You can now add attachments to property inspection results.  You do this by opening an inspection, click the results button, and then choose the Attachments tab at the top of the screen.

The most likely use of attachments is to add photos.

Another change is that you can now access the inspections from the Tenant details screen, instead of going to the Inspections screen.  The inspections are still added via the main inspection schedule screen however.

In addition to those changes, the tenant and landlord logins now both also have the ability to show the photos added by the inspector, as long as the attachment is a photo with a jpg, png or gif file extension.  This is a great way to keep landlords in particular up to date with the state of their properties.

The demo tenant and landlord logins both have sample photos.

This is a big new change for RentHQ customers.  You can now access RentHQ on your mobile phone or tablet.  And best of all, the additional software is free.

This is the first version, and there are plans to do even more with mobile devices in future.

Currently it is available for an Android phone or tablet.  Support for other devices will come in future.

You can download the free software to your Android by going to the demo page of the web site and click the Android Download link. (http://www.renthq.net/Demo.aspx)

If you dont have an Android, and want to see what you are currently missing out on, there is a short video demonstration also on the demo page.

A change has been made to the Last Disbursement report.  You can now specify a from date.  Any disbursement prior to that date will be excluded.  Therefore if you have any old closed owners, who have not received a disbursement for a while, they will not be included on the report.

A new report has been created under Tenant Reports called the Rent Roll report.  This is a simgple report which print the tenants current rent and balance.

On the report selection screen, when printing the Tenant Invoice or one of the Tenant Statement reports, you can now select a single tenant from the drop down list box.  This will overwrite the property selection and print for that single tenant only.

You can now add attachments to work orders, just like you can add attachments to tenants and properties and owners.  So now you can add any file type like a photo or a specification to a work order.

Work orders can now be printed via the 2 prints buttons on the work order details screen.

The 2 print buttons allow 2 different formats of the report to be printed.  The first is an internal report which has all the details on it.  The second is the contractor version, which has a limited amount of information on it.  For example it does not print all your notes.  The second version could be sent to the contractor for their information or for quoting.

A new feature has been added to RentHQ which will enable tenant and owner statements to be sent via email.

For this feature to work, the primary contact for the owner or tenant needs an email address.  Is they dont have an email address, that tenant/owner is not sent an email, but the ones who do, will.

You also need to create a new mail merge letter to send to the tenant or owner.  This will determine what the email looks like.  As part of the update, 2 new sample letters have been created called the New Tenant Statement and the New Owner Statement letters.  You can either modify these letters or create new letters.  The main new feature of these letters is the Statement URL item that can be inserted.  Note that the name of the letter will also be used as the email subject.

The sample letter will look something like this.  Note the url in this sample does not work.

When the email is sent, the email letter will contain a web site URL which they can use to access the original PDF file.  The PDF file is not attached to the email.

Emails are not send by default when the report is generated.  To get the email sent, on the report print screen, you need to specify you want to generate separate files for each owner/tenant, and also that you want to send emails.  You then also get to specify which mail merge letter to send to the owner/tenant.  The system will remember the mail merge format used for the next time you print a statement.  You will need to have different letters for tenants and owners.

A new version of RentHQ has been released which now enabled you to send emails via outlook.

This is set up by going to the Fuctions/Setup/Options screen, then to the Email tab, and choose the option to use Outlook as the method of sending emails.  You should then use the Send Test Email button to confirm it is set up correctly.

There are a few issues to note.

This will only work with Windows.  It wont work on a Mac.

You need to have the full version of Outlook installed on your computer, and also have it running in the background when sending emails.

In order to send emails via Outlook, RentHQ has to be run under a higher security mode.  To do this, right click anywhere in RentHQ and choose to Install RentHQ on your computer.  After installing, a new icon will be added to your desktop or start menu or both.  You need to run RentHQ from this icon, not in the web browser, to use Outlook.

The RentHQ web site has undergone a massive facelift.  Although the content is the same, it now looks fantastic.  Thanks to the graphic designers who have made the web site look a lot better than it did before.

The RentHQ software has not changed.