Maintenance float and allowance

A new version of RentPro was released over the weekend that saw the introduction of two new maintenance features.

Both features are applicable to RentPro's Business and Max plans only and can be configured via a new pane in the Summary tab of the Property view.

Maintenance Float 

The first feature is a Maintenance Float. Forming part of a landlord management agreement, many agents retain funds to deal with unforeseen property expenses or repairs. For each property it is possible to specify a fixed value to be retained when processing landlord payments. This means that when the 'Pay in Full' option is selected the amount paid in relation to each property will be reduced by the float value (provided the funds exist). It is however possible to override this by explicitly specifying the amount to be paid using the 'Sum Values' option.

Maintenance Allowance

The second new feature will primarily relate to properties operating under a guaranteed rent agreement. Such agreements often specify that the letting agency will absorb the cost of minor repairs and maintenance. Within RentPro these activities are reflected by ticking the 'Paid by agency?' checkbox when processing the Expense or Trouble Ticket. You may however wish to cap the spend on each property. This can now be achieved by specifying an Allowance figure for the property, along with the time period over which this applies. For instance, if the agent is willing to absorb up to £500 in expenses over a 12 month period then this should be reflected with an allowance figure of 500 and a period of 12 months.

Should an allowance figure be breached when adding a new expense or completing a ticket then RentPro will flag this to the user by means of a warning. In addition to this a new alert report has been added which which can be used to track the spend on all properties where a Maintenance Allowance has been specified. This report can be accessed via Reports -> Alerts, Maintenance Allowance Alerts.