Automations are a feature that have been in LandlordMax for some time however with the Cloud Edition we’ve really expanded what you can do with them. You can now automate the running of any report for a tenant or for landlord in a single step. That is to say for example you can run the Tenant Statement for all your tenants in one step. If you’re a property management company instead of an individual investor you can also run the same reports for all your clients (the landlords in your database) in one step by running for example the P&L reports for all landlords. And of course this also includes any custom reports you create for your tenants and landlords.

Please note that all the steps below are shown in the above video. They are provided below for people who prefer reading rather than watching videos.

The first step is to go to the Automations section of the software by clicking the Automations button in the main menu as shown above. Once there you will need to select which type of Automation you want to run, whether it’s to run the same reports for every tenant or the same reports for every landlord.

In the above screenshot we’ve gone to the Automations for the tenant reports and have selected to run Tenant Statement for every tenant.

Once you’ve selected a report to run you will then be presented with the report details. For the Tenant Statement this means the Start Date and End Date of the Tenant Statement report. Each report will be different and include whatever the report requires, including your custom reports.

You will then have to select the “For Each Option” for the report, that is which tenants (or landlords) you want to run the report for. For tenants you currently have three options: All tenants with data only, Current tenants, and Current tenants with data only. We generally recommend using the All tenants with data only option as this will run the reports for all tenants that have data (exactly as it states). We generally recommend against using the current tenants option other than in certain exceptional cases because for example if you run a rent roll report for next month and you have a new tenant moving in next month then that is not yet a current tenant and will not appear in the rent roll report where you probably expect them to appear. Therefore generally we recommend using the All tenants (or landlords) with data only option other than the few exceptions where the other options are necessary.

Once you’ve setup everything you can just click on the Run button to run the report for every tenants or landlord as defined by your settings. The system will then present you with a PDF to print, where each report will be separated in the final printouts. It’s as simple as that! In our example we’ve basically just run the Tenant Statement for all our tenants in a few seconds but we could’ve done this for any report for tenants or landlords.

We’re very pleased to announce a new features in LandlordMax called the Accounting Color Codes. LandlordMax now provides you with 7 different color codes to help you with your Accounting Entries. The Color Codes help you determine whether an entry is upcoming and due in the future, if it’s due today, if it’s late, and by how late it is, and so on.

The colors can all be adjusted and set according to your preferences but by default they are green, blue, yellow, orange, red, white, and gray. Green means an Accounting Entry hasn’t yet been paid but is also not yet due. In other words it’s an upcoming transaction that you should be aware of. Blue means that it’s due today. Yellow, orange, and red all mean that the Accounting Entry is late but they signify the lateness of the entry. That is to say yellow means it’s a bit late but still within reasons. Orange means it’s getting late and if it’s a rent payment then you’ve probably already given your tenant a warning. Red means it’s clearly overdue and most likely additional actions need to be taken. By default yellow means up to 3 days late, orange up to 7 days late, and red is more than 7 days late. You can change these settings as shown below to be as many days as you prefer.

In addition to lateness there are two additional color codes which by default are white and grey. White means that an Accounting Entry has been paid (that is it has both a Date Due and Date Paid value entered) and therefore the transaction is completed. Gray on the other hand means the transaction was NSF, such as when a check bounces, and as such the entry is also closed but the funds haven’t been paid nor will they ever be paid for that Accounting Entry.

Again all the colors can be adjusted to your liking by going to the System Settings section of the software and editing the values for the colors, in addition to editing the number of days for the lateness levels.

The video tutorial above shows how these are displayed in the software as well as how to get to the System Settings and adjust them to your personal preference. Basically everything covered here but in video format.