Administration menu

Administration menu

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This menu is the busiest in the system and provides a focus for items best described as administrative. It embraces functional activities, access to utilities and a number of "administrative" reports.

The layout of this topic follows the primary menu choices dealing with them in the order they are on the menu and skipping sub-menus and their choices. Following that the sub-menus and their entries are dealt with, again in the menu display order. Where a sub-menu is encountered on the first "pass" a link is provided to that sub-menu and its entries further on in this topic. In both the primary and sub menus the entire help on a subject may be in the menu help or there may be a link to a standalone topic.

Primary Menu

Fees and GST Transactions
This grid displays the little bits and pieces of income earned through the management fee, letting fee and the GST component collected from every receipt, charge (invoice), or fee transaction as a result of those transactions being entered.

The only transaction shown in full is the Fees and GST payment paying yourself. This payment may be created as part of the "end of month" Generate Payments run, or by using the [Payment] button to make a manual payment at any time, see Fees and GST Payments. Some users make multiple payments during the month but if you do so it is recommended that you always take the correct portion of GST at the same time.

Payments sub menu Link to sub-menu

Reports sub-menu Link to sub-menu

Utilities sub-menu Link to sub-menu

Generate Standing Charges
See Standing Charges topic

End of Period
This program will be run at the end of each period, which for most users will be the end of each calendar month, to "rule a line" under the accounting records for the period. See the End of Period topic for more details.

Reverse End of Period
When this function is run all the current period transactions are deleted from the system and the end of period processing is reversed leaving the system at the point immediately prior to the Admin menu > End of Period program being started.

See the Reverse End of Period topic for more details.

Email Queue
The Email Queue is roughly the equivalent of your "normal" email outbox. See Email Queue for more details.

Create Web Pages
The Aspect Property Manager has the ability to extract and assemble data from the database in a format suitable for use on your own website or in a format ready to import into TradeMe, and XXXX . The process of doing so is covered in the Web Page Creation topic.

Upload Files sub-menu Link to sub-menu

Photo Administration sub-menu Link to topic

Control Reconciliation
This screen provides a snapshot of the system control account totals and is the display version of the Administration > Control Report with the addition of a Calculated Bank values row. The Opening column shows the balance in each control account at the start of the period. The Current column is the balance in each account as a result of transactions entered in the period regardless of transaction date. Once the period is closed it becomes the closing balance for the period and will not normally change. Skip though the file a period at a time using the Navigator.

The Calculated Bank figures are obtained by adding the values contained in the transactions for the period and if they are different to the "running" control account Bank balance the figures are displayed in red. Should this happen it means the system is out of balance internally, possibly caused by a power failure or crashing the system using Ctrl+Alt+Del to escape a Windows lockup. Clicking on the Calculated Bank figure will display the difference between the two bank amounts Either return to a back up or contact Aspect Systems support. We can often work out what has gone wrong and fix the problem for you.

The Tenants row is shown for completeness only and does not come into play when reconciling the system. However, the Opening balance figure does show what all your tenants owed coming into the period. The Current column shows what is still owed up to the end of the period.

Edit Past Period Transactions
From time to time there may be a transaction in a previous period where it would be convenient to edit or delete it rather than the alternative action of entering a reversing transaction or transactions in the current period. Before doing so consider the following points:-

any change or deletion probably will affect financial balances

You can not edit or delete receipt and payment transactions in any period once they have been reconciled.

unpresented receipts from past periods will probably have been paid out

landlords or suppliers in particular may have received money on the basis of the incorrect or unwanted transaction(s)

as a result of the change you may need to recover money from "A" and / or pay out "B" and what happens if you can't recover the money from "A"

"messing" with some transactions may have downstream effects you don't immediately envisage so think it through first or try it in the Training module

any new correcting entries will be in the current period.

Editing past period transactions is a two step process:-
The Setup menu > Company Details > Address Details tab > Allow Edit of Past Period Transactions ? check box must contain a tick, which stays in the selected state until manually changed.
Only when that checkbox contains a tick is this menu entry active
Clicking the menu entry will display a warning, after which past period transactions are accessible
After making any changes required, return to this menu where you will see an "active" tick beside the entry and click the menu entry to stop accessing past period transactions to avoid accidental changes
Closing the Aspect Property Manager will also stop access to past period transactions.

Read the Add, Change and Delete Records topic and note the Warning it contains.

Notes
This entry invokes a Notes screen where you can read or enter a special form of Note which is not attached to a landlord, property, tenant or supplier termed an "Administrative Note", which may be used for regular and / or personal reminders, e.g. Run Rent Review report, or Dentist 10.30am.

See Notes for much more on this subject.

Capture Incoming Email
This facility enables the importing of relevant email from your standard email system's inbox directly into the Aspect Property Manager. See Capture Incoming Email

Correspondence File
This entry allows access to all documents in the system which have been saved to the Correspondence File.
The documents retain the original formatting, bolding, underlining etc. They can be used for reference or re-printed as an identical copy, as opposed to a Note which loses all formatting.

Existing documents may be edited or deleted but new documents can not be created from this menu.

See Correspondence File for more details

Sub-menus

Payments sub-menu
The Payments Overview topic XXXX endeavours to cover all the possibilities available associated with paying money to someone while this sub menu deals with the sequential steps used when paying "all" of your landlords and suppliers which occurs typically at the "end of the month".
In actuality this sequence can be run (to completion) as often as you wish which means multiple payment runs can occur during the period.

These steps should be performed in the order shown with the last step being optional. Follow the links to each topic.

Generate Payments
This step creates a batch of payments for all landlords and suppliers who are to be paid.
It also caters for including in the generated batch any payments which have been made manually.

Cheque List
This print a list of any payments to be made by cheque

Direct Credit List
This print a list of the payments to be made by direct credit

Confirm Payments
This is a "check step" whereby you confirm the above two payment lists are correct.
Modification, deletion or change of payment type can be carried out and the list(s) above affected can be reprinted before this step is performed.

Create Direct Credit File
This step creates a file of payments to be made which can be imported into your banking software.
This is undoubtedly the fastest way to make your bulk payments.

Reports sub-menu
The items common to reports in general, such as the selection criteria, how to print or save, or email reports, are discussed in the Reports topic.

Audit Return

This report summarises the control accounts in the system and will generally be wanted by your accountant or auditor because it supplies a financial reconciliation between the system bank and the real bank account.

It can only be printed if the in-built reconciliation process is used.

As an option the list of unpresented receipts and payments may be printed which your auditor will probably want.

The return may be run for past periods.
The audit declaration may be altered to suit your reporting requirements on the Setup menu > Standard Text screen.

The data entry boxes on the selection screen are present for real estate agents identification.

Audit Trail
The Audit Trail report prints every transaction entered into the system in the sequence in which they occurred. New, edited and deleted transactions are all tracked. This contrasts with the Cash Book which only prints existing receipts and payments in the transaction date order. See Audit Trail for details of the report and options available.

Control Report
This report is a printed version of the Control Reconciliation display screen and shows the opening and closing balances of the system control accounts. A range of periods may be selected. If the system is out of balance an asterisk is shown beside the Bank figure which is the equivalent of the "red" Calculated Bank figures on the Administration > Control Reconciliation screen.

Management Fees Report

This report shows the fees that have been earned by each property in the selected period or period range and will be useful in determining the fees payable to each property manager.

The standard report has one line showing the fees earned by each property with sub-totals shown for each landlord and portfolio.

The report total shows total earnings across all properties.

The common report selections allow several variations of the report to be viewed including a detailed option which shows each fee earning transaction.

Run the report over all periods for the current year and see how the year to date returns are going.

Transaction Analysis

This report displays the component parts of each transaction and its primary use is bug chasing and has not been used by the support team for years. It is here just in case.

The report recalculates each transaction and compares it to the details stored in the database and if they disagree an error message is printed.

Transactions are displayed in transaction number sequence and you generally need to have some idea of the range of transactions you wish to view which may be obtained from the Audit Trail or elsewhere.

Utilities sub-menu
This sub menu contains a variety of diverse programs classified as "utilities". They may be used to fix things, find things or fossick about.

Database Check and Repair

If unusual things happen when using the Aspect Property Manager or you suspect your database has been corrupted in some manner, perhaps by a power failure, or having to "crash" the system due to a Windows lockup etc., this utility attempts to clear the problem.

All other user computers must be logged out of the Aspect Property Manager or false errors will be reported.

Client / Server users must run this program in Peer-to-Peer mode and will generally also need to stop or exit the APMServer. It may also entail stopping the Windows DBISAM Service. Check and Repair will run quickest on the database server.

Database Optimise

Always Backup your database before running this process.

This utility must not be run while the database is in use by any other user on your network.

This utility reorganises the internal structure of the database to improve performance.

It can be run periodically if you wish as no harm will result.

After optimising, the back-up size will often be reduced as a result of reduction in internal file sizes.

If you notice a degradation in performance over time which can not be attributed to the growth of your application data, e.g. more landlords, properties, tenants and the number of transactions being retained and so on, run this utility using the "Optimise All" option.

It should be run after the Archive and Purge process is completed.

Client / Server users must run this program in Peer-to-Peer mode and will generally also need to stop or exit the APMServer. It may also entail stopping the Windows DBISAM Service. It will run quickest on the database server.

Close a Batch
This is used to clear a special record and will normally only be required after there has been a power or system failure.
See the Can't Start a Job Message topic.

System Log
This screen displays a log of the major activities carried out on the system. It shows the time and date when tasks start and complete, who (or rather which machine) did the dastardly deed, and information about the actual job being run at the time.

Disable Hotkeys
Should there be a hot key conflict between the Aspect Property Manager and another program you can disable the Aspect Property Manager hot keys and revert to menu selection using the mouse or Tab, arrow and Enter keys.

Find Transactions by number or value

This utility searches the transaction records in the database as opposed to the transaction grid right mouse Find function. Enter an unsigned dollar value to locate all occurrences of the value within the period range selected.

Enter the transaction number to locate the transaction anywhere within the database.

The displayed result will consist of several lines all with the same transaction number. Each line will be the occurrence of the transaction in each of the transaction files in the database.

For the general user this will help you locate the landlord, tenant etc associated with the entered "find" parameter.

Transaction Delete

This facility is provided for support purposes only.

Only use under direction.

No responsibility will be accepted for damage caused to your database through the use of this option.

This is the first function of the Archive and Purge processes.

It creates a time frozen copy of the database and any supporting programs and files.

It does not copy attachments, saved files nor photos which have not been loaded into the database itself.

Write Off, Purge, Print and Delete Programs Overview
This group of programs is used to remove unwanted records from the database thus "decluttering" screens and reports and ultimately reducing the database size, temporarily at least. Master records can not be deleted until there are no transactions in the system, and no balance on the account ,and no dependant records, so the starting point has to be removing the tenant first, then the property and finally the landlord.

Before deleting anything the Archive program must have been run so the old records can be accessed should the need arise, after which this group of programs should be stepped through.

Write Off Tenant Balances
This program is a bulk version of the Tenants > Transactions > Add > Write Off Tenant Balances used to clear an individual tenant's account.

If you have been doing your housekeeping properly you should never need this program.

The grid displays a list of all tenants with balances who have a vacate date entered equal to or before the date chosen in the Date Picker.
4Right mouse click allows you to deselect or select all records.

Unbold any line where the tenant's entire balance is not to be written off by double clicking the line.
4The individual Tenants > Transactions > Add > Write Off Tenant Balances function allows selected values to be written off.

The program creates a WriteOff record in the last period in which there was a transaction. If you made an oops delete that record from the tenant's transactions.

Purge, Print and Delete Programs
See Purge and Masterfile Deletions

SQL Queries

This facility is provided for support purposes.

Only use under direction.

No responsibility will be accepted for damage caused to your database through the use of this option.

If you have used this facility and have encountered difficulties return to an unmodified back-up database and reenter all necessary transactions and repeat any other processing required to get you up to date.

Download Data from Aspect Systems
This function is only used for support purposes.

Upload Files sub-menu
This menu entry leads to sub-menus which are used to create files suitable for transferring properties available for rent to web sites. Once the data is assembled in the format required the upload processes connect with and transfer the data to the hosting website.

Transfer to any website capable of using an Access database and the Trademe and Realenz websites are present. If you have another website with other requirements contact aspect Systems by email or through the website

XXXX More detail on usage required

Photo Administration sub-menu
This is a link to the temporary Photos processing. XXXX The topic needs repositioning and rewriting