During the week of December 14th, we are updating the calculations used for the balance due on the tenant portal summary page. The new summary page will provide you more flexibility in what your tenants see when logging into the tenant portal.
Currently, the summary page will show a value for “Total Currently Due”. This value tries to take into account any past due balance, plus upcoming charges. For many property managers, this works perfectly well; however, for some, it might create a misunderstanding for the tenant in how much is due if there are other ancillary upcoming charges.
To accommodate the widest possible number of scenarios, we are adjusting how the value is calculated. The new calculation will, by default, look 14 days into the future and include any upcoming charges. Previously the summary page only showed a singular upcoming rental charge, the new method will include all upcoming charges. If your tenant rents more than one unit or has other upcoming charges (parking space, storage, etc) those will all be included in the balance due and thereby provide a more accurate representation of what they owe.
Depending on your rent payment policies, you can adjust this 14-day look-forward setting at Settings, Program Defaults. Look for the setting labeled “Tenant Portal: Number of days to use for “balance due” messaging?”.
Here are a few different scenarios for this option:
- If you have the system set to generate invoices early so a tenant knows what their upcoming rent amount is going to be, then we recommend setting this value equal to or greater than that amount. Most property managers generate invoices 10 days early, so a setting between 10 and 14 would work well in that case. With this setting, the tenant will see at a glance their balance that includes the upcoming charge.
- If you do not want a tenant to see their upcoming charges and have the Balance Due figure be only what is due for them today, then set the value to 0.
- If you want the balance due to include all future charges, even if those future charges are far into the future, set the value to 999999.
