so tax season is finally over, life is somewhat back to normal and Oct still some ways to go...lol
today I had a little chat with a friend on rentroll and book keeping, as now days most PM companies use industrial standard software like Yardi but for small fish like me, I simply can not afford it.
to me, the most important part of keeping accurate office records, is that it must be easy and effective and able to teach any new office hire in a very short time and make no mistakes and even if there is a mistake , it is easily traceable.
when tenants pay rent, I make sure the office following these 3 steps.
1. all our offices are cashfree operations, payments must be check or money order. when tenants pay rent, we first make a copy of that check, this will go into tenant's lease file.
2. we always issue a receipt when tenant pay in person, if they mail in payments or drop payments in the night box, we send their receipt to their mailbox. our payment receipt book has 3 carbon copies, original goes to tenant, 2nd copy attached to the payment waiting to deposit, 3rd copy remains in the book and if anything goes wrong, as long as we have the book and we can trace the payments.
3. when time to make a deposit, office will make copy of every checks and make sure they match the carbon copies. quickbook entries are base on bank deposit slips only then we compare rent roll numbers to match the quickbook numbers, if there is difference, we have an error.
Our office filing policy consisted of 3 parts too, and we always paper file everything.
1. leases cabinet, we file leases by unit numbers. each tenant has own manila folder, one side has the lease and other side we fasten every receipts we ever issued and every notices we ever send to them. I usually kept the latest 3 tenants in the current file system and older ones are phase out to a paper box.
2. Service work order cabinet, we also file SWOs by unit numbers, for every units we own and manage, I must able to trace everything we ever done to this unit, work order forms, service manuals, etc...
3. Deposits and expense reports: in this cabinet, we file by the month, every bank deposit slip must accompany with a copy of payment receipts and copy of the checks or money orders.
the key here is, it is scaleable, any new office helper can easily master the system.
today I had a little chat with a friend on rentroll and book keeping, as now days most PM companies use industrial standard software like Yardi but for small fish like me, I simply can not afford it.
to me, the most important part of keeping accurate office records, is that it must be easy and effective and able to teach any new office hire in a very short time and make no mistakes and even if there is a mistake , it is easily traceable.
when tenants pay rent, I make sure the office following these 3 steps.
1. all our offices are cashfree operations, payments must be check or money order. when tenants pay rent, we first make a copy of that check, this will go into tenant's lease file.
2. we always issue a receipt when tenant pay in person, if they mail in payments or drop payments in the night box, we send their receipt to their mailbox. our payment receipt book has 3 carbon copies, original goes to tenant, 2nd copy attached to the payment waiting to deposit, 3rd copy remains in the book and if anything goes wrong, as long as we have the book and we can trace the payments.
3. when time to make a deposit, office will make copy of every checks and make sure they match the carbon copies. quickbook entries are base on bank deposit slips only then we compare rent roll numbers to match the quickbook numbers, if there is difference, we have an error.
Our office filing policy consisted of 3 parts too, and we always paper file everything.
1. leases cabinet, we file leases by unit numbers. each tenant has own manila folder, one side has the lease and other side we fasten every receipts we ever issued and every notices we ever send to them. I usually kept the latest 3 tenants in the current file system and older ones are phase out to a paper box.
2. Service work order cabinet, we also file SWOs by unit numbers, for every units we own and manage, I must able to trace everything we ever done to this unit, work order forms, service manuals, etc...
3. Deposits and expense reports: in this cabinet, we file by the month, every bank deposit slip must accompany with a copy of payment receipts and copy of the checks or money orders.
the key here is, it is scaleable, any new office helper can easily master the system.
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