Setting up
This chapter is your first week (see Your roadmap). Do the tasks roughly in the order they appear. The Setup Checklist under Settings follows the same order and ticks itself off as you go.
Most of what goes wrong later starts here. A property with the wrong shares produces wrong demands. A leaseholder with no correspondence address cannot be served. A building whose questions are not answered has no fire or lift checks on its register, and nothing chases them.
What to have ready
- Your firm's registered name, address, telephone, email and logo.
- Your colleagues' names and work email addresses, and what each of them does.
- For each property: its address, the client (landlord or residents' company), its service charge year end, its units, the leaseholders and their correspondence addresses, and each unit's share of each schedule from the lease.
- From the outgoing agent: the balances each leaseholder owed or was owed on the handover day, and what each fund held.
- For each building: its height, its storeys, and whether it has a lift, gas, communal fire alarms and the like.
Two ways in
If you are moving a portfolio from another system, load it from spreadsheets (see Loading your portfolio from spreadsheets). If you are taking on one block, add it by hand (see Taking on a new block by hand). Either way, check the figures against the old system before you issue anything (see Checking your figures against the old system).
Signing in and your office
- Signing in for the first time
- Working through the Setup Checklist
- Setting up your organisation's details and letterhead
Your people
- Adding colleagues and giving them a login
- Deciding what each colleague can do
- Setting approval limits for supplier invoices
Your properties
- Taking on a new block by hand
- Setting a property's service charge year end
- Recording a building's parking bays
- Grouping properties into portfolios
- Recording the lease terms (lease abstract)
Your leaseholders and their shares
- Adding a leaseholder, a joint leaseholder or a company to a unit
- Setting each unit's share of the service charge (apportionment)
Moving from another system
- Loading your portfolio from spreadsheets
- Checking your figures against the old system
- Recording the outgoing agent's handover and opening position