The Management Statement Period.
The management statement brings the landlord up to date on what you have received and paid out on his behalf since the last statement. It is dated from the last statement date up to today. That’s what a statement is.
The rent period is the period for which rent is due. As rent is usually paid in advance the rent period may well end a month from now. Don't try and date the statement (and the commission invoice) to the end of the rent period - you will get in an awful mess.
To date a statement to a date in the future (i.e. the end of the rent period) is nonsensical.
If landlords have become used to seeing the rent period on the statement the difference (and the advantages) may need to be explained to them. The rent due during the statement period as well as the rent period itself can optionally be shown on the statement but the statement period dates are the important ones.
There are many reasons for Rentman working in this way.
1. Rentman enables (and encourages) you to group properties owned by one landlord together in one "building". Each property will of course have its own tenancy with differing rent due dates. (The same applies to rooms in an HMO.)
2. You may need to send a statement when there are no tenants in a property (because you may still be paying bills, returning deposits, withholding deposit as rent and deducting other amounts from deposits etc.)
3. A monthly management statement may span one tenancy ending and another beginning.
4. Bills and other transactions are dated.... to have a bill dated 17/06/2012 appear on a statement dated 01/07/2012 to 31/07/2012 (the rent period) would be very confusing for everyone.
5. Remember, commission is charged on the rent received during the statement period – not the rent that became due. They are usually the same but not necessarily so; the rent may only have been partially paid or there may have been arrears paid left over from a previous rent period. Rentman simply keeps a running total of rent due and rent received - and there is never a need to mark a rent payment as paying off a particular rent due. This means that if a tenant gets behind with their rent Rentman automatically adjusts the rent outstanding as rent is received. It also means that just because rent was received in the last month doesn't mean it was paying off the rent that was due last month. Showing the statement period makes it very easy if rent is owing from one month to the next; the commission is charged on what was actually received – when the tenant catches up (or it is withheld from the deposit) Rentman just includes the amount with any other rent received in that statement period. (see the appendix below for a more detailed example.)
Dating the
statement (and commission invoice) to the rent period only works when tenants
don’t get behind on rent, when you don’t have transactions and statements
between tenancies and when you don’t wish to combine flats in one house or
rooms in one HMO into one “building” (all of which Rentman has to cater for).
So.... Rentman
considers the rent period meaningless and misleading,
very deliberately divorces it from the statement
period and we discourage you from using it.
Having said
all that Rentman can put the rent period there if you wish. It’s a very simple
switch on the company preferences screen.
In which the wisdom of rentman’s manner of dating management statements to a
statement period is further illustrated.
A tenant has a shortfall or fails to pay one month. Nevertheless there were bills paid and a statement needs to be sent when it is due (regardless of when rent is received). The commission invoice that month will be zero or for the partial amount received. The following month the full amount is received but not the arrears. The commission charged is then for rent that was due the previous month, because the rent received was for rent that was due the previous month. To have the statement and commission dated with this month’s rent period is incorrect. By tying the statement and commission to the statement period we save ourselves a lot of confusion.
e.g.
on 01/04/2010 we send this statement
Statement
for period 02/03/2010 to 01/04/2010
05/03/2010
bill paid
50.00
01/04/2010
rent due for period 01/04/2010 to 31/04/2010 :
1000.00
01/04/2010
rent received
500.00
01/04/2010
commission for statement period 02/03/2010 to
01/04/2010
57.50
01/04/2010
payment to
landlord
392.50
Note we have £500 rent oustanding. On 01/05/2010 we might send this statement
Statement
for period 02/04/2010 to 01/05/2010
03/04/2010sink
repair
82.50
01/05/2010
rent due for period 01/05/2010 to 31/05/2010 : 1000.00
01/05/2010
rent
received
1000.00
01/05/2010
commission for statement period 02/04/2010 to
01/05/2010
117.50
01/05/2010
payment to landlord
800.00
Let’s say the tenancy then expires. The 500.00 arrears is paid off by deposit retention and you get a new tenant in for the following month. The next statement shows...
Statement
for period 02/05/2010 to 01/06/2010
31/05/2010
deposit retained as rent
500.00
01/06/2010
rent due for period 01/06/2010 to 31/06/2010 : 1250.00
01/06/2010
rent
received
1250.00
01/06/2010
commission for statement period 02/05/2010 to
01/06/2010
205.65
01/06/2010
payment to landlord
1544.35
Everything sorts itself out nicely.
Perhaps it’s more complicated than that.....
Statement
for period 02/05/2010 to 01/06/2010
31/05/2010
deposit retained as rent
500.00
01/06/2010
Cleaning
100.00
01/06/2010
commission for statement period 02/05/2010 to
01/06/2010
58.75
01/06/2010Payment
to landlord
341.25
Note there are no tenants!
Statement
for period 02/06/2010 to 01/07/2010
01/07/2010
rent due for period 01/07/2010 to 31/07/2010 : 1250.00
01/07/2010
rent
received
1250.00
01/07/2010
commission for statement period 02/06/2010 to
01/07/2010
146.87
01/07/2010
payment to landlord
1103.13
Again very straightforward.
Now let’s see it with the statement dated to the rent period.....
on 01/04/2010 we send this statement
Statement
for period 01/04/2010 to 31/04/2010
05/03/2010
bill
paid
50.00
01/04/2010
rent due for period 01/04/2010 to 31/04/2010 :
1000.00
01/04/2010
rent received
500.00
01/04/2010
commission for period 01/04/2010 to
31/04/2010
57.50
01/04/2010
payment to
landlord
392.50
Note we have 500.00 rent outstanding. And a bill paid on 05/03/2010 is in a statement for the period 01/04/2010 to 31/04/2010.
And on 01/05/2010 we send this statement
Statement
for period 01/05/2010 to 31/05/2010
03/04/2010
sink
repair
82.50
01/05/2010
rent due for period 01/05/2010 to 31/05/2010 : 1000.00
01/05/2010
rent
received
1000.00
01/05/2010
commission for period 01/05/2010 to 31/05/2010
117.50
01/05/2010
payment to landlord
800.00
That commission is NOT for the rent period 01/05/2010 to 31/05/2010. Half of it is for rent that was due the previous month. Doing it rentman’s way saves us from having to allocate rent received against specific rent due.
Statement
for period 01/06/2010 to 31/06/2010
31/05/2010
deposit retained as rent
500.00
01/06/2010
rent due for period 01/06/2010 to 31/06/2010 : 1250.00
01/06/2010
rent
received
1250.00
01/06/2010
commission for statement period 01/06/2010 to
31/06/2010
205.65
01/06/2010
payment to landlord
1544.35
Again the commission is NOT for rent period 01/06/2010 to 31/06/2010. And if you ever try to revisit this perhaps a year or so later it won’t make sense.
And it would be more or less impossible to send a statement for the more complicated (no tenants) scenario above.