Introduction

Rent Roll Manager is property management software. It is an effective database driven software solution for the property manager. It has extensive report capabilities and manager, owners, accounting, building, unit and active or inactive tenant tracking.

It helps you keep track of late payments, leases and work orders. You can archive accounting information through a year end closing function and easily secure your data by using integrated backup and restore utilities. The building and unit screens let you store pictures such as outside or inside views or floor plans.

It also helps you communicate more easily with contractors, tenants and business associates with the integrated email editor and sender.

Manager

The Manager is you. You own the database and you manage it. Of course, you can also be a landlord in which case you would be an owner-manager. You can also manage property exclusively for other landlords and you might not have any buildings of your own. Basically, it can be any combination you wish but the bottom line is YOU are the manager.

From the Main Menu, click the Manager button to open the Manager Setup dialog.

Before doing anything, you must create a manager. The dialog lets you enter information about the manager such as your name and address etc. If you are a single owner manager or if you are also one of the owners, check the Also Identify as Owner check box. If you are also to receive payment from other owners, check the Also Identify as Payee checkbox.

However, you must be identified as either an owner, a payee or both. You cannot leave both checkboxes blank. There is a web Site button and the email address is the one to be used as the sender when sending email to a tenant, another owner or a payee.

If you want to enter expenses for a manager and you are not an owner, you can still identify yourself as an owner but not give yourself any buildings. This way you can enter general expenses and income on top of income coming from commissions and other expenses and you will be able to run profit/loss, expenses and manager income reports on this manager. The Income report does not include income from commissions and other expenses. To see all income from the manager, do the Manager Income Report.

Owners

To access the Owners screen, from the Main Menu, click the Owners button or from the View drop down menu, click Owners.

You will be presented with the Owners screen where you can enter details about an Owner such as address and contact. The first time you go to Owners, a warning message is displayed saying to click Add to add an owner if the manager is not also an owner.

See details about the Modify button.

The Also Identify as Manager checkbox is to identify this owner as the manager. There can only be one manager. When saving, a dialog box will open asking you to replace the manager if the current owner is not already the manager. If the manager was not already an owner, he/she will be set to an owner so you can delete him/her if need be because there is nowhere else to do this but the owner screen. Or you can set him/her back as a manager.

The tab pane lets you tab to Details, Commission Flat Rate and Notes. The Details pane includes the email address and the Email button, which opens a dialog to let the manager send an email to this owner.
There is also a Web Site button.
The commission Flat Rate pane is disabled if the displayed owner is the manager. Otherwise, you can enter a commission as a recurring expense to the manager by specifying the accounts, the start and end date, the period and the amount (fixed or percent of income of this owner).

The Notes pane lets you enter free form text about this owner. The button panel on the right performs update functions on the owner.

See details about the owner Report.

See details about the Go to buttons at the top of the screen.

Buildings

To access the Buildings screen, from the Main Menu, click the Buildings button or from the View drop down menu, click Buildings.

You will be presented with the Buildings screen where you can enter details about a building such as the address and the following information:

The Number of Units is a calculated field depending on the number of units you have entered for that building.

See details about the Picture button.

See details about the Modify button.

There are five tab panes: Owners, Details, Appliances, Work Orders and Notes.

Owners tab: You can add owners of this building by selecting from the Add Owner drop down box. The owner is added to the list. You can remove the owner using the Remove Owner button and you can modify his/her share using the Modify Share button after selecting an owner. In order to be able to save a building, one or more owners must be specified and the total share must equal 100%.

Details tab: It includes details about the building. The Total Rent Value is the total amount of all rent values specified in the Units screen. The Building Area is only mandatory if you have buildings located in Québec and you wish to calculate relevé 4 reports.

See details about the Appliances tab.

See details about the Work Orders tab.

The Notes tab lets you enter free form text about this building.

The button panel on the right performs update functions on the building.

See details about the building Report.

See details about the Go to buttons at the top of the screen.

Units

To access the Units screen, from the Main Menu, click the Units button or from the View drop down menu, click Units.

You will be presented with the Units screen where you can enter details about a unit such as the address and the following information:

The Rent Value is what the rental fee should be when renting this unit. This value will be automatically included as a default when creating a recurring charge under the Tenants-Lease tab pane. The Status is generated depending on if there is an active tenant in this unit. Status is either Rented or Vacant. It also shows the active tenant.

See details about the Picture button.

See details about the Modify button.

There are five tab panes: Details, Advertisement, Appliances, Work Orders and Notes.

Details tab: It includes details about the unit.

Advertisement tab: Lets you enter free form text that can be used to advertise the unit for rental when it is vacant.

See details about the Appliances tab.

See details about the Work Orders tab.

The Notes tab lets you enter free form text about this unit.

The button panel on the right performs update functions on the unit.

See details about the unit Report.

See details about the Go to buttons at the top of the screen.

Appliances

The Appliances tab lists all appliances that belong to the whole building or a specific unit depending on which screen you access it from. Specific appliances for a unit such as a refrigerator should be listed under Units and appliances such as boilers under Buildings. Using the Add/Modify button after selecting an appliance from the list opens the Appliance dialog. This dialog lets you enter information about the appliance. You can also move an appliance from the current building or unit to other buildings, units or storage using the Move button. Using the Add from Storage button, you can select from the storage list and move it to the current building or unit. The Service list includes work orders against the current appliance.

Appliance ownership: Since appliances can move around from building to building or to and from storage, keeping track of who owns the appliance can be problematic in a multiple owner database. To solve this, appliances are always associated with a building and indirectly to owners. If an appliance is put in storage, the last building or unit it was in will still be associated with the stored appliance.

A list of all appliances as well as the appliances dialog can also be invoked from Appliances/Work Orders of the View drop down menu or the button from the main menu.

See details about the appliance Report.

Work Orders

Work Orders are work that needs to be done to fix a problem. The Work Order dialog is accessed from the Buildings screen, the Units screen or the Appliance dialog. Work Orders can also be accessed through the Alerts dialog.
The work order includes a list of payees to assign the work to, the assigned date, the completion date, the total cost and the expense account that the work is charged against. The work order is posted to expense only once the Completed On date is specified. A confirmation dialog opens to ask you to confirm the posting. If you accept, the work order is flagged as being posted and becomes read-only. You may only view it or delete it. You can also view the actual expense in the Expenses screen. Deleting a work order that has been posted to expense does not delete the expense.

The Go to Accounts and Go to Payees buttons lets you quickly modify accounts and payees to specify in work orders.

The Notes text area lets you enter free form text about this work order.

A list of all work orders as well as the work order dialog can also be invoked from Appliances/Work Orders of the View drop down menu or the button from the main menu.

See details about the work order Report.

Tenants

To access the Tenants screen, from the Main Menu, click the Tenants button or from the View drop down menu, click Tenants.

You will be presented with the Tenants screen where you can enter details about a tenant such as phone numbers, social insurance number, birth date, driver’s license number and the following information:

With the Search button, you can select any tenant in your database from the list in the displayed dialog using the Search button from this dialog, you can then go directly to this tenant without having to remember in which building and unit he/she is located. The list also specifies the status of the tenant (active or inactive).

See details about the Modify button.

Selecting the Active checkbox makes this tenant active. If you make the current tenant active and there is already an active tenant in this unit, a confirmation message will be displayed asking you if you want to deactivate the other tenant and activate the current one. The recurring charges of the inactive tenant will be stopped or deleted if you respond yes.

The Move button lets you move the current tenant from the current unit to another unit anywhere in your database. It also lets you archive that tenant for future reference while adding a note about the last known unit. If the target unit is already occupied by an active tenant, a confirmation message will be displayed asking you if you want to deactivate the other tenant and activate the current one. The recurring charges of both tenants will be stopped or deleted if you respond yes.

Add from Archive: Archiving a tenant means removing this tenant from a unit and simply keeping him/her outside for future reference. All the tenant’s information is kept but the tenant is not associated with any units or buildings. This is useful when you want to keep a tenant’s information on file but you want to delete a unit and/or building. Of course, the tenant’s status becomes inactive. In this dialog, the notes column should contain the details about the last known unit the tenant was in. This is automatically added when the tenant is archived through a move. This tenant can later be reinstated into any unit through the Add from Archive button. His/her information can be viewed this way or through tenant reporting. In order to modify an archived tenant’s information, it must be moved back to a unit as either active or inactive.

Once an email address is entered, the manager can send an email to the tenant using the Email button.

There are seven tab panes: Lease, Employer, Other Occupants, Vehicles, Notes, Photo and Linked Documents.

Lease tab: The lease for the specified tenant has heat, electricity, gas, parking, storage, food and furnished checkboxes. The Food checkbox has a special meaning if the building is located in Québec. See the relevé 4 report for details.
The Renewal Notice button lets you print a lease renewal notice for the current tenant. You will get a print preview before printing. You must update your data before generating this letter. The rent indicated is the one shown on the unit screen.
The recurring charges can be setup using the Add/Modify button at the bottom of the recurring charges list. This can be anything charged to the tenant on a recurring basis such as rent, storage or parking. When opening the recurring charge dialog, and adding a new recurring charge, the amount field is automatically populated with the rental value amount from the unit screen because rents is what you will mostly be entering in this dialog. For more information on setting up the tenant lease, see the recurring charges dialog.
There is also a Receipt button that opens up the Invoicing/Receipt report dialog specific to this tenant.
The Post All Recurring Charges To Income For This Tenant Only button will, as the button says, post to income only for this tenant.

Employer tab: Lets you enter free form text that gives details about the tenant’s employer.

Other Occupants tab: Lets you enter free form text that gives details about the tenant’s roommates.

Vehicles tab: You can add details about vehicles owned by this tenant by clicking the Add/Modify button at the bottom of the list. A dialog will open enabling you to add information such as description, plate number and province/state.

The Notes tab lets you enter free form text about this tenant.

The Photo tab lets you enter a picture of the tenant(s) if needed.

The Linked Documents tab lets you add external documents related to this tenant. The documents can be of any type. The path to the document is saved to the database and is a means to quickly refer to it from inside Rent Roll Manager. The file itself is not modified or moved. Only the path to the document is saved. The Open Document button opens the document with the proper program using your operating system’s type association. In Unix, the process command is ‘gnome-open’ by default and is stored in the proprio.ini file. If you wish, you can change this command manually by editing the proprio.ini file.

The button panel on the right performs update functions on the tenant.

See details about the tenant Report.

See details about the Go to buttons at the top of the screen. The Go to Income button goes directly to the last income payment associated to this tenant.

Expenses

To access the Expenses screen, from the Main Menu, click the Expenses button or from the View drop down menu, click Expenses.

You will be presented with the Expenses screen. The expenses screen has a top list of expense payments, a header depicting what the selected payment is for and tab panes providing modifiable details about the selected payment. To add any expense records, the database must contain at least one building, one owner and one payee. Otherwise, you are shown a warning and redirected to the appropriate screen in order to add what is missing.
The screen has the following features:

List Scope: Clicking this button opens a dialog where you can choose what the scope for the payment list should be. It has a Main Criteria section and a Restriction Criteria similar to reports to display only the payments that meet those criteria. Clicking OK saves the criteria. When you go back to expenses, the same criteria is used. A message in red at the top of the screen indicates the number of payments according to the current scope.
The Refresh List button appears only in the network version et is used to refresh the list if another user has modified it.

The Expense For group header specifies what the selected payment is for. You can specify a building, a building-unit, an owner when the General checkbox is selected, an appliance from a building or a unit, or a stored appliance when selecting the Stored checkbox. Doing any changes to this header modifies the current selected payment. You will then need to save or cancel any changes. The Expense For header is disabled if the current selected payment is a recurring expense because recurring expenses setups are specified elsewhere.
When selected, the Applies to Payment Below checkbox means that the header applies to the selected payment. If it is unselected, the list and the tab panes are disabled and the Recurring Expenses group of buttons on the right are enabled and the header will then apply to the recurring expense that you will create by clicking the Add/Modify button. When viewing a recurring expense payment and the Applies To Payment Below checkbox is selected, the Add/Modify button will let you modify the selected payment’s recurring expense.
The Post All button will post all recurring expenses that need to be posted on the current date and will add it to the expense list if the proper scope is set.
The See List button lets you see recurring expenses for the whole database for easy maintenance. Clicking the Search button in the resulting dialog will open the Recurring Expense dialog for the selected item.

When selecting a payment from the list, the tab panes below the list will be updated with the proper data from the selection. This data can then be modified. If the selected payment is a recurring payment, it will automatically tab to the Recurring Payment pane. Otherwise, it will tab to the Non Recurring Expense pane.

When a Recurring Payment is selected, the Add Payment button refers to adding another payment for the same expense. The delete button will delete the current payment unless it is the only one because recurring expenses require at least one payment. If you still wish to cancel that payment, you can check the Waive Expense checkbox. This will delete all payments referring to that expense except the first one but the amount left will be set to zero effectively waiving that particular expense from your records and eliminating the late payment flag. You will also be able to do the year end closing without this payment being carried forward. The Late field is calculated based on the due date and the date the payment was made. The Recurring Payment tab cannot be selected manually because recurring expenses are added using the Add/Modify button in the Recurring Expenses group of buttons on the upper right part of the screen.

Clicking the Non Recurring Expense tab will warn you to click Add to add a non recurring expense. You can also get to the Non Recurring Expense tab by selecting an existing payment. Unlike the recurring tab, the non recurring tab’s Add button will actually add a new expense along with its first payment. To add a payment to an existing expense, click the Add Payment button below the date button. The Add Payment button will be disabled if the amount left is zero. The Non Recurring Expense tab will let you specify the Due Date and will automatically set the Date to be the same. The Date can, however, still be changed. You can also specify the expense Group and Account and the Amount Due. Again, the Amount Paid will automatically be set to the Amount Due and the Amount Left will be calculated. The Amount Paid can also be changed. The payee can be specified from the drop down list. If the accounts or payees drop down lists do not include the desired item, from the View menu, you can open the Accounts or Payees dialogs to add what you need and go back to your modifications. The save button will save your additions or modifications. As an extra precaution, deleting a non recurring payment will ask you if you want to delete the payment AND the expense when it is the only payment for that expense.

By default, the payment list is in order of Due Date and related payments to keep the payments together for clarity. You can, of course, set the proper scope by clicking the List Scope button or reorder the list by clicking on the green column headers. Please note that the list is always reset to its default order when payments are saved, deleted or otherwise repopulated. Recurring expenses for commissions to the manager cannot be modified in the recurring expense dialog. They must be modified in the owner screen.

The Expense ID shown in the tab panes are for information purposes only and are useful for identifying multiple payments for the same expense record. Payments are grouped together by default in the list so it is easier to locate them. The Expense For group of buttons will be disabled when in the Recurring Payment tab because this is predetermined in the recurring expenses. It is, however, enabled when in the Non Recurring Expense tab since we are entering a whole new expense.

See details about the expense Report which is available from the drop down menu.

See details about the Go to buttons at the top of the screen.

Income

To access the Income screen, from the Main Menu, click the Income button or from the View drop down menu, click Income.

You will be presented with the Income screen. The income screen has a top list of income payments, a header depicting what the selected payment is for and tab panes providing modifiable details about the selected payment. To add any income records, the database must contain at least one building and one owner. Otherwise, you are shown a warning and redirected to the appropriate screen in order to add what is missing.
The screen has the following features:

List Scope: Clicking this button opens a dialog where you can choose what the scope for the payment list should be. It has a Main Criteria section and a Restriction Criteria similar to reports to display only the payments that meet those criteria. Clicking OK saves the criteria. When you go back to incomes, the same criteria is used. A message in red at the top of the screen indicates the number of payments according to the current scope.
The Refresh List button appears only in the network version et is used to refresh the list if another user has modified it.

The Income For group header specifies what the selected payment is for. You can specify a building, a building-unit and an owner when the General checkbox is selected. Doing any changes to this header modifies the current selected payment. You will then need to save or cancel any changes. The Income For header is disabled if the current selected payment is a recurring charge because recurring charges setups are specified elsewhere.
When selected, the Applies to Payment Below checkbox means that the header applies to the selected payment. If it is unselected, the list and the tab panes are disabled and the Recurring Charges group of buttons on the right are enabled and the header will then apply to the recurring charge that you will create by clicking the Add/Modify button. When viewing a recurring charge payment and the Applies To Payment Below checkbox is selected, the Add/Modify button will let you modify the selected payment’s recurring charge.
The Post All button will post all recurring charges that need to be posted on the current date and will add it to the income list if the proper scope is set.
The See List button lets you see recurring charges for the whole database for easy maintenance. Clicking the Search button in the resulting dialog will open the Recurring Charge dialog for the selected item.

When selecting a payment from the list, the tab panes below the list will be updated with the proper data from the selection. This data can then be modified. If the selected payment is a recurring payment, it will automatically tab to the Recurring Payment pane. Otherwise, it will tab to the Non Recurring Charge pane.

When a Recurring Payment is selected, the Add Payment button refers to adding another payment for the same income. The delete button will delete the current payment unless it is the only one because recurring charges require at least one payment. If you still wish to cancel that payment, you can check the Waive Charge checkbox. This will delete all payments referring to that income except the first one but the amount left will be set to zero effectively waiving that particular charge from your records and eliminating the late payment flag. You will also be able to do the year end closing without this payment being carried forward. The Late field is calculated based on the due date and the date the payment was made. The Recurring Payment tab cannot be selected manually because recurring charges are added using the Add/Modify button in the Recurring Charges group of buttons on the upper right part of the screen.

Clicking the Non Recurring Charge tab will warn you to click Add to add a non recurring charge. You can also get to the Non Recurring Charge tab by selecting an existing payment. Unlike the recurring tab, the non recurring tab’s Add button will actually add a new charge along with its first payment. To add a payment to an existing charge, click the Add Payment button below the date button. The Add Payment button will be disabled if the amount left is zero. The Non Recurring Charge tab will let you specify the Due Date and will automatically set the Date to be the same. The Date can, however, still be changed. You can also specify the income Group and Account and the Amount Due. Again, the Amount Paid will automatically be set to the Amount Due and the Amount Left will be calculated. The Amount Paid can also be changed. If the accounts drop down lists do not include the desired item, from the View menu, you can open the Accounts dialog to add what you need and go back to your modifications. The save button will save your additions or modifications. As an extra precaution, deleting a non recurring payment will ask you if you want to delete the payment AND the charge when it is the only payment for that income.

By default, the payment list is in order of Due Date and related payments to keep the payments together for clarity. You can, of course, set the proper scope by clicking the List Scope button or reorder the list by clicking on the green column headers. Please note that the list is always reset to its default order when payments are saved, deleted or otherwise repopulated.

The Income ID shown in the tab panes are for information purposes only and are useful for identifying multiple payments for the same income record. Payments are grouped together by default in the list so it is easier to locate them. The Income For group of buttons will be disabled when in the Recurring Payment tab because this is predetermined in the recurring charges. It is, however, enabled when in the Non Recurring Charge tab since we are entering a whole new income.

The Add Late Fees to Income Amount Dues function is accessed from the Edit drop down menu and is explained here.

The Receipt button opens the Invoicing/Receipts report dialog and lets you see and print a receipt for the current payment.

See details about the income Report which is available from the drop down menu.

See details about the Go to buttons at the top of the screen.

Recurring Expenses

The recurring expense dialog is available from the expenses screen by clicking the Add/Modify button or by clicking the See List button then the Search button.
A recurring expense is a transaction that is automatically and periodically applied. This way you do not have to enter the transaction every time. For example, a mortgage payment that is due every month can be entered as a recurring expense.
If an expense is due to be paid according to what you have entered in this dialog, invoking Post All from various places will automatically enter this and all due expense transactions in the database. Upon start-up of Rent Roll Manager, you will be asked to post any transaction that is due at that time.
This dialog lets you enter account information, payees, the start and end dates, the payment period, the amount and whether this amount is fixed or as a percent of income paid to the sepcified payee.

The button panel on the right performs update functions on the recurring expense.

See details about the recurring expense Report.

You can also access the Accounts and the Payees dialogs from here.

Recurring Charges

The recurring charge dialog is available from the income screen by clicking the Add/Modify button or by clicking the See List button then the Search button. It can also be accessed from the tenant screen’s Lease tab pane.
A recurring charge is a transaction that is automatically and periodically applied. This way you do not have to enter the transaction every time. For example, a rent fee that is charged every month can be entered as a recurring charge. This also becomes a lease for a tenant. When the Recurring Charge For includes a tenant and the account is the rent account as defined in the preferences, the recurring charge automatically becomes the lease for the tenant. Tenants can only have one lease. If the tenant is active, the amount specified in the recurring charge will change the unit rent value. If the Recurring Charge For does not include a tenant, you cannot set the account to be the rent as specified in your preferences.

If a charge is due to be paid according to what you have entered in this dialog, invoking Post All from various places will automatically enter this and all due income transactions in the database. Upon start-up of Rent Roll Manager, you will be asked to post any transaction that is due at that time.

The Late Fee can be specified as a fixed fee or as % of amount of the recurring charge. See the details when selecting Add Late Fees to Income Amount Dues from the menu.

This dialog lets you enter account information, the start and end dates, the payment period, the amount and the late fee amount.

The button panel on the right performs update functions on the recurring charge.

See details about the recurring charge Report.

You can also access the Accounts dialog from here.

Accounts

The Accounts dialog is conveniently accessible from anywhere in the application either from the View drop down menu, the Main Menu screen or other dialogs such as the Work Order dialog, the Recurring Expense dialog and the Recurring Charge dialog.

The Accounts dialog lets you add and maintain groups and accounts categories for your income and expenses. Accounts are categorized by groups so that there are many accounts per group. Once you create a group, you can add multiple accounts under that group. You can create as many groups as you want under expenses and income but the names of groups and accounts must be unique no matter what type or groups they are in, in order to avoid confusion. On a brand new database, there is always a default account in each of the expenses or income types. You cannot delete those because there must be at least one account that exists for each type in the database, but you can change their name.

Click on the top radio buttons to select either Income or Expense account types. A list is shown in order of groups with all the accounts for each. Selecting an account from the list will populate the forms below. You can then modify the group or account data from there. Saving the data will save whatever you have changed on the screen. When adding, however, it will ask you if you want to add groups OR accounts and depending on your choice, will enable only the form you need. Deleting will also ask a similar question. You cannot, however, delete a group if there are still accounts associated with them. You cannot also delete accounts that have transactions associated with them including recurring charges or recurring expenses setups. The best time to clean-up accounts is after a year end closing when transactions are being purged and before adding any new ones.

See details about the expense account or income account Reports.

Payees

The Payees dialog is conveniently accessible from anywhere in the application either from the View drop down menu, the Main Menu screen or other dialogs such as the Work Order dialog and the Recurring Expense dialog.

Payees are people, companies, contractors, stores and other entities that an owner gives money to. They are mostly entered with expense accounts when creating a new expense payment or a new recurring expense. The payees dialog displays a list of all payees. Selecting a payee from this list will populate the form below. This form contains information about the payee that can be modified and saved.

The form contains additional functionality such as Email and Web Site buttons.

You can add payees using the Add button. The list is then disabled until you save or cancel. Payee names are unique. You cannot save two payees with the same name. Also, in order to add any new expense payments in the Expense screen, you must add at least one payee.

See details about the payee Report.

Alerts

The Alerts dialog is accessed from the Edit drop down menu, as a button from the Main Menu or is displayed upon startup of the application if the reminder is set in your Preferences.
It consists of four lists arranged in a tabbed pane. The lists are useful reminders of Late Income payments, Late Expense payments, Late Leases and Alerted Work Orders.
Payments are ordered by due dates, leases by lease end dates and work orders by reported dates.
Upon selecting any record in the lists and clicking the Go to Transaction button, you will be redirected to the proper transaction for that record. For example, depending on which list has focus; you are redirected to the income screen, the expense screen, the tenant screen or the work order dialog.
The bottom of the Late Leases list has a button to change the maximum number of days before lease expiry.

Alert reports accessed from this dialog display either one of the Expense, Income, Tenant or Work Order reports depending on which tab has focus. The report dialogs have default values that pertain to alerts.

Preferences

To access the Preferences dialog, from the Edit drop down menu, click Preferences. You will be presented with the Preferences dialog. It can also be conveniently accessed through the Send Email dialog located in various parts of the application. Once set, your settings are saved and some are shown on the status bar.

The Preferences dialog is separated in five sections called Reminders, Regional, Rent, Email Setup.

The Reminders consists of an Alerts at Login checkbox and a Backups at Logout checkbox. Checking Alerts at Login means that you will be presented with the Alerts dialog every time you open the application. Checking Backups at Logout means that you will be presented with the Backup file chooser every time you exit the application.

In the Regional section, you can set your Country and Currency preferences. Presently, supported countries are Canada, United States and Other. The country support simply means that some labels such as Postal/Zip Code or Province/State are country specific. This is used as convenience and doesn’t hinder the application’s use by someone from any other country since the currency can be any one to three characters you wish to put and is not limited to $. It is used for display purposes on screens and in reports. The Regional settings take effect the next time you start the application.

The Rents section allows Rent Indexation as it is enforced in some jurisdictions. When this percentage is higher than 0%, the rents are automatically indexed by the percentage that you indicate here. During the recurring charge postings, the rent charges are increased by x% along with the rental value of the unit in question at the lease anniversary date. Therefore, the lease start dates must also be indicated. If the percentage is changed periodically, make sure to post all incomes and print invoices before modifying it. It is also very important to specify the Rent Account to let Rent Roll Manager index the rents and not some other income account.

The Email Setup section is important if you intend to use the email sender buttons located in various parts of the application for the manager to send emails to owners, tenants and payees. The information required in this section is supplied from your Internet provider. You must know your User and Password, your SMTP Server name, which is usualy in the form: smtp.domainname.com for example and your Server Type, which is usually pop3.

In the network version, some functions are displayed in red, which indicates preferences that applies to all users and are not only personal preferences. These functions may or may not be accessible depending on the security settings.

Security

Selecting Security from the File drop down menu opens up the Security dialog.

Desktop Version
The first time you open this dialog, there is a warning explaining how security is enabled in the desktop version along with a login dialog to setup the first user: the Administrator. Clicking OK opens the dialog.
In the desktop version, security is NOT mandatory. If you are the only one using your computer, there is no need to enable it. If several people use your computer and you want to restrict the use of Rent Roll Manager to only a few functions, then enabling security and creating a few users make sense. Of course, only one user at a time will be able to use Rent Roll Manager since it resides on a single computer. If you want several people using Rent Roll Manager at the same time, you need to install the network version.

Network Version
In the Network version, the Administrator cannot login to a client application, because he is already logged in to Rent Roll Manager Server. The first user must be created on the server side and if this first user has rights to the security function, he may add other users from client applications.
Users can only login to ONE instance of Rent Roll Manager. This includes the Administrator.
In the network version, security is mandatory. See the help on Networking.

Desktop and Network Versions
Once the dialog opens for the first time, the only user is the Administrator. The Administrator has permissions to all the functions and this is why the functions list is disabled. You cannot reduce permissions on the Administrator. Once you create a new user by clicking the Add button, the functions list is enabled and you can allow any combinations of functions to this new user. Upon saving the user, you are asked to provide his password. This password can be changed by the user later upon login. If a user loses his password, the Administrator or any other user with rights to the security function can reset his password using the Reset Password button.
Be aware that if you lose the Administrator password, there is no way of logging back into Rent Roll Manager.

Manage Appliances/Work Orders

The Appliances/Work Orders dialog is accessed from the View drop down menu or as a button from the Main Menu.
It consists of two lists arranged in a tabbed pane. This dialog is a quick and easy way to access all appliances and work orders in your database from a single location.
Upon selecting any record in the lists and clicking the Go to Transaction button, you will be redirected to the proper transaction for that record. For example, depending on which list has focus; you are redirected to the applicances dialog or the work orders dialog.

Reports accessed from this dialog display either one of the Appliances or Work Order reports depending on which tab has focus.

Networking

Please note that the network version is only available as an option and must be obtained separately. See details at: www.RentRollManager.com

New to Rent Roll Manager version 4.0 is a multiple user-enabled version.
If you want several people using Rent Roll Manager at the same time, you need to install the network version, which has a separate program running on a separate computer. This computer becomes the server (Rent Roll Manager Server with the database) for client applications (Rent Roll Manager clients) running on other computers. Of course, a network connection needs to exist between the server and the client computers.
Rent Roll Manager 4.0 is designed to work in a client-server environment. It has optimistic concurrency support meaning that when user 1 and user 2 display the same data and if user 2 saves the data first, user 1 gets a message saying he must redisplay the data if he tries to save it himself. This prevents data corruption in the sense that data is not overwritten by another user without forcing a redisplay of the newly changed data.
This is very important when considering multiple user software to maintain data integrity.

Connecting the client to the server
Once Rent Roll Manager Server is up and running on the host computer, a client connects to it by specifying the name or IP of the computer where Rent Roll Manager Server is installed. When you start a Rent Roll Manager client for the first time, a dialog box opens up asking for the location of the server. For instance, if Rent Roll Manager Server were running on the same computer as the client, you would enter “localhost” or “127.0.0.1″ here. The name is then saved to the client’s proprio.ini file for later use. If the server switches location, then the dialog will pop up again upon startup because it won’t find the server.

Once you’re connected to the database through the server program, you need to provide a username and password. The Administrator (the main user that runs the database in Rent Roll Manager Server), should have created at least one client user. Once logged in, you have access to the network database along with potentially many other users.
When you come across the following message:

This record has been updated by another user.
You cannot update it until you pickup the other user’s changes.
Please refresh by selecting it again.

This means that you have run into the situation explained in the introduction and you simply need to refresh your view of the data.

Acquire or Release Exclusive Access
Sometimes a user with the proper permissions would like to perform some tasks that require exclusive access to the database. This user might wish to make some major changes to the database that will disrupt other users’ work. Selecting Acquire Exclusive Acccess from the File menu will attempt to do just that. If other users are logged in, the operation will fail. It will not disconnect them. Only the Administrator can do this at the server program. If no users are logged in, exclusive access will succeed and no other users will be able to log in at this point until the current user releases exclusive access by selecting from the menu or logs out.

Backup/Restore

(registered copy only)

It is a good idea to do backups as often as possible. Rent Roll Manager makes this task easy by including a utility that does just this. It can also be integrated in your Preferences as a useful reminder when exiting the application.

From the File drop down menu, select Backup Database. The utility will open a File Chooser dialog to ask you where to store your backup. Preferably, you should use a floppy disk or another media device such as a USB drive or another computer from a network connection. The location that you choose will be saved for future use and you will not have to navigate to it every time. Click on the Choose Directory button. The backup will be saved to the media that you choose as a zip file. The file name will consist of the current timestamp in the following form:

ProprioBU_YYYY_MM_DD_MMMMMM.zip
where
YYYY is the year
MM is the month
DD is the day
MMMMMM is the time in milliseconds

This information is useful if you ever want to do a restore.
The utility should give you either a success message or an error message when problems occur such as corrupted media or the disk being full.

Doing the restore is also as easy. Care must be taken to make sure you are not replacing valuable data.
Restoring a database will completely overwrite your current database.
A warning message is issued when you click Restore Database from the File drop down menu. Responding Yes will open a File Chooser that will point to your saved backup location. You can then choose the proper restore file based on the explanation given above on backup filenames. Click on Choose Restore File after selecting it. If the restore file is not in the proper format, it will issue an error message and your current database will remain intact. If it is successful, it will issue a success message and your current database will be replaced by the one stored in the restore file. On the network version, the restore can only be done using the server program.

Restore Database from Version 3.0:
Restoring a database from version 3.0 is accomplished from the File drop down menu. The procedure is the same as above and is very straightforward.
On the network version, the restore from version 3.0 can only be done using the server program.

Restore Database from Version 2.0:
Restoring a database from version 2.0 is accomplished from the File drop down menu. The procedure is the same as above but you are presented with a warning.

The following have to be dealt with manually:

• The lease start and end dates will disappear.
  In version 2.0, you had to add the lease separately from the recurring charges. Version 3.0 and 4.0 automatically considers the recurring charge itself as being the lease as long as the account specified is the rent account. After the restore is done, make sure you go in all the rental recurring charges and re-save the charge with the proper rent account as specified in the preferences. Once re-saved the recurring charge becomes the lease. One way to do this is to go to the income screen and click the See List button on the Recurring Charges section. You will get all the existing recurring charges. You can also do it from the tenant screen, one tenant at a time.
• The building and unit pictures will have to be reloaded. In version 2.0, the pictures were saved as files but in version 3.0 and 4.0, they are saved within the database.
• The preferences will need to be redefined. Some of the preferences are now saved in the database as opposed to being saved in the ini file. Simply go to the preferences dialog and check your preferences.

On the network version, the restore from version 2.0 can only be done using the server program.

View Databases

View Demo Data:
Rent Roll Manager is shipped with a non-persistent demonstration database. From the File drop down menu, select View Demo Data. You will get a message saying that you are now connected to the Demo database and that you are able to make changes but the modified data will not be persistent. Also, you do not have access to the Year End Closing function in Demo. The status bar is also updated to display DEMO in red providing you with a constant visual reminder that you are connected to Demo.
Whatever database you were connected to before will be safely shutdown. Demo is automatically the default database when using an unregistered copy of Rent Roll Manager. With a registered copy, the default is always Production upon startup.

View Production Data:
Rent Roll Manager is shipped with a default production database. This database only contains one expense and one income default accounts but is otherwise empty and ready to accept your data. From the File drop down menu, select View Production Data. You will get a message saying that you are now connected to the Production database. The status bar is also updated to display PRODUCTION in red providing you with a constant visual reminder that you are connected to Production. Whatever database you were connected to before will be safely shutdown. Production is automatically the default database when using a registered copy of Rent Roll Manager. With an unregistered copy, the default is always Demo upon startup. You can access the Production database in the unregistered version but you are limited to only one building and one unit.

View Archived Data:
Archived databases are created when you invoke the Year End Closing function. These databases are read-only so they cannot be modified and be confused with Production. From the File drop down menu, select View Archived Data. You will be presented with a file chooser that lets you pick an archived database from the Archive directory created upon installing Rent Roll Manager. The databases are stored under this directory in subdirectories named according to this form:

ARCHIVE_YYYY_MM_DD
where YYYY is the year
where MM is the month
where DD is the day
For example:
ARCHIVE_2005_08_26

Click Choose Archive and you will get a message saying that you are now connected to the Archive database. The status bar is also updated to display the archive name in red providing you with a constant visual reminder that you are connected to an Archived database. Whatever database you were connected to before will be safely shutdown. You will be able to view all the data that was there before the date of the archive name as explained under Year End Closing. If you try to save or delete any data, you will get an error message stating that the database is read-only. Just cancel and invoke Production if you wish to change anything.

Year End Closing

(registered copy only)

The Year End Closing archives expenses and incomes, except non-completed payments, until the closing date of your choice. Recurring data is also adjusted as well as work orders.
From the File drop down menu, select Year End Closing. You will have two opportunities to cancel the procedure. You are first presented with a confirmation message explaining what a Year End Closing is and asking you if you want to continue. Clicking Yes will bring you to Choose Backup Directory dialog giving you a chance to backup your Production database first. You will then be brought to a dialog asking you for the closing date. If you click cancel, nothing will happen. Clicking OK will start the archiving process and then the Production database’s expenses, incomes, recurring data and work orders will be reinitialized accordingly. Once this is done, a success message is displayed and you are reconnected to your Production database minus the archived aforementioned data.
On the network version, the year end closing can only be done using the server program.

Quitting

To quit Rent Roll Manager, from the File menu, select Quit or simply click on the upper right X of the main window. You will get a confirmation message. Select Yes to shutdown Rent Roll Manager or No to do nothing. Depending on your backup reminder preference, you may get a file chooser dialog that lets you backup your Production database before leaving.

Post All

Post All to Income is accessed from the Edit drop down menu and a Post All button is available in the Income screen. It will post all recurring charges that need to be posted on the current date and will add it to the income table in the database.
When the recurring charge is a rent and the rent indexation rate is higher than 0% as indicated in the preferences dialog, the rents are automatically increased according to this rate.

Post All to Expenses is accessed from the Edit drop down menu and a Post All button is available in the Expenses screen. It will post all recurring expenses that need to be posted on the current date and will add it to the expense table in the database.

Add Late Fees…

The function Add Late Fees to Income Amount Dues can be accessed from the Edit drop down menu and is available only when the Income screen is active.
This function adds a late fee to the recurring income payments’ amount dues. These late fees are specified in the Recurring Charge dialog. When a late fee is applied to a payment, a note is written to the payment indicating that a late fee was added.

Reports

General considerations

Most report dialogs have similar presentation styles to make it easy for you to create reports. These reports are very flexible, you can report by practically anything. Once you’ve learned how to use one report, using all other reports will be easy.
Clicking OK generates a preview window of the report. To send the report to your printer, click on the printer icon in the preview window. You can also generate the report as a PDF file by clicking on the PDF icon also in the preview window. Navigate through each page by clicking the appropriate arrows at the bottom of the window.
All reports allow saving of criteria using user-defined names. You can retrieve the saved report later on by clicking on the Open… button and selecting from a list of saved reports.

The main parts are:

Main Criteria: Select from the list everything you want to apply to your report. Selecting None will select nothing from that particular list. Selecting All means the whole list will apply. You can also select individual items from the lists. To select more than one item, control-click on each item.
The report doesn’t redisplay the selected main criteria list items because it would clutter the report. Instead, it displays all… or some selected… items meaning either all items of a category (example: all tenants) or selected items in a category (example: some selected tenants). For example, if you were to select 100 tenants, it wouldn’t display the 100 tenants in the header of your report. It would display some selected tenants and this would not clutter your report.

Select Criteria to Include in Report: Check all boxes that you want to include in the generated report.

Restriction Criteria: If a restriction is not checked, it is ignored. Restrictions are applied only when the checkbox is checked.

Order By: Select which item to order your report by. Some disabled items may be re-enabled by selecting other items in other sections of the dialog.

Available reports are:

Owner Report
Building Report
Unit Report
Tenant Report
Expenses Report
Income Report
Manager Income Report
Recurring Expense Report
Recurring Charge Report
Expense Account Report
Income Account Report
Payee Report
Appliances Report
Work Order Report
Profit/Loss Statement Report
Invoicing/Receipts
Export Tenant Addresses
Québec – Relevé 4 (Only available in Canadian version)

Other considerations

Unit Report: Make sure you use the same measuring units as what you have in your database for unit area (m2 or ft2).

Income Report: Income reports do not include income to manager commissions. They are included in the Manager Income Report.

Manager Income Report: This report includes all income from the manager, that is, income from all owner expenses paid to a manager-payee and income entered in the Income screen for a manager-owner.

To see details on manager incomes, see the Expense Report for each owner.
Profit/Loss Statement Report
The Profit/Loss Statement report is an important report to run before doing a year end closing. Everything is selected by default and you only need to provide the report Period.
When selected, the General checkbox means that the report will also include owner only transactions when reporting by buildings.
The Include Manager checkbox is enabled only if the manager is not also an owner.
The Manager Only checkbox is enabled only if the manager is not also an owner. When selected, only the manager profit/loss report is run. It may include ex-managers if transactions were entered for them in the past.
When the Include Management Income checkbox in the Restriction Criteria section is checked, the management income is included. This could be income from the current manager if selected or income from ex-managers.
The generated report shows each account selected with the total amount and its individual percentage of the total for the type (expense or income).
The profit or loss amount is shown after each building or owner section.
The final totals for the criteria selected along with the profit or loss is also shown.

Invoicing/Receipts
You may produce invoice and receipt notices for tenants and owners. Select the tenants and the owners from the lists in the Main Criteria section.
You can print the notices in one of the two specified languages.
To produce invoices, select Produce Invoices and check the types of charges you wish to bill.
Include Late Payments will include all charges that have a remaining amount higher than zero.
Include Next Recurring Charges will include all the next recurring charges that are due such as rents. Rent indexation will be done automatically if the rate and the rent account are specified in the preferences dialog and the lease start date is specified in the tenants screen so that only rents arriving at their anniversary dates are indexed.
Include Next Non Recurring Charges will include the next non recurring charges that are due.
The invoice will include the name and address of the invoiced person, the details of the charges, the due dates, the total amount to be paid and a detachable coupon to include with their payment.
To produce receipts, select Produce Receipts and the Receipt Date to limit the amount of receipts to a specific date range.
The receipt will indicate the name and address of the person, the details of the charges, the due dates and the total amount received by this person.

Export Tenant Addresses
The Export Tenant Addresses utility lets you save to disk a “|” delimited file containing the address of any quantities of tenants. This file can then be used as an import to your favorite word processor for printing addresses on labels etc.

Help

Selecting Help from the Help drop down menu gives you four choices: About, Help, Licence Agreement, Register Desktop Version and Register Network Version.

Selecting About displays information about Rent Roll Manager like the complete release number.
Selecting Help displays this help dialog. This help dialog can also be accessed from everywhere by pressing the F1 key and is context sensitive.
Selecting Licence Agreement displays the agreement you accept by using Rent Roll Manager.
Selecting Register or Upgrade Rent Roll Manager lets you enable Rent Roll Manager in order to have complete access to all its features and an unlimited persistent database. The registration key can be purchased at www.RentRollManager.com.

Dates

All dates in Rent Roll Manager are added using a box and an icon:

These boxes are either empty or filled with a date. Clicking the icon opens a drop down calendar dialog that lets you pick the date. Months are specified in a drop down list, years in a text box and the day using a select button.

Click a day button to pick the date, Cancel to cancel and Reset to empty the date box. Upon first opening this dialog, the calendar is set to either today’s date if no date is shown in the box or the actual date shown in the box.

Alt-C lets you open the calendar dialog on the current screen.

Dependencies

Whenever you get the message: Too many dependencies to delete this record, this means that the record in question is referenced elsewhere. For example, if you are trying to delete a tenant and he is cited in an income transaction, then that transaction is dependant on this tenant. This is a way to protect the database from corruption. You might be able to delete this tenant after a year end closing although, in this particular case, it would probably be better to simply render the tenant inactive for future reference.
Another example would include deleting a building after selling it. Again, this is best done after a year end closing and after archiving all the tenants of that building to avoid the dependency message.

Sortable Lists

In most lists, there are some column headers highlighted in green. This means that these columns are sortable. Clicking on a green column header will sort the list by this column in ascending alphabetical order. Shift-clicking will sort the list in descending alphabetical order. The column widths can be resized by clicking and dragging between two columns headers.

Emails

This is a simple dialog that lets you enter a Subject line and a Message to send to the specified To address from the specified From address. It will issue a number of error or success messages depending on your Settings, the validity of your To and From addresses and your Internet connection. You must, of course, be connected to the Internet and have a valid email account to be able to send email. Click the Settings button to access the Preferences dialog where your email setup resides.

Go To Shortcuts

These are context sensitive drop down lists or buttons that include buildings, units, tenants and owners depending on the screen you are presented with. For instance, on the building screen, three drop down lists of all units, all tenants and all owners of this building are shown at the top. When you select an item from one of these drop downs, you are automatically redirected to the appropriate screen.

Status Bar

The status bar displays some useful information about your data and preferences. It also mentions which database you are currently using and whether or not the application is registered.