Popup Calculator Utilities

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Location... press Ctl+Alt+c  or  Admin menu > Utilities > Calculator

Selecting Admin menu > Utilities > Calculator or pressing Ctl+Alt+c anywhere in the system will open a "calculator" which has a number of utilities which provide quick answers to rent and date related problems.  At the time of writing four calculators are in place and are selected using the tabs at the top of the screen.

These calculators remain open as long as the Aspect Property Manager is open.  By dragging  and close when the 


Initial Rent Calculator
The primary idea behind this calculator is to provide you with the initial rent a tenant has to pay to synchronise the day the rent is paid with the day their salary or benefit is paid into their bank account getting you "first in line" before other withdrawals are made.  See Synchronising the Rent day to Pay day for more on this.  The tenant does not need to be in the system to make use of this tool.

There are three bottom tabs to this calculator:-
  • Enter Rent data
  • Weekly / Fortnightly Rent Results
  • Monthly Rent Results

    To use this calculator do the following:-
  • Enter the Start of Tenancy date using the Date Picker
      4For weekly or fortnightly tenancy agreements select the day of the week the money goes into the bank
      4For monthly agreements select the "Monthly" radio button then select the date each month the wages go into the bank in the list box below.
  • Enter the rent per period in the appropriate rent box
      4The other rent boxes will display the calculated equivalent rent per period.
  • The letting fee and bond figures displayed use the weekly rent multipliers entered on the Setup menu > Company Details > Move In Costs tab and the results may be over keyed when "non-standard" amounts apply to the potential tenancy, as an example if the letting fee is being waived enter zero.

    Points to bear in mind when looking at the results:-
  • the primary objective is to collect the rent the day the money arrives in the tenant's bank account
  • the maximum rent you can require the tenant to pay in advance is two weeks' rent but this does not stop you asking for more
  • the payday for a tenant who is paid fortnightly may be in the week after the tenancy starts and it may be better to collect a week plus a few days rent than ask for rent covering three weeks plus a few days
  • a tenant paying weekly may in a similar position of being unable to afford two weeks plus a few days rent but can manage one week plus a few days.
  • When the tenancy agreement is for weekly or fortnightly rent payments view the results by selecting the "Weekly / Fortnightly Rent Results" bottom tab.
      4The top portion of the screen displays the amount of initial rent, letting fee and bond to collect in two columns
      4The first column shows the results when the tenant can / will only pay one plus a few days and the second where the tenant is prepared to pay more than two weeks rent.

      4The lower portion of the screen shows the amount required to be paid depending upon the payment option chosen.
  • When the tenancy agreement is for monthly rent payments view the results by selecting the "Monthly Rent Results" bottom tab
      4The top portion of the screen displays the amount of initial rent, letting fee and bond to collect in two columns
      4The first column shows the results if the tenant was only required to pay to the first payday, that is less than one month's rent while the second column where the tenant is prepared to pay one month plus the extra days rent.

      4The lower portion of the screen shows the amount required to be paid depending upon the payment option chosen.



    Court Order Set Up
    When a court order, or even a private agreement, has a tenant paying rent arrears or unpaid debt on a fixed schedule the following method of keeping track of those payments is suggested.  Knowing when either the current rent or the arrears of rent or unpaid debt does not get paid is particularly important if the court order includes the ability to obtain an immediate eviction if money is not paid on the date due.

    If you leave the tenant records in arrears, the system can not advise you when a payment is missed or short paid because the tenant will always be on the arrears report even if their payments are spot on.  This means you will need to manually check every week to see if the correct payments have been made.  But if the tenant's arrears are removed from their account and transferred to another account the Arrears report will tell you when the tenant has missed a current rent payment.  And if a second tenant is set up to account for the court ordered payments they also can be tracked by the system and a missed payment here will also appear on the Arrears report immediately.
     
    Before setting up the new tenant use the Court Order Set Up calculator to provide the Vacate date and any adjustment required when the weekly repayment rate does not divide equally into the total arrears.

    To use the calculator:-
      4enter the total court order amount
      4enter the repayment amount and period
      4enter the starting date the repayments should commence
      4use the results displayed to set up the new tenant.

    Now create the new tenant use the Tenants menu > Copy Tenant function
      4Change the SortKey to include "Court Order", "C/O", or something similar so the two tenant accounts can be easily distinguished
      4Add the "mop up" rent change record if the calculator shows one is needed
      4Enter the Vacate date which will create all the Rent Invoices up to the vacate date.

    If the tenant's arrears payments commence on a different day to the Start of Tenancy date initially entered simply change both the start and vacate dates to avoid the unnecessary appearance on the Arrears report.

    Eliminating the arrears from the current tenant can be done in two ways:-
      4one is to vacate the tenant at their Paid To date and create a new tenant with a start date of when the "fresh start" commences and write off the tenant balances
      4the second is to enter a period of zero rent covering the arrears period until the "fresh start" commences.

    Which method to use will depend upon your preference and the circumstances or terms of the court order and you may well use both.  The former retains the full history of the tenant in one account but may need multiple Rent Change records to get the right result, while the latter has lost the history.
    Tip  Use daily rent periods as this will result in one Rent Invoice record per month for each rent change made and a change can be made on any day.


    Date Calculator
    This calculator is intended to tell you the number of days between two dates and displayed as days, weeks, fortnights or months.

    NOTE   The dates are INCLUSIVE dates just as elsewhere in the Aspect Property Manager.
    That is to say from the 01 of the month to the 07 of the month is seven days not 07 minus 01 equals six days.
    Example
    Enter 01 March as the From date and 31 March as the To date
    The results will show:-
      431 days
      44 weeks and 3 days
      42 fortnights and 3 days
      41 month and zero days.

    Alongside these results will be the "rent" required based on the values entered on the Initial Rent Calculations > Enter Rents Data tab


    GST Calculator
    There are three data entry fields, Amount including GST, Amount excluding GST, and GST.
    Enter a value into the appropriate field and the other boxes will magically display the remaining values.