Transition to Multiple Property Ledgers

For our Asia-Pacific customers, the term "Trust Account" is used, while European customers refer to it as "Client Account". It's important to mention that the Client/Trust Accounting functionality does not apply to customers in North America. For further information on regional terms, check out our Glossary of Regional Terminology.

This article aims to provide a straightforward guide on how to transition to managing property funds under a single owner contact using multiple property ledgers in Re-Leased. If you previously set up multiple owner contacts for handling different financial aspects of a property, such as Operating Expenses, these instructions will help you consolidate them using our updated functionality for a more streamlined experience.

Understanding the Steps for Transition

To successfully leverage the multiple ledger feature, you need to follow a series of steps for each affected owner contact. These steps will help you review and adjust settings, merge contacts, and ensure that your ledgers and fee rules function correctly under the new system.

Reviewing and Adjusting Ledger Settings

First, identify the Operating Expenses (OpEx) ledger for each property:

1. Review and adjust the ledger settings as highlighted.
2. Take note of the Owner Disbursable & Generate Statement settings, as they take precedence over the Disbursement Profile settings.
3. Do not change the ledger owner just yet, as owner contacts will be merged in a subsequent step.

Note: The Used for Owner Fees toggle will indicate which ledger should be used for any Owner Fees Rules associated with the Property.

Updating Disbursement Profiles

Update the disbursement profiles for the main Property Owner contact to include the profiles from the OpEx owner contact.

Consolidating Fee Rules

Proceed to consolidate your fee rules:

1. Navigate to Client/Trust Accounting Reports and select the Fee Rules Report.
2. Run the report for both owner contacts, then add any necessary fee rules from the OpEx contact to the main Property Owner contact.
   
   

Merging Owner Contacts

Here's how to merge your owner contacts:

1. Go to the contacts list, select the OpEx owner contact, and then choose Merge.
2. Type the name of the main Property Owner contact and select it from the options that appear.
3. Confirm the action by ticking the checkbox, and click Merge.

Important: Contact Details and Fee Rules will not be directly merged through this function.

Managing Ledgers on the Property

Add the Owner's OpEx ledger to the Property's Ledgers tab.




Configuring Ledger Default Accounts

Control which ledger is the default for each type of income and expenses.

1. Select Edit beside the ledger.
2. Check the boxes to the left of each account code to be defaulted to this ledger.

Configuring Rent/Outgoings Templates

Edit Rent/Outgoings templates for the property and tenancies:

1. Change the Use Default Ledgers setting to YES.
2. Save your changes, making sure templates reflect the updated ledger setup for the property.

Understanding Fees After Transitioning

The introduction of Multiple Ledgers allows greater control over where fees are sourced from in relation to specific Property Ledgers:

1. When a payment initiates a Fee Rule, the system first identifies the expense code from the rule to determine which ledger will be charged.
2. If the expense code matches a ledger designated under the Property's Ledger settings, that specific ledger gets charged.
   
   

Enhancement Tip: Consider adding distinct expense codes for Outgoings Management Fees and creating corresponding Fee Rules to optimize this feature.