Tuesday, January 15, 2013

What PM3 does and does not cover about rent and expenses

Here are two lists about what PM3, our free landlord's fotware. First, the functions it provides. Second, some things it doesn't do.

What PM3 does do

  1. Rent requests are created by the system as they become due. See our blog post Rent Figures in PM3 blog post.
  2. You can tick off multiple rent requests as having been paid in full.
  3. Or you can edit the requests, setting the amount due, amount paid and how the money was received.
  4. You can also add second and subsequent payments if the money comes through in several amounts.
  5. Outstanding Rent Payments (ORP) show the rent requests that have not been paid in full. You can set a cutoff date so they no longer appear after say six months.
  6. Payments can exceed the amount requested, for instance if several rent requests are settled at once. Note that this will leave the requests flagged as ORPs.
  7. Expenses are entered, either against a single address or for your portfolio as a whole. Each one can be allocated to a tax category.

What PM3 does not do

  1. Opening balances for a tenant or tenancy.
  2. Automatic netting off of payments across different rent requests.
  3. Payments covering multiple tenancies.
  4. Payments for items other than rent.
  5. Double-entry accounting.
  6. Multiple currency accounting.
  7. Splitting income and expenditure between multiple individuals for tax purposes.
  8. Allocation of expenses across tax years and across tax categories.
  9. Accounting for the reimbursement of expenses from tenants.

Why PM3 stops where it does

We want PM3 to be easy to use. Adding advanced features like those listed above is likely to make the system harder. If you need those more complicated treatments, you may be better off either with paid-for landlord software or with managing the accounting detail on a spreadsheet outside PM3.


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