Rentec Direct - Property Management Software

Anybody who reads my blogs knows I've been very happy with Google Voice ever since it's launch a few years back.  Just see any of these articles:

How Google Voice Can Help Landlords

Followup and Detailed Review of Google Voice

Google Voice Opens the Flood Gates Today

Google has done a TREMENDOUS job with Google Voice and I continue to use it daily for my personal voicemail and call forwarding.  I've found however that more and more recently when calls route through google voice they don't ring my phones or the call gets cut-off prematurely.  This is not a huge deal with my personal calls, it's infrequent enough to be tolerable and the benefits of GV on my personal calls outweigh this drawback; however, since the issue has persisted intermittently for months and Google has no customer service or technical support to contact regarding the issue I've thrown in the towel for business calls.

My goals were to keep the same distributed infrastructure our employees are used to.  Everyone may have one or two phones, a Skype voice account, plus a cell phone, that they want to be contacted at.  Google Voice would forward through these with ease.  I wanted to maintain this functionality, as well as having a permanent record of all voicemails.  After much research, trials, and quality testing - the answer is Grasshopper!

Grasshopper supports all of the features I used with Google Voice.

• Custom call routing to an unlimited number of phones, check.
• Online permanent record of all voicemails, check.
• Visual voicemail - although I haven't yet tried this.  They provide the option of human transcription at a cost too which would probably be more reliable than GV's transcription.

And Grasshopper's virtual phone system adds these great features which I'm already using.

• Multiple inbound phone numbers (GV only supported one)
• Virtual PBX - Yes, this is GREAT.  I can have a real call queue: "Press 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc".  Based on the callers entry the call can be routed to different phones.  Each queue has it's own set of forwarding numbers.  In addition, each employee gets an extension for direct calls.  Couldn't do any of thise with GV.
• Built in eFax support.  I used to pay another efax company to process electronic faxes for us, but this is now included with Grasshopper.
• You can upload recordings, including professionally recorded MP3 files.  GV required you record your own over the phone lines which always ended up being a low quality recording.
• Real customer service.  I've called three times, and every time the phone was picked up in less than 30 seconds with a very helpful and well trained rep on the line.

Thus far I'm very pleased with our choice to switch over from GV to GH.  Grasshopper however does have a cost, where GV is free.  However, since we provide an 800# for all of our customers to call it turns out we're actually saving money and improving our phone system and image simultaneously.  How?  I used to pay an 800 service to forward inbound 800 calls to our GV number.  The cost was 6.9c/minute (I know, we were getting robbed).  With GV they handle the 800 # and the rate we pay is closer to 2.5c/minute.  So yes, we've improved our phone system and dropped our 800# phone bill nearly in half.  Can't squawk at that!

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords.

I wrote about Google Voice a while back and provided a detailed review of google voice right after it was released to the public.  Time really does fly, as I'm shocked to see that was 3 years ago back in 2009.  Since that time, Google Voice has become a valuable part of mine and many of our client's process.

Here's a complication of great reasons landlords and property managers are using google voice:

1. It's free!  This goes without saying, you can't get much good stuff for free these days; however, google voice continues to be an exception.  You get a free phone number, free online storage, free voicemail, free texts (sms), and free transcription.
2. Documentation.  More than ever, tenants are communicating with landlords via text message.  Most phones do not permanently store text messages, and even those that do stand to risk being lost and that documentation goes away forever.  If you use google voice for your tenant communications, those text messages are stored forever.  Read more on how documentation is a property managers best friend.
3. Privacy.  Many landlords do not want their tenants having their home phone or cell phone numbers.  With google voice, you can provide this number and re-direct it to any phone of your choosing, to ring at your choosing.  Don't want to receive calls from 9pm - 6am, no problem.
4. Multiple destinations.  With google voice you can configure roll-over so if you (or your employee) is not available at one number it tries another, which could even be another person.  This is a fully automatic, and free, way to gain the capabilities of an expensive phone system.
5. Did I mention documentation?  Having a permanent record of voicemails and text messages is critical in todays litigious environment.  Save everything, and google voice makes it really easy for voicemail and text messages.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, tenant ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

It might seem really basic to order criminal reports on prospective tenants, but there certainly is more to it than meets the eye.  One of the most common problems landlords run into when running background criminal is how criminal reports are indexed.  Unlike credit where every person has a unique identifier, their SSN, criminal reports are typically indexed only by name and birth date.

Our goal is to get the most accurate data to make a decision on the potential tenant.  The first step in ensuring this with any tenant screening organization is to provide a correctly spelled name, and exact birth date.  The best way I’ve found to get this is require a copy of the applicant’s state issued ID along with their application.  This way you can verify the spelling of the name and birth date which can sometimes be misspelled (either unintentionally or intentionally) on the rental application.

Once you submit for the background report on your subject there is a good chance, especially with common names, that you may get numerous entries back which may be un-related to your applicant.  This is especially true if your applicant has a common name.  Your report should be showing you the match criteria for each record.  For instance, it might say “name match only”, or “name and dob”, or “partial name match”.  Name and DOB matches are the most accurate because it means both the name and date of birth of the applicant match the record.  This type of entry is most likely a solid match.  If it states either name only or partial name it is possible this match corresponds to a different person.  I’m asked a lot how to determine if the records belong to their applicant.  There are a few ways:

We offer what’s called a SSN Verification report (example below).  It’s really inexpensive and provides a complete address history for the applicant based upon any credit application, loans, and utility billing.  It is one of the most accurate ways to determine the actual physical history of an applicant.  Other tenant screening organizations might have a similarly named report with the same data.  You can use this report to cross reference the locations of any records on the criminal report.  If the criminal report shows a hit by name only in Chicago, IL and the SSN Verification report shows that your applicant lived in Chicago, IL during the same dates, it is highly likely that the criminal report is for your applicant.

If your screening vendor doesn’t have such a report you can always ask your applicant.  Keeping it vague generally produces the best results.  A question like “So where did you live in the 90’s?” will prompt a more accurate response (especially if somebody is trying to hide their past) than “Did you commit any felonies in Chicago, IL in 1995?”

Finally, you can also order a county level criminal report either direct from the county courthouse of the offense, or from your screening vendor.  Ordering the report directly from the county will produce the most up to date results with the most information available for you to make a decision on the particular offense and if it matches your applicant.

We help landlords and property managers read thousands of credit and criminal reports.  If you have a questions about how to read them, we can help right here.  Don’t publish any personal or private information publicly though when requesting help on either credit or criminal reports, nor should any information which could identify an individual ever be posted publicly when requesting help.

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Nathan is a member of Rentec Direct who provides property management software, ach payment processing, and tenant screening for property managers and landlords nationwide.

I subscribe to Google Alerts to alert me when something within my field pops up on the internet.  One such alert I received this morning was labeled "10 Myths about Web Based Property Management Software".   Obviously as I work with a web based property management software company this peaked my interest and I read the article.  It got me thinking, there is a lot of dis-information on the web.  This article I came across in particular wasn't entire inaccurate and it was just designed to plug their non-web based software; however, property management software aside, I would like to debunk some myths about Web Based Software in general.

First, my qualifications to write such an article.  I've been directly involved leading software development for both desktop applications as well as web applications since 1995.  Prior to that I regularly used the internet before most people had even heard of the internet, and before there was any such thing as web browser or HTML.  Anyone remember gopher or nntp?  I've got in-depth knowledge of both software development and the internet as a whole as I have been working with both every single day for nearly 17 years.

Myth #1 - Having data online (in the cloud) may be less secure and more prone to loss or being compromised than having it on a local application running on a workstation.

Myth #1 Debunked -  There's two components to this, and both are very inaccurate.   First, the security of the data not being lost.  It's a known fact that most people do not regularly backup their machines.  Even those that do rarely check to ensure the backups have worked.  Did you know that most backup programs do not backup open files (ie. an application left open does not get its data backed up).  It's also a known fact that the typical workstation (in an office or at home) fails on average every 4 years.  More people lose valuable data due to computer hardware failure than anything else and this is especially common among software that stores the data on the local computer. 

The second level of security is from hackers attempting to steal or destroy data.  It is more and more common for workstations to be compromised with viruses or malware.  Once a system is infected with a virus or malware, the hacker who wrote this software has full access to the data on the computer even if the data on the computer is password protected.  Password protection offers little to no security for locally stored data because once infected the virus or malware can simply read your password the next time it's typed in and they instantly gain access.

In contrast, reliable online software use state of the art servers and clusters to store the data.  Servers run a completely different operating system and as such most are completely impervious to standard viruses which are what cause workstation machines the most trouble.  Statistically a server is thousands of times less likely to contract a virus even if mis-managed, and well managed servers do not ever have a risk of getting a virus.  Servers also employ much more powerful and redundant equipment than workstations and the same 4 year failure rate does not apply.  Most servers run raid arrays for their data which means even in the event of a hardware failure there are backups which instantly take-over.  Other methods of security are redundant power supplies, frequent on-site and off-site backups, and 24x7 monitoring to ensure the utmost reliability.

As Myth Busters would say, this myth is BUSTED.

Myth #2 - Online based software run slower than a locally installed application.

Myth #2 Debunked - This myth states that because the software is web based the data has to travel thousands of miles back and forth before it can be displayed.  This one is not only mis-informed, but pretty silly to bring up in the first place.  Data on the internet travels at the speed of light, this is a known fact.  Most cloud based applications are located with 1000 cable miles of the subscriber.  So even accounting for network overhead and possible congestion, most web applications transfer the data between the server and the client (customer's monitor) in less than 50 milliseconds (yes, that's 5/100ths of a second).

The only way this myth could be true is if the user were stationed perhaps on..  Saturn.   Myth BUSTED.

Myth #3 - Web based software costs more.

Myth #3 Debunked - This certainly is going to vary from company to company; however, in general this myth could more often be proven false than true.  To provide specifics I'll talk about my industry.  I'll use a landlord who manages 125 properties as a mid-range example.  To utilize our property management software as a landlord with 125  properties the landlord would pay $44/month.  The software manufactures who make PC installed applications claim their software is a one-time cost and therefore the $44/mo will eventually exceed that one time cost.   To illustrate this better, I picked a competitor who provides PC based software that does the same thing as ours, and to keep it interesting I just used the same company who published the article that prompted me to write this piece.  To service the same 125 properties with their most comparable feature set, their application costs apx $750.  So if we ignore all other factors and only use their claim about a one-time purchase cost being the only cost, they would be right because in a little over 17 months the web based application would indeed start costing more.

However, they omit some very important facts.  PC based software doesn't get unlimited free and regular updates like web based software does.  This means, next year or the following year when the PC installed application releases a major update that is required for the industry; you guessed it, there's another $750 or an upgrade fee as some may offer.  Regular backups of the data have to also be considered which means a local backup solution or an online backup solution.  Either way, figure about $120/yr in either hardware or subscription.  Now the big missing piece.  Any serious business needs serious management of the computer(s) and data to ensure security and reliability are maintained.  This is either done by an in house network administrator ($45,000/yr +), or an outsourced service who maintains the PC(s) and data which can run as little as $100/mo.  Yes, this last step could be skipped at the risk of losing your data or having it stolen, either of which could instantly ruin a business, so I certainly recommend against that.

Now that we have all the facts, we'll take the most conservative prices in the price range for the PC based application and compare the real facts:

Web Based Total Cost of Ownership for Three Years:  $1,584
PC Based Total Cost of Ownership for Three Years: $5,460
This one is BUSTED!

Now just like picking a mechanic, or a software vendor, it's important to pick a trusted company.  I speak from experience from companies I've been involved in, and the above busted myths are all true when dealing with a solid, reputable, and experienced company.  This doesn't mean all companies have those traits, and just like a PC based application maker can make a really poor application, so can web based.  Be sure to look for independent reviews, 3rd party endorsement, certification, or accreditation before picking a company which will shape the face of your business or lifestyle.

Those are the top three myths which I see the most confusion about in the industry.  As is apparent the PC based application vendors are just doing their job, trying to sell their product, and like so many sales organizations they minimize or stretch the facts to sell their product.  Unfortunately this isn't uncommon in sales organizations; however, now you know the facts!

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The author is a founder and user of Rentec Direct.  Rentec Direct provides property management software that includes ach for landlords and tenant screening.

Craigslist is an EXCELLENT tool for listing rentals, in fact, it's so excellent I've heard more propery managers say they get more leads from craigslist than from any other source.  Managing my own rentals, I can say the very same thing.  Craigslist is an excellent medium to get the word out about your vacancy.

The solution I want to address today is not to redress how great craigslist is for listings, but I want to show you how to make your listing STAND OUT from the rest.

• Pictures.  The default craigslist layout is text only, formatted in old style times new roman font.  As a buyer, seeing any ad in the default text layout that craigslist provides turns me off instantly.  Craigslist provides the option of adding pictures; however, they show at the very bottom of the ad, which can often be off the page for people using smaller monitors, laptops, or mobile devices.  They trick is to format your listing in HTML, and include a good image at the top of the page and more within the content to generate interest with the renter immediately.
  
• Format.  Again, I'm going to pick on craigslist stock formatting.  It's just text, and no better than a classified ad in the newspaper.  Most listers are unaware they can make their ad better, and therefore that is why most listings on craigslist look so bla.  Craigslist supports HTML within their listings, click here for more info.  The challenge is that most HTML editors these days use CSS and other methods that are not supported by craigslist.  There are services out there such as postlets or vflyer, or your property management software should have support to create a good craigslist ad using your previously entered property information.
• Details.  Picture yourself as a renter when placing your ad.  Are you going to be more likely to inquire about a property which has a good paragraph or two of details about the property and location, along with good pictures, OR the listing which says little more than the address and price?  Of course the ads with more details get the attention.  You have virtually unlimited space to include all the pertinent info.  Be sure to include the following:
  
  • Pictures of the following:  Front of house, living room, kitchen, master bedroom.  If they are in good condition, also include the back yard, extra bedrooms, garage.
  • A description should include details about the home, neighborhood, schools, and local activities.  If you accept pets, what kind.
  • Include all the features and appliances included in the property.
  • The lease terms should clearly explain what is required.  For instance, 12 month minimum.
  • Be sure to include contact information for somebody who will answer the phone.  More often than not a renter is going through a list of possible homes, and if the contact person doesn't pick up, they move on to the next listing and often never come back.
• Next Steps.  Some users prefer to call or visit; however, times are turning towards online interactivity.  It's a great idea to give the prospective tenant a method to apply online, or at a minimum take the next steps in setting an appointment with a click rather than a phone call.

While the points in this article are designed for property managers, the same concepts all hold true for property for sale listings as well, so these tips are equally valuable for agents who are not also property managers.

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The author is a founding member of Rentec Direct, a property managers, and a business owner.  Rentec Direct provides property management software which includes ach for landlords, tenant screening, and a marketing module to assist with creating fabulous craigslist ads (totally free).

I was reading a property management advertisement the other day from a property management company trying to earn my business and on their information sheet they say "less than 1% of our leases end up in court".  1%?!!?!?  So as many as 1 in 100 leases end up in court.  They were bragging about this, so perhaps other property managers are 2 in 100 or more?  That tells me that of all the industries I participate in, the property management (landlord) industry by far and away spends more hours in a courtroom than any other that I'm aware of.

Nobody wants to end up in court, it's a drain on valuable resources; time, money, energy.  Then there's always the worst that can happen and the tenant has a better case and walks away with the prize.  Granted, some property managers run bad business and it is good that tenants have a recourse through the court system; however, in many cases property managers are doing their best and are just winding up defending a frivilous claim because the tenant felt they should really live in your house free for a year, plus emotional damage of course for the eviction letter trauma you caused.

This leads me to my next point.  Documentation is EVERYTHING.  Whether your initiating a proceeding and your sitting on the right side of the courtroom or a past or current tenant did and your on the left the best protection you can enter with is full and complete documentation of the event.  Some may argue having an attorney at your side is the best protection; however, while attorneys do know the system well, I would certainly say having documentation is your first defense, and an attorney (if one can be afforded) will present that documentation.  However, without the documentation the attorney won't have much ammo to defend the case.

You never know what might end up in court, so it's best to document everything.  Here's some tips I've learned through the years.

• Ask for it in writing.  Unless you can legally and are recording every call and voicemail, a phone call is as good as nothing.  Get it in writing whether it's a complaint from a tenant, an invoice, an issue with a neighbor, whatever it is, get it in writing, scan it, and save it electronically where it can be easily accessible if needed.
• Save all your receipts.  Great tip not only for documenting repairs, etc, but this also provides solid proof of expenses in the event of a tax audit.  I scan my receipts and upload them with the expense transactions to my property management software.
• Take pictures.  A picture is better than almost anything.  If one person says it was this way, and another person says it was a different way, it's simply word vs word and a court cannot make a decision.  However, if one or another brings a picture to backup what they are stating their position all of a sudden is much stronger and can also dis-credit the others thereby not only proving this point but strengthening the whole case.
• Take video.  If you have a lot of area to cover, it may take a hundred pictures to cover everything.  On the other hand, video handles this situation nicely.  If you want to record the condition of a property for instance, walking through with a video is a great way to document the condition of a large area.  Ideally use the highest quality video setting on your device so if need-be the video can be paused and details of that area can be seen.  Also pan slowly as to be sure not to blur your video.  Taking a video to document the condition of a property before a tenant moves in is a very good idea. 
• Save your documentation, pictures, and videos electronically in a safe place.  Paper can be messy, especially if you have file cabinets (or chronologically filed piles as the case may be) which means it can take a very long time to find what your looking for.  Scan and save your documentation electronically where it can easily be accessible if the need arises.

There's a bit of a misconception about how hard it is to electronically store documents.  Nowdays it's very easy.  Drop by your local office supply, Costco, Staples, or almost any electronics store and pickup a multi-function printer that includes a sheet feed scanner.  They can be purchased for as little as $150.  There's also scanners designed strictly for the purpose of scanning documentation which work very well, do two sided scanning, rarely jam, and cost a bit more.  Any of these options work.  Also, most scanners include software to automatically save to PDF, which is a universal format that can be opened on any computer.

Now saving it somewhere safe.  If you maintain your own IT infostructure, be absolutely sure you are backing everything up.  Hard drives die *all the time* and people can lose all their valuable data when this happens.  Backup your data ideally offsite to a secure storage medium or online backup service.  Another very convenient method is if you use a property management software that allows attachments and a file library, simply upload your documentation here for safe keeping and easy access, which is what I have found the most convenient.

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The author is a founding member of Rentec Direct.  Rentec Direct provides property management software which includes ach for landlords, tenant screening, and online documentation and file storage.  While the above article may speak of products we offer or use screenshots from a product we offer, we encourage landlords to do their research and make up their own minds when selecting a new product.  That said, we of course welcome ActiveRain members with open arms.

I know I'm not the only one out there that has a nagging feeling in their head when the beginning of the month rolls around.  I pro-rate my tenants so they are all due on the first, and typically give a 3 day grace.  There's the select few tenants that pay on the 1st.  That breed of tenants has mostly vanished.  The remainder tend to push that grace limit to it's maximum and come in on the 3rd or 4th of the month.  The whole time I'm worried if they will be in at all.  If the 5th rolls around and nobody is around, just the thought of notices and eviction sets me on fire because I know it's going to be a painful process no matter what and at the very least will strain the landlord-tenant relationship.

The scenarios may be:

1. The tenant just forgot to bring it by, or was out of town.
2. The check got lost in the mail (I've heard this more times than I think is really possible).
   
3. This just happened to me this month, once the mail reached my office it ended up in a different co-workers box, so while the rent arrived on the 4th, I didn't get it until the 7th.
4. Maybe the tenant really is looking to move.

In most cases it's just an accident that the rent didn't make it on time.  Most tenants want to stay and they just aren't prioritizing their bills well.  Even so if you've begun the eviction or notification process for non-payment it's creating a strain on your landlord/tenant relationship and it's costing you time and money.

There's a lot of companies out there that have similar practices to landlords in collecting a recurring fee for services.  The power company, the gas company, cable and satellite companies, and most municipal utilities such as garbage, water, and sewer.  What have all these companies discovered?  Yes, automated bank drafts (ACH) save them money, collection efforts, and often get them their funds faster!  Why haven't landlords jumped on this ship yet?  The answer:  some landlords have, most haven't however, but why is that?  My research tells me that the municipalities and big utility companies all have the means to go through the extensive process of getting it setup and automated with their banks whereas landlords do not.

I'm here to tell you that Landlords now do now have the means!  It's MUCH EASIER than setting up a bank account or merchant account, and the only prerequisites are a) You must own or manage property for rental purposes, and b) You must have a bank account.  If your a landlord reading this I'm absolutely certain you qualify.  The setup process is so simple now that any landlord could be accepting ACH tomorrow.

What does it cost?  I've seen processors charge from $0.50 (plus add'l monthly fee's and percents) up to $5.00 per transaction.  Rentec Direct charges a flat $2.00, and no percentage or monthly charges.

HUGE BENEFITS!  Aside from being able to sleep better knowing that the rent payments are going to happen automatically, one enormous benefit of doing automated ACH is longer term tenants.  Studies have shown that services that are paid automatically are less likely to be cancelled.  This is one of the very reasons the utility companies push ACH.  For a landlord this means less turnover.  How would you feel if your vacancy rate went from 30 days/year down to 10 days/year?  It's possible.  Another big benefit is your payment always gets priority.  Set the deduction day the day following the tenant's paycheck and generally banks process electronic payments (ACH) before paper checks.  You get your money before anyone else.

Sounds great, where do I signup?  I would suggest you do your research and pick a reputable company you can feel comfortable with handling your funds.  Go to Google and just type in tenant ach and see what you get.  There's a number of companies, including ours, that provide tenant ach services.

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The author is a founding member of Rentec Direct.  Rentec Direct provides property management software which includes ach for landlords and tenant screening.  While the above article may speak of products we offer or use screenshots from a product we offer, we encourage landlords to do their research and make up their own minds when selecting a new product.  That said, we of course welcome ActiveRain members with open arms.   

I've been a landlord for many years now and when I think back on the biggest challenges I'd have to pick two things.  Placing tenants and collecting rent.  The best advise I can give about placing tenants is be absolutely sure to screen them carefully.  Oh, and look at the inside of their car as an indication of how well they treat things.  Today however I'm going to talk more about collecting rent.

I know I'm not the only one out there that has a nagging feeling in their head when the beginning of the month rolls around.  I pro-rate my tenants so they are all due on the first, and typically give a 3 day grace.  There's the select few tenants that pay on the 1st.  That breed of tenants has mostly vanished.  The remainder tend to push that grace limit to it's maximum and come in on the 3rd or 4th of the month.  The whole time I'm worried if they will be in at all.  If the 5th rolls around and nobody is around, just the thought of notices and eviction sets me on fire because I know it's going to be a painful process no matter what.

The scenarios may be:

1. The tenant just forgot to bring it by, or was out of town.
2. The check got stuck in the mail.
3. Just happened to me this month, once the mail reached my office it ended up in a different co-workers box, so while the rent arrived on the 4th, I didn't get it until the 7th.
4. Maybe the tenant really is looking to lose their residence.

In most cases it's just an accident that the rent didn't make it on time.  Most tenants want to stay and they just aren't prioritizing their bills well.  Even so if you've begun the eviction or notification process for non-payment it's creating a strain on your landlord/tenant relationship and it's costing you time and money.

Enter ACH for landlords.  Also commonly known as electronic check, e-check, automated draft, and a few other creative names.  ACH is the system banks use to transfer money.  When you place a check in Bank A that is drawn on Bank B, Bank A submits the amounts via the ACH system to get the funds from Bank B to your account at Bank A.  Your cable, satellite, credit card, and utility companies all use ACH to offer automatic debit from your checking or savings account.  This functionality is now available to property managers and landlords.  It means you can now electronically initiate the rent payment on behalf of the tenant on an agreeable day of the month or schedule one time payments.

Once initiated, your ACH provider securely transmits the funds from your tenants checking or savings account to your own operating bank account.  The tenant doesn't have to remember to write a check, or deliver it.  You don't have to cash it.  The way it works in our software is a recurring transaction gets debited from the tenants checking account (say on the 1st), and a few days later it is in your checking account.  Simple as that.  You find out about NSFs faster as well because on average of 24 hours after submission you find out if the account is NSF.  That is 3 to 10 days faster than with paper checks.  A report shows you what transactions have completed, which have failed, and which are scheduled to occur.  It takes all the guesswork and paperwork out of processing rent.

More benefits:

• Your renter doesn't have to remember to drop off rent.  It happens automatically.
• Because it's automatic, your rent payment is prioritized over all other tenant discretionary spending.  All of a sudden rent is priority #1, as it should have been in the first place.
• Quicker funds delivery.  ACH is electronic and involves no trips to the bank or checks to manually process by you and the teller.  This amounts to funds being in your account quicker.
• When coupled with a good property management software the transactions are automatically recorded into your bank and tenant ledgers thereby eliminating manual work as well as potential mistakes.
• Overall processing costs are dramatically reduced.

It's easier than you think to use.  There's no comlicated merchant services you have to setup, or credit apps.  It's also inexpensive.  Our company charges $2.00 per ACH transaction with no monthly fees and no percentages for our landlords and property managers.  Costs elsewhere vary from as high as $5.00 per transaction to as low as $0.50 per transaction (with additional monthly fees or percentages).  Regardless where you get the service, and even at the higher priced sources, the cost and time savings to switch from a paper check system to automated check are enormous.


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This author is a founder of Rentec Direct.  Rentec Direct offers ach for landlords, tenant screening, and of course property management software to simplify and organize your property management accounting.  While the above article may speak of products we offer or use screenshots from a product we offer, we encourage landlords to do their research and make up their own minds when selecting a new product.  That said, we of course welcome new customers with open arms.

Wouldn't it be nice if your computer would be so kind as to give you this message "Your Computer Is About To Crash.  Backup Now!".  Unfortunatly it won't, and as a result many of us will be left with a busted computer and a loss of data.

It happens every minute of every day.  An unsuspecting PC or Mac user all of a sudden gets an inoperable computer, and all their data goes with it.  Why does this happen so often?  There are various reasons, but it usually boils down to the hard drive.  The hard drive is a bunch of platters stored in a small box inside the case of your computer.  These platters are always spinning at 7200RPM while your computer is active.  This spinning causes a lot of heat, and wear on the bearings of the device.  The useful lifespan of a hard drive is 3-5 years, with newer drives being closer to 3 because manufacturing methods continue to get cheaper.

So is your current computer older than 3 years?  If so, you have an imminent failure approaching. The good news is there is something you can do about it today.  Backup!  If you think your company or your IT administrator is doing it for you, think again!  Most backups are incomplete or done incorrectly.  Don't trust your data to someone else or you may end up re-doing every template, every email, every picture you've ever created yourself prior to today.  Backing up is really easy to do.  Here's a few methods:

1. Flash Drive - These keychain devices are sold everywhere in amounts up to 64GB.  Backing up to one of these drive which cost from $5-$50 could save you hundreds of hours of work in the future.
2. DVD / CD - Most computers nowdays come with DVD/CD writer drives.  These discs hold a finite amount of storage, but for many is enough to get a complete backup.  You can have many levels of backups becuase both CD-R and DVD-R dicss are just pennies apeice.
3. Networked Computer - Do you have a fileserver or other computer networked in your home/office?  You can use your own network to backup your files from your computer to another computer.  Be sure the other computer is trusted before doing this.
4. Tape - I'm somewhat suprised they are still selling these as the technology is so old.  You can buy a tape drive for your computer and backup to tape at any interval you choose.  This is great for permanent archival; however, probably my least favorite of the available options.
5. Online Backup - There are now tons of online backup solutions available.   They give you an application to download which will automatically, using your internet connection, copy the data you specify offsite for storage.  This is an excellent solution if you have a broadband internet connection and less than around 10GB of data to backup.  Dont' use this for music or movies.
6. Use Online Applications - One of the simplest ways to become more portable and become worry-free about backups is to use online applications instead of local ones.  Online apps such as Google Docs and Rentec Direct run via your web browser and are running on a powerful server in a data center somewhere.  They automatically do the backups and are responsible for the data.  The added benefit besides data security is you can access it from anywhere in the world at any time.

Whichever of these methods you choose, or if you create your own, my primary concern is that everyone backup!  Another very important and often overlooked component of backups is verifying if they work.  Sometimes, backups are not restorable and a backup does you no good if it can't be restored.  Follow these steps to make sure your backups are working for you.

1. Restore - Restore your backup periodically to make sure the files restored from it are everything your intending to backup and to ensure that the files are not corrupt.  Open a few documents to make sure they are what they seem.
2. Verify - Verify the backups are running automatically and completely.  A lot of us use Outlook for email and if Outlook is left open your backup program cannot back it up.  Your backup program needs to be smart enough to shut down Outlook prior to starting it's backup otherwise your email is not being backed up.
3. Security - Your backups are sensitive.  Make sure they are not available to any 3rd party that you don't want seeing that data.  Also, in a worst case scenario (fire, meteor, etc), make sure your backups are stored off-site.

I woke up this morning thinking about how important this topic is and decided to write this short article.  If it saves just a single person from losing their data and thereby saving hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of work in the future; then my time was well spent!

--- about the author ---

Rentec Direct provides property management software free to landlords and property managers and it includes automated online backups. Because of the importance of thorough screening for prospective tenants, we have integrated tenant screening directly into the software so in just a few clicks a complete and comprehensive background check including previous evictions can be done on any new tenants.

Many of us have been eagerly anticipating Google Voice to open their doors for months. According to the Official Google Blog, invites are on their way this morning. Invitations are being sent out on a first come first serve platter similar to how gmail was handled years back.  Get in line here.

How is Google going to help us manage our phone contacts, and should we use it?

Voicemail Transcription - I'll start with my favorite anticipated feature.  Google's answer to Apple's visual voicemail.  They up the ante and transcribe your voicemails into text for you and provide them online, and forward them via email or SMS.  No longer is it required we login to our phones and punch in our secret code to listen to the voicemail only to jot the notes down on a notepad.  Google eliminates this step and I am really excited about this.  How well will it work?

Integration with existing phones - It will work with all of your existing phones.  Tell Google Voice about your office number, cell number, and home number.  It can then intelligently route calls or text messages based on your rules any contact to any or all of those numbers, read on..

Call Routing - We all have that client that calls us three times a day with pretty silly requests right?  We sometimes feel a bit guilty letting it ring until it hits voicemail?  No more!  Google voice can be programmed to forward any contact wherever you want.  Automatically route a specific contact to your assistant, direct to voicemail, or to a different phone.  When the kids call it can ring all phones at once, or cycle through all phones, or push them directly to voicemail.  New caller not in your address book, Google says they will take the callers name and announce them to you prior to you picking up the call (it's still ringing on their end), and give you the choice of what to do with them prior to picking up the call.

Record Calls - With a touch of a button you can start recording a call for playback later.  Highly useful when driving (wait, we don't talk on the phone when we're driving do we?) and don't want to also be taking notes.  Click the record button and access the call any time.

Google has short videos and demonstrations of all these features (and oogles more) at the Google Voice website.

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Second thoughts - Is it worth it?

Ads - Google provides so much for "free" including search, email, etc.  Phone service is just another one of their free items.  That's great, but they have to make their billions somehow.  There will be ads!  In typical google tradition, probably few at first, but count on lots of ads in the future.  I'll admit though, google has been pretty good at being fairly unobtrusive with ads, so this may not be a huge issue.

New Phone Number - Google Voice claims they will support LNP (porting your existing numbers) in the future; however, right now they don't.  This means a new phone number is in your future if you want to use Google Voice features.  It doesn't cost anything from Google; however, it means getting your new number to all your clients.

Lock In / Lock Out - Once Google has you, they have you.  Especially if you use one of their numbers.  Nobody has experienced this yet, but often moving away from a phone provider is far more difficult than moving to them.  There are laws which protect phone numbers you LNP into Google when they support that and that should allow you to move them off Google if you choose; however, there's no such stated requirement for numbers Google provides that I am aware of.  Additionally, if you do something that Google doesn't like they can, if they wish, immediately terminate the service causing an instant loss of the phone number.

Trust in Google - With Google now transcribing voicemails into text, and recording calls in their worldly connected data centers it opens up the possibility of that data being hacked or obtained by other sources.  What would happen if your entire contact list, your last years worth of voicemails and SMSs all became public?  While this is unlikely, as Google runs a pretty tight ship; it is a possibility, and you can be certain there are thousands of hackers attempting to gain access daily.  Will they ever succeed?

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What's the harm?

All said, I'm going to try it out as soon as I get my invite.  I'll take their freebie number and try it out with a few friends or family and see how it goes before passing final judgement.  All in all, I'm pretty excited.  Mostly about the transcribed voicemail.  If that works, it will save me and our office a lot of time.

p.s.  If anybody has received their invite yet, I want to hear about it.  Please comment.

--- about the author ---

Rentec Direct provides property management software free to landlords and property managers. Because of the importance of thorough screening for prospective tenants, we have integrated tenant screening directly into the software so in just a few clicks a complete and comprehensive background check including previous evictions can be done on any new tenants.