New accounting features will be rolling out to your Rentec Direct account this week, which will give you options for asset and liability accounting, transforming Rentec Direct property management software into an advanced full property asset management accounting software.
You will now find some valuable updates to Rentec Direct’s accounting system to provide a sophisticated, all-inclusive accounting tool that eliminates the need for multiple software platforms and ends duplicate data entry forever!
This new acccounting feature will go live this week!
With the enhanced full accounting options, including Assets, Liabilities, and Equity, property managers and landlords can easily handle accounting, reporting, tax preparation, and overall management of a property portfolio with confidence. Updates will automatically apply to all Pro and PM accounts, so there are no extra steps to get started and, as usual, no additional costs for these upgrades.
What to Expect With the New Full Accounting Feature
- Expanded Chart of Accounts
- Time-Saving Automation
- New Reporting Options
- New Accounting and Journal Entry Features
- Enhanced Security Deposit Options
- Account Ledger Enhancements
Expanded Chart of Accounts
The Chart of Accounts page replaces the Income & Expense Categories page. You’ll find the new Chart of Accounts within the Financial section of Settings, and there is also a new shortcut in the Banking menu. The new Chart of Accounts has been expanded to include Assets, Liabilities, and Equity accounts, each with its own transaction journal. Within the new Chart of Accounts page, use the new filter to easily find and sort accounts by type.
- Income
- Expense
- ⭐Assets (new!)
- ⭐Liabilities (new!)
- ⭐Equity (new!)
New Automation Saves You Steps
If you add a new Asset or Liability account, Rentec Direct will prompt you for an Opening Balance. This opening balance will automatically post as a journal entry to your new account. Here are a couple of use cases for the opening balance value:
- If you are adding a new bank account, enter the balance of the bank account at the time it is opened (or added to Rentec Direct). This date should precede entering any transactions affiliated with this bank account.
- If you are entering a new loan (liability account), your opening balance would be the loan’s balance.
- If you are adding a new asset, you have the same option to add an opening balance.
The opening balance will be dated today; however, you can edit that transaction to edit the date to the actual date you opened the account if it is not today. If you don’t know the opening balance amount right now, that’s ok – you can enter it any time later by posting a journal entry to the account and selecting your Opening Balance equity account as the “To Account.”
Adding Properties. Rentec Direct will now (optionally) link an asset account with any new properties added to the system. When adding a property, simply check the “Linked Asset Account” and enter the property’s value. A new asset account grouped within the primary Real Estate account will be created with the value specified.
New Reporting Options
Two new Accounting Report options have been added to the robust list of reports available. These reports are designed to verify that your account is balanced and even help find discrepancies in ledgers. Be sure to upgrade to the latest report options by clicking “Try it now” at the top of your reports page.
Learn more about the latest reporting features: New Reports and Reporting Features Now Available for Property Managers and Landlords
- NEW Balance Sheet report is the typical balance sheet your accountant or CPA would ask for to do your taxes or bookkeeping. This new report includes assets, liabilities, and equity balances as of a specified date. The previous Balance Sheet, which shows the current balances of properties, banks, and owners, has been renamed Account Balances.
Tip: Proper accounting dictates that Total Assets on your Balance Sheet must equal Total Liabilities & Equity. If these values do not match, something has been entered incorrectly into the system. To find transactions that may cause your balance sheet to be out of balance, see the new Balance Discrepancies report.
- NEW Balance Discrepancies report allows you to search for financial transactions that have not been applied to an Account and result in balance discrepancies. This report is a great addition to help identify transactions that may cause reconciliation or imbalance issues.
New Accounting and Journal Entry Features
Rentec Direct has added new accounting features to enhance data entry accuracy and save time. The new features include grouping accounts for ease of selection, a double-entry component, and an optional Strict Accounting Setting, which will alert if a vital component is missing from a transaction.
Grouped Accounts. The account (previously category) selector now can include Income, Expenses, Assets, Liability, and Equity accounts. Previously, it only supported Income & Expenses. To simplify your selection criteria, the selector is now grouped when applicable so all Income accounts show within one group, Expenses in another, etc. This will help reduce input errors and make selecting the appropriate account easier.
Journal Entries. Rentec Direct now supports journal entries in addition to account transfers. While functionally, these features are quite similar in that they provide a credit to one account and a debit to another, it can sometimes be valuable to record transactions as a journal entry for your own bookkeeping and reporting purposes. All opening balance entries added to Rentec Direct are added as journal entries.
Strict Accounting Setting. If you want Rentec to help enforce accounting standards and make sure your financial statements are accurate, this setting will help. By enabling Strict Accounting, the system will review all newly posted transactions and trigger an error if something is inaccurate or missing. For example, if you post a financial transaction that is missing a bank account, you will receive the error as all financial transactions should be associated with a bank account or Undeposited Funds. To enable this feature, visit Settings, Accounting Defaults, and toggle Use strict accounting rules to Yes.
Enhanced Security Deposit Management
Managing your Tenant Security Deposits is now easier than ever. We’ve improved the security deposit interface to simplify everyday tasks. When enabled, the rules for strict accounting will also apply to security deposit ledgers to ensure accurate bookkeeping.
- Transfer Deposit. This function previously had multiple purposes and has been simplified to serve a single purpose. Use this function to transfer a security deposit from one bank account to another. This function is no longer used to transfer deposits to property owners.
- Migrate Deposit. This is a new function that transfers a security deposit for the tenant from one property to another property. This is especially useful if the tenant moves from one unit or property to another and the security deposit is transferred to the new property.
- Transfer Deposit to Owner (PM Users Only). This function transfers an amount from the tenant’s security deposit ledger to the property ledger as income to the property, which then can be disbursed to the property owner. A typical use case for this is if the tenant vacates but owes for repairs that the owner is going to complete. You can transfer all or a portion of the deposit to the owner and choose any income category. In this example, you may want to create an income category called Tenant Paid Repairs.
- Security Deposits Held Register. Security deposits are now all put into a Liability Account called Security Deposits Held. This liability account is automatically created for you and automatically used for all security deposit transactions. We’ve automatically connected all historic security deposit transactions to this liability account. You can optionally create additional Security Deposit liability accounts and then choose which liability account your transactions apply to. With the new Security Deposits Held register, you can now quickly view all security deposit transactions on one screen. To do this, visit Banking, Chart of Accounts, and click the balance field of the Security Deposits Held account. A familiar register (similar to a bank account ledger) will show you all associated transactions.
Account Ledger Enhancements
- New Accounts – Commonly used accounts for managing properties have automatically been added to your Chart of Accounts with numbering that is consistent with property management best practices; however, you can change any account numbers by editing them within your Chart of Accounts. New accounts include:
- Real Estate (Asset) – Any properties added within Rentec Direct with a linked asset account will automatically be grouped within the primary Real Estate account.
- Security Deposits Held (Liability) – As discussed above, all security deposit transactions will be connected to this account.
- Prepaid Rents (Liability) – This category is added to support an upcoming feature that will help simplify prepaid rents and apply tenant income to applicable invoices. You are still welcome to use this liability account; however, its real value will come soon.
- Retained Earnings (Equity) – Retained earnings is not so much of an account that you can use for posting transactions to, but a calculation that is the sum of all your Income based transactions minus your Expenses. You will see the Retained Earnings value on your Balance Sheet.
- Owner Investment (Equity) – When an owner of the business invests in a business by transferring in cash or takes money out of the business by removing cash, these transactions typically post to the Owner Investment account. Some accounting systems refer to this as “Owner’s Equity” or “Owner’s Capital”
- Opening Balance (Equity) – When a new bank account, asset, or liability is added, if the account balance does not start at $0.00, then the current balance will be posted both to the new account and to the Opening Balance Equity account. This is typical accounting practice and is needed to keep your balance sheet balanced. This is typically used when an account is added at some point after it is opened. For example, you might add a bank account that already has a balance of $5,000 in it. You set the opening balance to $5,000, so your reconciliations and balance sheet are accurate.
- Account Registers – Like ledgers for tenant and bank accounts, each asset, liability, and equity account has a similar-looking register that lets you view and edit all associated transactions.
- New Account Classes – When adding new accounts, you now have the option of choosing many different classes. This is used for system functions as well as organization. Here are some examples:
- Income accounts have the option of Standard or Management Fees. Any income account within the Management Fees class will be treated as management fees, which are typically excluded from your balance sheet until paid out to the property manager.
- Expense accounts can be Standard, Management Fees, or Owner Distributions. When adding a management fees expense (for property owners) or an owner distribution account, remember to select the appropriate class so it shows up on the applicable screens.
- Assets can be Current, Fixed, or Real Estate. Depending on the class chosen is where the asset will show on the balance sheet.
- Liability accounts can be Current, Long Term, Security Deposits, or Prepaid Rents. Any liability account with a class of Security Deposits will show when adding or editing security deposit related transactions.
- Linked Transactions – Many transactions within Rentec Direct are linked to each other. To save you data entry time and time correcting errors, linked transactions automatically update each other when edited. When a transaction is linked to another transaction, it will be indicated when editing that transaction with a button that lets you quickly see the linked transaction.
Have Questions?
Your amazing Rentec Direct success team is here to help. If you have any questions, connect with your Rentec Direct Success Team at 1-800-881-5139, click on the Live Expert Help Link in your Rentec Direct account to chat or email, or send an email directly to success@rentecdirect.com.
Upcoming New Features and Enhancements
The Rentec Direct Development Team has several exciting new features and enhancements that will be released soon. You might even recognize a feature or two as one you requested! For example:
Work Order Enhancements
Enhancements are being made to work orders, providing you with more documentation and communication options directly from work orders. Prompt vendor communication can help mitigate damages, saving you time and money. Document work is to be performed, and notes are added to a scrollable thread, deciding which notes are to be shared and which to keep private. Text vendors a summary or email the work order as a PDF. To wrap it up, the work order reports have been updated to an easy-to-read, modern format.
Mailing Wizard
Rentec Direct working with with PostGrid, an offline communication solution, to offer a new integrated, streamlined mail service directly through Rentec Direct. Using the same familiar data fields as form letters, auto notifications, and messages, all Pro and PM clients will have the option to customize important letters and notices to be mailed out directly through Rentec Direct software.
Stay Up-to-Date on New Features and Enhancements
Check out the System Updates and News & Tips on your Summary page to see the latest Rentec Direct features and industry-related topics, or subscribe to Rentec Direct Blog Product Updates and have updates delivered directly to your inbox.
Suggest a Feature:
Our goal is always to make your tasks as a landlord or property manager simpler, quicker, and more efficient. One of the ways we accomplish this is by reviewing valuable feedback and input from our awesome clients. If there is anything you would like to see added to enhance your Rentec Direct experience, please send your ideas and suggestions to success@rentecdirect.com.
About Rentec Direct:
Rentec Direct is an award-winning property management software serving landlords and property managers across the United States. Features include online rent payments, tenant and owner portals, one of the industry’s largest vacancy listing syndication networks, full property, tenant, and owner accounting, 1099-MISC reporting and more. Rentec Direct was recognized as Real Estate Company of the Year in the 2024 American Business Awards®, and was named the Most Customer Friendly Companies of the Year in the 2023 Best in Biz Awards, has been named to the Inc. 5000 List of Fastest-Growing Private Companies for eight years in a row. www.rentecdirect.com.