Over the past 30 years, Rental Contracts have become increasingly sophisticated in regards to the manner in which expenses are shared with Owners and SMS has created a series of posting utilities to accommodate them. Today, we’re going to look at four of them you may find useful and two to avoid.
Batch Post Transactions – This is a simple, quick and effective tool for generating a transaction to a group of folios all at once when the posting contents are identical. Users have a couple of options when it comes to identifying the target Contracts. A tally of transactions and the total posted value is displayed on-screen after it is run.
Post Owner Transactions – This is the best and fastest posting utility to use when faced with a series of charges that have something in common. It can be used to post a set of transactions to a single Contract or a single charge to a series of Contracts. This tool can also be used to “recreate” an automated transaction that has been accidentally missed (e.g. missing INCOME transaction and any related postings such as the House Commission or an OMAP.)
Post an Entered Percentage – This utility is perfect for creating transactions that are based on a percentage of other existing postings. For example, you could easily generate a charge for a group of Contracts such as a Marketing Fee that was a specific percentage of each Owner’s net Income (INCOME + COMMIS). Alternatively, you could generate a common charge for all applicable Contracts based on the total net Income between all Owners when the Pooling Distribution feature is engaged.
Post Unit Value – Sometimes, rental contracts call for a nightly fee to be charged to a group of Contracts based on units having been rented or having been available to be rented. This utility posts the amount that is stored as the “Rack Value” (or “Comp Value” if not being used for your usage rotation calculations) under Rack Rate Value Setup for individual unit numbers for each night that fits the selected consideration. It also has the ability to create a single transaction for a unit’s activity within the period as opposed to individual nightly postings.
Unfortunately, not all of the posting tools have stood the test of time and that is something we will be examining this year as we continue to update the User experience for Owner Fulfillment. In the meantime, I want to dissuade you from using a couple of utilities that will only frustrate or confuse you.
Fast Post Transactions – Sadly, it is anything but. It is actually slow, awkward to use and requires way too many keystrokes to be useful. Don’t bother with this one.
Post a Calculated Percentage – While this initially seems similar to its Enter a Percentage companion, it quickly goes off the rails by becoming way too complex to navigate while prompting for entries that seem counter-intuitive. Honestly, I have tried to come up with an example of how this might be used but with no success. It would be best if we speak of it no further.
Next time, we will look at the most powerful Owner utility you’ve never heard of.
