Author: housters

Housters 5.2 is here! We have a big new feature to tell you about: tenant screening. We’ve partnered with RentPrep to provide background checks for your applicants and tenants. Depending on which package you choose, you can verify their address history / current employment and also check for judgments / liens / bankruptcies / evictions / criminal records / sex offenses / homeland security watch lists. The prices range from $18.95 to $34.95 per report.

Also, we’ve gotten a lot of questions on the new invoicing feature. To that end, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to make it more intuitive and provide easier ways to keep your invoices in sync with your lease terms and rent payment transactions.

Lastly, our higher unit customers will be happy to know that we’re now capping the Housters monthly price to $40/month. This means that if you have 200 units, you will only pay $40/month instead of $200/month like before. For customers who have less than 40 units, your price will remain the same.

Full release notes:
– Tenant screening with RentPrep!
– Cap billing at $40/month for high unit customers
– Many improvements to invoicing feature
– New screen for verifying that invoices match lease terms and transactions
– Improved handling of prorated rent at beginning of lease
– Prettier email formatting
– Control which features your Manager subusers can access (accounting, tenant rent statuses, reports, etc…)
– Allow filtering to-do list report by date range
– Display transaction photos on reports
– Various bug fixes

Housters 5.1 is LIVE on http://housters.com! This is a big one… A lot of the major features that you all were asking for have been implemented, such as a new help section, multiple tenants in one unit support, and enhancements to invoices, security deposits, and property managers. Please note, these changes are ONLY on the website, the mobile apps will be updated in the next few weeks.

Website Release Notes:

– New help section that explains how Housters features work, such as invoices, dashboard summary figures, and property mortgages.
– Property mortgage payments are now much more intuitive, so that Housters can calculate the correct principal / interest amounts for you.
– Support for multiple residents in the same property / unit, either under one lease or separate leases.
– Can now send tenants payment receipts for security deposits.
– Show the update invoices option when logging a security deposit payment transaction, so that deposit invoices stay in sync with deposit transactions.
– Show amount still due for each invoice in list.
– Filter invoice list by date range, added load more button at bottom to view older invoices.
– When logging rent payment transaction and use invoices is yes, if amount is more than existing invoice amounts due, auto-generate next invoice and update its amount paid so that tenant shows as overpaid.
– When enabling auto-generated invoices, be able to input the description that will go in the auto-generated invoices.
– Dashboard widgets now have their heights adjusted better, so less ugly scrollbars.
– Fixed dashboard notes to save correctly.
– Fix issue with message template logo being removed if you save the form without uploading a new logo.
– Enhanced mobile app security.
– Various bug fixes.

Property Management Enhancements:

– Can now send payment receipts to landlords.
– When logging a property management payment transaction, there is now an update invoices option to keep invoices in sync with transactions.
– New landlord actions popup, to quickly log payments, increase payment due, or decrease payment due.
– Ability to deactivate old landlord clients so they no longer show in landlord lists.

Housters 5.0 has been released! This is a big one… As long as Housters has existed, we’ve been getting a ton of questions about “why does my tenant show this unpaid rent amount”? The answer involved figuring out how much the tenant was expected to pay (based on their lease terms and tenant adjustments for late fees / rent discounts), how much they actually paid (based on their rent payment transactions), and how much was left to pay (the difference between the two.)

Now we’ve made this much easier by introducing the concept of invoices. Invoices allow you to define when rent is due and when it is paid. The amount of rent due will simply be the outstanding balances on any open invoices. Once an invoice is paid in full or closed, it will no longer impact the tenant’s unpaid rent. To automate this, when setting up a tenant’s lease, you can have it auto-generate invoices for the amounts due based on their lease terms. Tenant adjustments no longer exist, any late fee can be charged by creating a new invoice or increasing the amount due on an existing one, and a rent discount can be applied by decreasing the amount due on an existing invoice.

As this is a big change, feel free to reach out if you have any confusion with the new system. I’m sure there will be some growing pains, but this will greatly simplify things in the future.

Release notes for website:
– Rent expected and due from tenants is now based off of invoices, which can be auto-generated based on lease terms of manually created
– Form enhancements
– Added support for Pakistani currency
– Can now filter the To-Do List Report by vendor
– Subuser improvements: default date and currency formats to that of the user who invited them, call your landlord option on tenant dashboard, upload photos with service/repair requests, share documents with tenant subusers
– Control which features a subuser can see and use, e.g. rent status, submit service/repair requests, etc…

Release notes for mobile:
– Added support for iOS 11 and the iPhone X!
– Invoices! We’ve made it easier to see how much tenants and landlords owe
– We’ve made subusers easier to understand and use, and given you more control over what they can see and do
– When tenants submit requests, they can now attach photos
– In the Preferences form, landlords can choose to add their phone number, which we’ll show to tenants in the app
– Add CCs when contacting tenants via the app

Housters 4.9 has been released! This is a big one… Improved navigation and customizable dashboards on the website, a new accounting mode that allows you to specify where the money came from or went to for each transaction (without knowing your debits and credits), form enhancements, and more!

Full Release Notes:
– Improved navigation (website only).
– Can customize the widgets on the main, property, and tenant dashboards (website only).
– New getting started widget on the main dashboard, which shows your progress in getting your account set up.
– New to-do list widget on dashboards.
– New accounting mode options: Single-Entry: Input what the transaction is, such as a rent payment or a repair. Double-Entry: Also input where the money came from or went to, such as a bank account or credit card. Advanced Double-Entry: Input all debits and credits for the transaction.
– Form enhancements to allow locking form manually or after signing.
– If no property photo uploaded, show street view image.
– Regenerate old mortgage payment transactions for a property (based on amortization schedule) from the edit property form.
– CC others when sending messages to tenants.
– New Balance Sheet Report.
– New Projections Report.
– Be able to customize the logo that shows on the top of reports.
– When inviting subusers to share account with, set their role to the same as the master account.
– Various bug fixes.

Housters 4.8 is live on http://housters.com! This is another release focused primarily on our property managers, making it easier for them to track the property management fees that they’re owed, or to track how much rent they need to send on to landlords (depending on who receives rent from the tenants.)

Full release notes:

– Track property management fees owed or rent that needs to be passed on to landlord correctly, based on who receives rent from tenants (property managers only)
– Filter transaction list by landlord (property managers only)
– Show landlords with unpaid property management fees on main dashboard (property managers only)
– Show unpaid property management fees on property list (property managers only)
– When adding a landlord, be able to upload a property management contract document (property managers only)
– Show unpaid security deposits on property list
– Be able to associate vendors to certain properties
– Log extra mortgage principal payments as transactions instead of on add/edit property form
– Track all form submission history for auditing purposes
– When inviting a landlord or property manager subuser, choose whether they can view data not assigned to any property
– Email user when important account info changes
– Various bug fixes

I’m excited to announce the release of Housters 4.7! This release has major updates for our property managers, such as a new landlord dashboard, contract terms for each landlord, and an easy calculator of property management fees due. In a follow up release we’ll be working on splitting your accounting / reporting based on which properties you manage and which you own, and whether you’re viewing on behalf of the landlord or for yourself (the property manager.)

Some other notable enhancements are support of adding multiple notes for a property, tenant, or landlord, and the ability to create custom message templates to leverage on the Contact Tenants screen.

Full release notes:
– Set up contract terms per landlord, easily calculate the property management fees due per property or landlord, and make adjustments to the fees due (property managers only)
– New Landlord dashboard screen (property managers only)
– Allow associating transactions directly to landlords (property managers only)
– New Landlord Payment History Report (property managers only)
– Associate property management contract to a landlord (property managers only)
– Support for adding multiple transaction types that can be counted towards rent payments, security deposit payments, or mortgage principal payments
– Create multiple custom message templates to use on the Contact Tenants screen
– Add multiple notes per property, tenant, or landlord
– Display tenants with unpaid security deposits on main and property dashboards
– New Occupancy Report that shows the occupancy rate of your properties over a date range
– Improved navigation menu
– When defining a property’s mortgage terms, be able to set a total escrow amount instead of having to specify the individual insurance and tax amounts
– When showing a tenant’s next payment date, factor in if they’ve overpaid
– Display automated tenant late fees and property auto-saved mortgage payments in the Recurring Transactions section
– When auto-saving property mortgage payment transactions, generate a new liability transaction type for each property
– Various bug fixes

Housters 4.6 is now live! You asked for the ability to customize the emails to your tenants, and now you can… We’ve created custom templates for each message type (invite tenant, invite vendor, etc…) that you can modify however you want, including the logo at the top and the links at the bottom. The send rent request email can optionally include a PDF attachment with an invoice. Similarly, the send rent receipt email can optionally include a PDF attachment with a receipt. Lastly, we now track all history of messages that you sent to tenants in a new Message History Report.

Full Release Notes:
– Fully customize your email communications (invite subuser, send rent invoice to tenant, send rent receipt to tenant, and contact tenant) by uploading your own logo and using our custom message templates and insertable values
– The send rent receipt to tenant and send rent invoice to tenant emails now include PDF attachments
– The send rent receipt to tenant email now includes the balance owed by default
– Track history of messages sent and then run a report for a given tenant, property, or date range
– Assign vendors to transaction lines, then filter by vendor on the General Ledger report
– Many improvements to Transaction Reconciliations: New dropdown for viewing previously posted reconciliations, delete previously posted reconciliations, bring over unreconciled transactions to the next statement, create statements that are for a partial month, show which transactions are reconciled on the Transaction List, filter the General Ledger report to only show reconciled or unreconciled transactions
– Projections improvements: Handle scenario where the property doesn’t have a mortgage, added a new field for up front improvements, added a new field for utilities expenses
– Help tips no longer make the screens jump around
– The Excel Import now supports transaction type, property name, and tenant name columns
– Various bug fixes

The Housters 4.5 release is now live on http://housters.com, with the mobile apps soon to follow! The big change in this release is that Housters has become more unit-centric, whereas before everything was only assignable to tenants. Before if you had a vacant unit in a multifamily property, there was no way to log an expense or a to-do for that unit, but now you can.

Release Notes:
– Added ability to assign transactions and to-do’s directly to units, even if no tenant in unit
– Filter by unit in transaction list, to-do list, and relevant reports
– Can now assign a tenant to multiple units in a property
– When updating a to-do and marking that a payment was made to the vendor, ask if they want to save a vendor payment transaction
– The Tenant Action for logging rent paid now asks if you want to send a rent receipt
– Improved rent calculations when multiple leases
– Added Saudi currency
– Various bug fixes

Housters 4.4 is live on http://housters.com, with the mobile apps soon to follow!

Release notes:

– Allow quick add/edit of to-do’s
– The transaction list now has a “Load More” button at the bottom, which will expand the date range
– Attach not just images but also PDF’s to transactions
– When adding/editing a property, allow saving old mortgage payment transactions based on amortization schedule
– Landlords and property managers can now add multiple bank accounts, then pick which should receive rent payments for each tenant
– Consolidate Gross Income and Operating Costs Reports into a single Net Operating Income Report
– Allow filtering reports by landlord when in Property Manager role
– Show report filters when exporting to PDF or Excel
– Show price range labels at bottom of Gross Income vs.Operating Costs chart on dashboard
– International users can set their currency and date formats while signing up
– Added Norwegian currency support
– Various bug fixes

Housters 4.3 is live on http://housters.com, with the mobile apps soon to follow!

Release notes:
– Create custom online forms for lease agreements, applications, etc… Then share with tenants and applicants so they can fill out and sign them
– Online rent payments are now only $1, before they were $2
– Contacts have been renamed to Vendors
– For Property Managers – Filter property list and reports by landlord
– A property’s mortgage payment info and balance can now be seen on the property dashboard
– When adding/editing a property, choose whether that property’s transactions should be factored into the dashboard financial figures
– Recurring transactions can now be deactivated
– The Rent History Report now shows individual rent payments
– When inviting subuser, can now select all / deselect all visible properties
– New vendor types: “Property Manager” and “Resident Manager” have been added
– Various bug fixes