: Posting an Income or Expense Transaction
- If you find that your recurring transaction is posting on the wrong interval date it is best to delete the transaction in the Recurring Transaction settings and then set up a new recurring transaction in the tenant ledger.
- If you enter a historic begin date, a recurring transaction will post retroactively. If you posted an incorrect frequency date and need to make changes, the system will not delete those historic charges. They will need to be removed manually.
- If you enter a historic begin date with an end date, the end date will need to be within the past three months
System Advice:
Important Note: Regarding the End Date, recurring transactions will only post up until the day BEFORE the End date. For example, if you have the Frequency set as Daily and you set the end date as 12/15/2023, the recurring transaction will stop posting to the account on 12/14/2023. In this case a transaction will not post on 12/15/2023 as that is the date the recurring transaction will be removed from the Recurring Transactions screen.