Keep up with the latest updates to Rentman

Rentman v5 New Features

Rentman v5 is constantly updated to include new features to keep our clients ahead of their competitors and up to date with new legislation. Below is a list of our most recent enhancements.

March 2024 – 5.002.818

  • New Improved layout of information on Invoices payments tab. Click search buttons to view transactions leading to amounts shown. Double click to open transaction (and perhaps delete it)
  • New Improved Lettings Statement tab of Invoice screen now replicates/previews the Lettings Statement printed.
  • New Pay off an invoice with a credit note. See new buttons on Invoice screen.
  • New Ability to add extra charges and to pay and receive bills from landlord, property, tenancy and invoice screens.
  • New Ability to add reimbursable bills to any (let only) invoice (not just the lettings statement). And to produce a statement.
  • New Exclude LetOnly credit notes from the Bank Transfers screen (because you’ll pay them direct from the office account). See option on company preferences screen.
  • New Mark properties as “Premium” for upload to Rightmove’s premium feature. See advertising tab of property screen. Requires you have enough premium credits with Rightmove.
  • New Upcoming events shown with diary. See user preferences (diary tab) for options.

February 2024 – 5.002.771

  • New Click “Things To Do” in desktop treeview to view upcoming (next 7 days) company-wide appointments, tasks and tenants moving in or out. Make this your default startup screen by choosing ‘Today’ in your user preferences.
  • New For Ireland. Right-click on “PRTB certificates due” list to create new RTB or mark as not required.
  • New For Ireland. When a tenancy is terminated the most recent RTB certificate’s expiry date is updated to the date of termination. The property will then re-appear on the ‘due’ list with the next tenancy.
  • New Exclude post-dated bills received from outstanding bills list. See Company Preferences (ToDo list) for options.
  • New Don’t deduct bills received from landlord’s payment amount if the bill is post-dated beyond the next statement date. See Options tab of Management screen.
  • New Multi-Factor Authentication. Option on Company Preferences (Security tab) to switch on MFA. This then requires a code sent by email to the user’s email address to be entered before Rentman will allow sign-in.
  • New MetroBank added to supported formats for BACS file.
  • New Floor Area of property. Add as Sq. Ft or Sq. Meters on details tab of property screen. Uploaded to Rightmove and OTM.
  • New cc Guarantor when emailing tenancy documents to tenants.

January 2024 – 5.002.724

  • New Mail Lists screen has search box to filter grids.
  • New Mail Lists screen shows archived status for contacts, applicants and tenants.
  • New Mail Lists screen button to remove archived people from list.
  • New Mail Lists screen now has option to automatically remove people from list when they are archived.
  • New Changes for updated Welsh documents.
  • New Additional parking and accessibility information on property screen for advertising.
  • New Some Bullet Points combined so as to allow more information in advertising.

December 2023 – 5.002.654

  • New Option to include rent withheld in ‘client account by landlord balances’ report.
  • New CO & Smoke alarm tested added to Opening Balance screen.
  • New Landlord and tenant emails added when emailing rent history report.

November 2023 – 5.002.638

  • New Managed properties that are now For Sale will appear on safety certificates lists.
  • New Right click in ‘Properties that require accountable person’ list to set the fireblock and/or set the fire risk type.
  • New List Invoices for a landlord. Reports tab of landlord screen.

October 2023 – 5.002.601

September 2023 – 5.002.564

  • New Changes to Vorensys referencing.
  • New Certificates not required lists in main treeview.
  • New Tick “draft” checkbox when printing tenancy AST and Rentman will remove tenant, landlord and guarantor names from the document. So tenants et al can view the document before you send the actual one for signing.

August 2023 – 5.002.557

July 2023 – 5.002.543

  • New Change to the signing order when sending via Docusign or RSign. Legal advice tells us that it is best if guarantors sign BEFORE the tenants;
    Existing Agreements are safe (assuming the guarantor actually signed).
    If the tenant signs first and a guarantor refuses to sign… the landlord will not sign and we have no tenancy. But the tenant might still claim breach of contract (i.e. the tenancy was offered and signed by the tenant but the landlord refused at the last). A court would probably agree that the guarantor actually breached the contract so the landlord was within their rights but if the guarantor is to sign first and refuses, the contract is not offered to the tenant and the landlord is in a much stronger position.
    N.B. “contract” here is NOT used in the same sense as “tenancy agreement”.
  • New Outstanding Tenant Charges under Management in main desktop treeview.
  • New Option to include unpaid invoices on landlord’s statement.

June 2023 – 5.002.479

May 2023 – 5.002.441

  • New Show Rent History on tenancy screen will now re-create the rent schedule used to post-date rent withheld. This should help explain why rents got dated when they did.
  • New An additional email can be added on a building’s Admin tab for copies of statements and invoices to be sent to, for instance, an accountant.

April 2023 – 5.002.414

  • New Right click on tenancies approaching anniversary to remove them from list (i.e. if rent is not being increased this time)
  • New Right click on inspection in “inspections’ list to Create, Open or Cancel an appointment.

March 2023 – 5.002.362

  • New All Warranties list under Management in main desktop treeview.

February 2023 – 5.002.361

  • New Irish tenancies will not be marked as periodic till 3 months after the fixed term enddate and rent dues will continue to be generated.

January 2023 – 5.002.353

  • New Legal advice tells us that to take commission on a bill (i.e. “payshort”) without the landlord’s informed consent is a breach of an agent’s fiduciary duty (‘Rhodes v Macalister’). There is now a checkbox on the commission tab of the landlord’s screen to indicate informed consent has been received and payshort amounts for that landlord will not be deducted unless it has been ticked.“Re-invoicing” a bill is better in that the agent is then considered the primary contractor and bears liability for the work.Our strong recommendation remains to use neither payshort nor reinvoice but to add a bills surcharge to the management invoice (options tab of building management screen).

December 2022 – 5.002.346

  • New Smoke and CO alarms to be checked split into two separate lists.
  • New Welsh Occupation Contract and notices.

November 2022 – 5.002.328

  • New Landlord’s Current Tenants report. New button on ribbon on landlord’s screen.
  • New Tax Form 8-3 for Ireland

October 2022 – 5.002.322

  • New Building & Landlord transaction history grids will show icon where there is an attachment.
  • New Reconciliations history screen in Banking Tab.

September 2022 – 5.002.286

  • New Landlord and Tenant GDPR tabs have a new print button to print the grid showing service opt-ins and opt-outs.
  • New Contractor notes on Contractor tab of building management screen. Will appear on jobsheets and can be used to give contractors warnings and general instructions.

August 2022 – 5.002.281

  • New Diary has “Show Cancelled” checkbox to include cancelled appointments.
  • New Cancel an appointment instead of deleting it. Emails and SMS messages are sent to applicants and tenants based on the “AppointmentCancelled” document template.

July 2022 – 5.002.280

  • New New Tenancy wizards can optionally cancel any further “Viewing” appointments for the property with notification emails & SMS sent automatically
  • New The subject of an appointment will be changed to “Cancelled – “ and that will be synced with Outlook, Google, and/or rentman.online; they don’t have a cancelled appointment feature.

June 2022 – 5.002.251

  • New Applicant match will deselect applicants who have unsubscribed from automatic emails.
  • New Right-click on appointments in day, weekly and monthly diary views to mark applicants etc as confirmed.

May 2022 – 5.002.236

  • New “Current Rent Collection only” list in main desktop treeview. The Current Managed Tenancies now excludes rent collection only.
  • New Current Tenancy lists now show last rent increase date.
  • New Shared Ownership option for sales properties. – also uploaded to portals.
  • New Council Tax band added to data uploaded to property portals (but the tax band already appeared in bullet points being uploaded).

April 2022 – 5.002.206

  • New Gmail now uses oAuth rather than a password.
  • New New List for “Tasks Recently modified by Rentman.online”; if a contractor modified a task in the last 3 days it will appear in this list.
  • New Simpler way to override Paying bills defaulting to the building balance if not enough money to cover the full amount due; right click on the bill for options.
  • New Bank Ledger screen will prompt to save any changes made (e.g. adjustments, suspense account and deleting transactions) when you close the screen without saving.

March 2022 – 5.002.172

  • New Property Tax number for Irish properties on admin tab of property screen.
  • New Download applicants from OnTheMarket automatically. Tick the ‘download applicants’ checkbox on the OTM realtime portal screen.
  • New Utilities can now have a Solar option.
  • New Checkin and Checkout on deal screen can add Solar readings.

February 2022 – 5.002.158

  • New Properties can be assign with a Solar utility.
  • New Specific button to attach Anti Money Laundering Risk Assessment form to landlord screen (Admin tab).
  • New Easier selecting of properties when entering bills.
  • New Sales Offers in Scotland with a zero amount will be marked as ‘Note of Interest’.

January 2022 – 5.002.140

  • New The GDPR purge will flag people scheduled to be forgotten in 3 days time (default value can be changed). This should give agents time to check Rentman’s criteria for forgetting.
  • New Applicants, landlords and tenants about to be forgotten by GDPR will now appear in desktop lists (under Applicants, Landlords and Tenants respectively).
  • New The data protection officer will be sent an email showing count of those about to be forgotten.
  • New Search Grid option in user preferences. Tick this and subsequent to do lists will highlight cells (a particular column in a row) that match text typed into the seach text box (when 3 or more characters typed).

December 2021 – 5.002.118

  • New Integration with Vorensys referencing and credit checks. The basic info (name, email, rental amount) is sent to Vorensys and they send the applicant a link to a webpage for additional info to be entered by the applicant. Rentman will check on the status of the reference every 60 mins and success or rejection will appear in the appropriate to do lists and in “Breaking News”. The reference window in Rentman shows an interim progress report.
  • New Send references from Applicant’s screen for pre-approval (i.e. before adding them to a tenancy screen for a specific property).
  • New Reference screen gives option to send to all tenants on a deal or all applicants on the one applicant record (e.g. sharers). Select “All of …” or “Both of …” from the new dropdown list.
  • New Send references from the Pre-Tenancy tab of the tenancy screen; there’s a + button next to the references grid.

November 2021 – 5.002.113

  • New EICR added to move in checklist
  • New If either Vorensys or Legal4Landlords is enabled Tenancy Wizard gives the option to automatically send references for all tenants when you save the deal.
  • New Section23 Tax data will be merged into the HMCE template with data verification (if Excel is installed on the same PC as Rentman – otherwise data is saved to XLS but will have to be merged manually).
  • New Allow (with a warning prompt) to create an Additional Sales Marketing invoice when one has already been created.

October 2021 – 5.002.091

  • New BACS Payments report on main ribbon Banking tab
  • New Suspense Account. If there is a transaction in the bank but you don’t know what it is…. Enter it to Suspense Account (new button in ledger and reconciliation screens). When you discover what it really is go to new Suspense Account screen and double click the transaction – you are then able to select the transaction type and the property, building or tenancy to which it belongs.
  • New Bank Import gives option to post all unselected transactions to the Suspense Acount.

September 2021 – 5.002.076

  • New Rent Overpaid list under Management in main desktop treeview
  • New Contractors list will exclude archived contractors
  • New Archived Contractors list.

August 2021 – 5.002.070

  • New Debtors Row report (Management tab of main desktop ribbon) now shows all terminated tenancies with rent still outstanding (not just archived tenacies as before).
  • New Rent Due Dates report now excludes terminated tenancies with rent outstanding (because they are now on Debtors Row report).
  • New Bank Import recognizes HSBC.
  • New Rent Forecast report can take a long while so now launches as a separate process.

July 2021 – 5.002.063

  • New Relevant Persons included in search from main desktop
  • New Date range option for “Let Only Landlord’s “ report..
  • New October 2021 Sections 21 and 8 for England.

June 2021 – 5.001.049

  • New Landlord statement has option to attach invoice and bill attachments to email
  • New Current Tenants reports with DoB and RightToRent details.
  • New Building’s annual statement will attach invoice and bill attachments to email

May 2021 – 5.000.997

  • New Landlord and Property screens will now highlight bills paid but still to be reinvoiced (Properties and Bills tabs respectively).
  • New Preview checkbox on Bulk Mail screen
  • New Legislation change in Eire requires 6 and 12 year reminders.

April 2021 – 5.000.954

  • New Attach landlord’s proof of ID with new button on admin tab of landlord’s screen. Drag and drop a file to the button if preferred.
  • New Attach land registry documentation with new button on property screen, admin tab. Drag and drop a file to the button if preferred.
  • New Right click land registry and terms and conditions buttons on property screen, admin tab to add newer documentation.

March 2021 – 5.000.947

  • New Click on column header for ‘Managed’ column in any grid to filter between Managed and Non-Managed Only.
  • New Rent reminders can be sent by SMS if you have SMS configured in Rentman. Select hown many days in advance you wish them to be sent (on the Rent tab of each tenancy screen) and Rentman will send a text message to the tenants with rent coming due at about 10:00 am. You can change the text by changing the document template ‘RentReminderSMS’.

February 2021 – 5.000.945

  • New Rightclick on a transaction in bank ledger to make it “bounced” – that is an identical but reversed transaction will be posted. Use when a transaction has been reconciled but your bank issues a reversal (a credit for a debit or vice versa).
  • New User inactivity timeout on  User Preferences screen. Will cause Rentman to log you out (thus freeing up licences) after n minutes of inactivity. Zero will cause you to be logged out after 8 hours of inactivity. Background tasks such as diary syncing will continue while you are logged out.
  • New Mutliple inventory attachments on tenancy screen (Checkin/CheckOut tab). The inventory is actually saved as a journal but the individual attachments are shown here for convenience; you can also drag and drop additional attachments here to be added to the one journal.

January 2021 – 5.000.931

  • New Reinvoiced Bills report under Accounts/Prints&Reports menu.
  • New Add [[companyname]] to document to have docusign/rpost include your company as a signatory to a document. Sends to the “Docusign/Rpost Signatory” option email address.
  • New FourMonthly rent period.
  • New Section21 date always a minimum of 6 months from issue date.
  • New Tax retention for Guaranteed Income buildings.

December 2020 – 5.000.910

  • New Covid related message added to jobsheet email. Text of message taken from new document “ContractorCovidMessage”.
  • New Colour coded rows in all task lists based on duedate.
  • New Set status of Sales properties to ‘Unavailable’… meaning temporarily withdrawn from market. Such properties will appear in the ‘properties to be canvassed’ list according to the available date you set.
  • New Negotiators commission now shows lettings, renewals AND management commission. The management commission is assigned to a negotiator according to the most recent tenancy at the date of the invoice if a lettings commission was not charged up front – so if a property does not charge an upfront lettings commission the negotiator sees a percentage of the monthly management commission. A custom report can remove the management commission from totals if required.
  • New Automatic conversion of .heic image files (from iPhones) to JPG when you add to properties, tasks, journal and inspections.
  • New Change to calculation of part-month rent dues in accordance with UK government De-regulation Act 2015. Past rents will not be recalculated to avoid having odd balances in the history.
  • New Archived contractors removed from Contractor Public Liability list.

November 2020 – 5.000.890

  • New Right click on a certificate list to send an email requesting tenants make an appointment with you. Requires a new document template.
  • New Send button on certificate list has option to ‘send tenant appointment emails only’
  • New More options to customize the applicant match email. See company preferences, defaults, applicants.
  • New Commercial EPCs. If the property type of a property is set to commercial the certificate screen will allow EER values up to 200 and generate a commercial EPC chart.
  • New The expiry letters todo list will deselect the “send” checkbox if the Section21 notice has already been sent. Legal advice says that to send a letter asking if the tenants wish to extend after the Section21 has already been sent would negate the Section 21; if you send the default expiry letter the soonest you could enforce possession of the property is with a new (6 month) Section21. A reminder : the tenants need not move out on the end date of the fixed term unless a Section 21 has been issued and currently the Section 21 must be issued 6 months in advance. You may choose (for practical reasons) not to send expiry letters and Section 21s 6 months before the agreement end date… but the landlord should be aware possession cannot be enforced.
  • New Payment Plan checkbox on Notes tab of deal screen. Tick this to indicate tenants are on a payment plan and they will appear on their own To Do list and be removed from the normal Rent Overdue list.
  • New In accordance with recent changes to Section21 the “Section 21 notices due” now shows tenancies expected to end within 6 months +plus the company preference setting. “Tenancies Expiring”continues expiring to show tenancies expiring within the company preference period.

October 2020 – 5.000.841

  • New New EPC regulations in UK. The EPC graph has changed format and the EIR values are no longer required. You will also not receive a PDF certificate from the assessor but rather a link to the certificate on the government website. Rentman will create and upload the new graph to portals (rightmove etc) and display it on brochures etc. It also attaches a dummy html document to send to applicants and tenants that, when opened, will redirect to the online government certificate.
  • New EICR warning on property’s summary tab.
  • New Rent Received by property report under Account/Prints & Reports menu. Will show all rent received grouped by property.
  • New In accordance with recent changes to Section21 the “Section 21 notices due” and “Expiry Letters Due” both now show tenancies expected to end within 6 months +plus the company preference setting. “Tenancies Expiring”continues expiring to show tenancies expiring within the company preference period.
  • New Payment Plan checkbox on Notes tab of deal screen. Tick this to indicate tenants are on a payment plan and they will appear on their own To Do list and be removed from the normal Rent Overdue list.

September 2020 – 5.000.787

  • New Accounts Summary: Print Landlord’s balances grouped by property/building.
  • New Improved document only view in journal tab. Will show journal attachments of types .PDF, .DOC ,.DOCX and .RTF. Right click to change the caption or change its ‘type’ (see below).
  • New Documents tab on deal screen. Will show here only legal documents (e.g. agreements and notices) from the journal. Right click to change the caption.
    You can also drag and drop external documents here (e.g. when receiving proof of right to rent) for easy access.
    Having dropped a document here you can right click to change its type (i.e. let rentman know it is an agreement, a section 21 notice or proof of right to rent). You can’t change the type of a document that is already marked as an agreement or notice.
  • New “Report” button on GDPR tab of applicant’s, landlords, tenants etc. If you receive a ‘data subject request’ click this button and rentman will create a report with the data straight from the underlying database table. It will also include every journal for that person/tenancy. Read that again… every journal; the rentman.online ‘tenantvisible’ and ‘landlordvisible’ checkboxes have no effect here!
  • New Message tab on building screen. This is the same message as can appear at the foot of the management statement and is shown on the statement preview. It’s here to add notes to the landlord more easily before you’re ready to do the statement run.

August 2020 – 5.000.784

  • New Annual Statement option under Actions on Building screen. Similar to history but will remove adjustments or, for Guaranteed Income, all but payments to landlord, bills and invoices.
  • New Docusign features. Execution Date, Landlord&Tenant workflow and Who Signs option when signing on behalf of landlord. See Help Guide.
  • New Contacts can be given a status (in same way as applicants). Add status options using system/setup/types/contact statuses in the main menu.
  • New Contacts and Landlords can have date of birth, first contact date and one other date….. there are then “landlords approaching anniversary”and “contacts approaching anniversary” in the main treeview when those dates approach an anniversary (e.g. a birthday).
  • New The CRM related lists for contacts and landlords (“… approaching anniversary”,”…by mailing list”, “contacts by status”) will have a ‘send’ checkbox . The ‘send’ button then prompts you to email the selections using a document template.

July 2020 – 5.000.751

  • New Assign Inspections to a contractor (of type ‘Property Inspections’).
  • New Tenancies with “Deposits more than 5 weeks rent” in main treeview under Tenancies, Deposits.
  • New All Tenancies report now has option to filter for renewals only.
  • New Appointment screen will show warning if a property has no valid EPC.

June 2020 – 5.000.729

  • New Invoice Wizard when creating a new invoice from menu.
  • New For multiple landlords… “one landlord can sign for all” is now on admin tab of landlord screen. Being unset means all landlords of a property must sign documents and that is the safer default. Tick if one signature is enough but it is recommended you get a signed agreement from all landlords.
  • New Option to show (and then print) only bill payments from the contractor screen (bills/invoices tab).

May 2020 – 5.000.721

  • New Electrical Safety Certificates are required for all periodic tenancies by their first rent due date after 1 Juy 2020. Rentman will simply show 1 July 2020 for these tenancies as calculating each rent due date would make the list very slow.
  • New Bulk Mail (or Export) to All Contractors will now exclude archived contractors. A new option has been added to mail only archived contractors.
  • New Additional management statement template for sending statement and invoice as two separate documents.

April 2020 – 5.000.709

  • New A hyperlink to the Virtual Tour is now included in the property match email sent to applicants (you add the virtual tour’s url on the advertising tab of the property screen).
  • New Mark inspections as “Skipped due to Covid-19”. Right click on Inspections Due list or Inspections tab on deal screen.
  • New Archiving a tenancy will set the ‘until’ date of any recurring invoices for that deal to the actual enddate of the tenancy.
  • New Option to sort contractor’s ledger by invoice number.

March 2020 – 5.000.699

  • New Safety certificates for a building can now be set to apply to all properties within the building (as opposed to just common areas as originally intended).
  • New Management statements now have option to show adjustments; because of Covid-19 adjustments.
  • New Mark a tenancy as having “Covid-19 related rent difficulties”. Right click on rent overdue list or go to notes tab of tenancy screen. This will move the deal from the rent overdue list to a new “Rent Overdue – Covid-19 related difficulties” todo list.
  • New Mark tenants as ‘self-isolated’ on notes tab of tenancy screen. This will then flag on building summary and any tasks/jobsheets for the property or building.

February 2020 – 5.000.679

  • New Rent payable per semester. For students paying rent in lump sums to concide wth grants and semesters set the tenancy to pay rent per semester and the use the “Increase Rents” button to enter the actual dates and amounts when rent will be paid. As well as becoming the deal’s ‘Rent Due’ transctions the dates will appear in the standard AST agreement.
  • New Invoices to be Generated in ToDo list will now show periodic tenancies where letting commission is due (one month at a time but that can be changed with an option)..
  • New Rent Expected report under Management/Prints&Reports in main menu. Shows rent expected in the next n days.

January 2020 – 5.000.601

  • New Archive Contractors. Archived contractor will not be uploaded to FixFlo.
  • New New format for export to Sage
  • New Email all certificates on a building’s properties to landlord from the actions menu of building screen.
  • New Email all certificates for a property to the tenants on a deal from the actions menu of deal screen.

December 2019 – 5.000.578

  • New Other Certificate Types. Under System, Setup, Types in main menu you can add custom certificate types. These are in addition to the existing EPC, Gas Safety etc. They don’t have any known business rules as to when they become due so there are only 2 lists in the treeview… Other Certificates (a full list) and Other Certificates Expiring.
  • New Other Certificate types can be added to a building rather than a property and a new “Certificates” tab on building screen shows these as well as all certificates for properties in this building.
  • New Invoices to be Generated now excludes void invoices in lettings commission calculations… in order that a commission can be automatically regenerated. If this means the Invoices to be Generated list now shows old lettings commissions due… right click to mark as not required.
  • New Archive old applicants under Applicants in main menu. Will archive applicants with a move in date (or, if empty, contact date) before the cut-off date unless there has been activity( i.e. a journal entry) within the last month.

November 2019 – 5.000.564

  • New Buildings with multiple properties can take a long time for the summary on the building screen to build. This a particulary noticeable when flicking between tabs. When a building has more than 3 properties this version will not refresh until 5 minutes elapses. To force a refresh, right click on the summary and select “refresh summary”.
  • New Management Statements Due list now shows bills outstanding.
  • New Bulk Mail and Export screens now give option to select applicants by status. 
  • New Recurring Invoices can now be set to ‘generate only’. They won’t be printed or emailed; this is useful when sending with a management statement.
  • New On startup Rentman will prompt to generate all recurring invoices due.
  • New On opening the building management screen Rentman will generate any recurring invoices due for this building.
  • New When sending management statements from the management statements due list Rentman will generate any recurring invoices due for the building and mark them as paid.

October 2019 – 5.000.548

  • New EPCs due shown for sales properties.
  • New Let Only Balances under landlords in main treeview.

September 2019 – 5.000.532

  • New Ability to delete a reference. Right click on grid on deal screen.

August 2019 – 5.000.490

  • New Property Status “Prospect”. For when you need to enter a property into Rentman but it is not yet ready to begin a ‘Valuation” workflow. Will not appear in the extant properties list or be uploaded to internet portals.
  • New If tasks or appointments are scheduled for a Sunday or Bank Holiday (UK only) the date will show a red border.
  • New VAT option for price on commercial properties.

July 2019 – 5.000.461

  • New Agreement to Lease document. To be signed by tenant and landlord when you take a holding deposit with the conditions why the holding deposit is returned, forfeited or used as part of the tenancy deposit. Appears as new checkbox on deal send documents screen. The standard document contains RPOST mailmerge fields for digital signing according the email recipient (see AST below).
  • New Rentman will prompt to reduce size of photos added to inspections as they may be too large to subsequently email to a landlord with the report.
  • New Add timestamped notes to journals.

June 2019 – 5.000.429

  • New Automatic signature codes inserted into AST document when sent for signing via RPOST.
  • New When emailing documents from ‘send documents’ on deal screen (using the email button only)… the landlord and tenant will have separate emails – each with the appropriate attachments (rather than having the agreement attached to one email sent to both). This is to help manage when you send the agreement to the landlord to be digitally signed : legal advice tells us that the landlord should not sign the agreement until all money has been received from the tenant – possibly the day the tenancy begins. For the landlord to sign beforehand raises the possibility of giving the tenants rights before they have paid the rent in advance and deposit.

May 2019 – 5.000.390

  • New Tenant Fees become disabled in Rentman for England, Scotland and Eire on 1st June 2016 and in Wales on 1st August 2019 to meet new legislation.
  • New New Agreement named “AST” to be used with all deposit schemes. Has all references to tenant fees removed and updates to Training for Professionals’ version 3.11 documents. Each scheme has a separate ‘snippet’ document with their specific Prescribed Information to be included in the agreement.
  • New Section 21 Form6a for England. To be used after 31st May 2019.
  • New If a deal is cancelled (checkbox on tenancy details tab of deal screen) Rentman will prompt to retain any holding deposit still being held – the amount will be set to be transferred to the office account in the same way as non-vatable tenant fees have always been handled. If a holding deposit is to be returned to an applicant simply enter a negative amount in the ‘receive money’ screen on the deal screen as before.
  • New New legislation also prevents credit card surcharges. The correct way to receive payments via Credit Card, Paypal or Stripe is to enter the full amount as having been received specifying one of the new payment types (VISA, Mastercard, PayPal and Stripe). Each of these payment types post the full amount to a new ‘bank account’ of the same name. This account can then be reconciled like any other and any commission deducted entered as an adjustment in the same way you already enter bank charges.
  • New TenantFees document updated to reflect new legislation. This document Is uploaded the rightmove, zoopla and OTM and appears on advertising materials.
  • New Increase Rent button on Deal Screen Tenancy Details tab. Changes the rent without renewing a deal. Use this button to enter new rate and its effective date. A confirmation email is sent to the tenants (no formal notice is required as the standard agreements include wording that notifies tenants in advance). If you don’t use our standard agreements issue a Section 13 notice manually.
  • New Relevant Persons. For a person who pays the deposit on behalf of a tenant (and is not a guarantor). Works in similar fashion to guarantors. Will appear on new versions of the agreements.
  • New Changing deposit after a renewal. The tenancy details tab has a ‘Deposit’ text box where you can set the actual deposit for this term. Useful when deposit is increased or reduced.*If you enter a reduced amount Rentman will prompt to return the difference to the tenant.*If you enter an increased amount Rentman will add the difference to the Pre-Tenancy tab… the money should then be received in the normal way and will be posted to the deposit.

March 2019 – 5.000.355

  • New Exchangedate included in ‘sales in progress’ list
  • New Transfer custodial deposit to Landlord’s ID. If a deposit is held in a custodial scheme you can transfer it to the landlord’s account within the scheme either by changing the ‘Deposit Held By’ to ‘Landlord’ on the deposit’s tab of the deal screen or by clicking a new Transfer to Landlord button on the Postings tab.
  • New Transfer a deposit to a new tenancy. Whether held in a custodial scheme or in your own bank accounts a deposit can now be transferred to a new tenancy without money being physically returned to the tenant and recieved onto the new tenancy. Click ‘Transfer to new tenancy’ button on the postings tab of the deal screen. Obviously this just changes rentman’s records ; you still need to transfer the deposit on the scheme’s website to re-register on the new tenancy (for which there may be a charge).
  • New “Outstanding Invoices as at” screen under Accounts/Prints & Reports.
  • New Bills Paid from Office Account screen.

February – 5.000.301

  • New Bank Transfers from Client Account to Office Account now shows individual bills paid from office account rather then a batch bill total.
  • New Rentman will issue the Form 6a variant of Section 21 notices even for tenancies created before 01 Oct 2015. This in accordance with recent legal advice. The 4a variant is still valid for such tenancies but in the interests of simplicity the 6a is preferred.
  • New Add existing PDF files to document packages..
  • New HMO & PRPL (Private Rented Property Licensing) Licensing.
  • New All certificates can now have tasks and jobsheets attached to them. Open a certificate and see the list of associated tasks. To create a new task click the + button.
  • New Warning on deal summary tab if an EPC or Gas Safety is due to expire during this tenancy

January – 5.000.258

  • New Right click on the property on a task screen to go to the property, building or tenancy.
  • New Right click on journal and task attachments to send to current tenants of property.
  • New Tenants’ statement item in ToDo list. Print or email from here. Defaults to send statements one day after rent was received– so can serve as a post hoc receipt. The one day delay allows for multiple tenants to submit their rent without triggering a statement for each.
  • New Automatically email Tenants’ statements. Set option in company preferences (extended tab). Defaults to send statements to those tenants for whom you have received rent since their last statement – so can serve as a post hoc receipt. Also sends if rent is outstanding 7 days after it was due. The emails will be sent when Rentman does its nightly housekeeping and will use the same email account as is set for ‘property match’ emails. Some local authorities are suggesting this as part of a best practice accreditation.
  • New Add and remove favourites on print document screen
  • New Tenancy notes tab has special textarea for tenant’s requests to the landlord prior to moving in.
  • New New Certificate button on main toolbar. Select the property when you get there.
  • New Section21 Notices Due in todo list. Can be sent by email from Send button. If a document called “Section21note” exists (i.e. you created one such) it will be used as the body of the email.
  • New Breaking News. Shows recent Rentman activity such as properties becoming available, prices changing, properties becoming unavailable, tenancies going periodic etc. It will refresh itself every 60 seconds.
  • New Emailing Documents from the deal screen will now create separate emails for the agreement, notices, deal sheet items and utility letters. So the agreement will appear on one email to both landlord(s) and tenant(s). The notices will be on a different email to the the tenant(s) with the landlord(s) cc’d. Deal sheet items will be on a tenants only email and utility letters addressed to the utility company only. The agreement email in particular requires this when used with RPOST.