Bookkeeper Need to Know Yardi Facts Sheet

Transcription

1 Bookkeeper Need to Know Yardi Facts Sheet Yardi Policies and Procedures The Yardi Policies and Procedures manual for FMG is available on the Intranet under Operations Center>Yardi. Leasing Week Yardi operates on a leasing week that runs Monday-Sunday. The previous leasing week is closed every Monday at 2 pm CST/3 pm EST (except in cases where a holiday falls on a Monday). All traffic, applications, move ins, move outs and notice to vacates for the week must be entered before the leasing week is closed. Accounting Month End Accounting deadline calendars are available on the Intranet under Operations Center>Accounting. Your AME Checklist is also available on the Intranet under Operations Center>Yardi. Do not let your accountant know that you are ready to close your accounting month if you still have unresolved Yardi issues that have been submitted through the ticketing system. Once you have let your accountant know that you are ready to close your accounting month, make sure that everyone is aware that no processing in Yardi is allowed until you receive confirmation from your accountant that you can process again. Put a sticky note on each computer if you have to. Yardi Help Desk All Yardi related questions and issues should be submitted through the ticketing system. Procedures for registering for the ticketing system and submitting a ticket are available on the Intranet under Operations Center>Yardi. Write Offs If you are not a Shoptaw or Sterling owned property, all write offs must be done every month on the day of Accounting Month End after deposit accounting has been processed. The balance should not go through an accounting month end if the deposit accounting has already been completed. The detailed procedures for write offs are located in the Yardi Procedures Manual under Writing of Rent Charges and Writing Off Other Charges.

2 If deposit accounting has not yet been performed on a past resident with a delinquent balance, you should not write off this balance. Wait until the next accounting month, in which deposit accounting has been performed, and write off on the day of Accounting Month End. To be able to know what balances should be written off, pull the Aged Receivables report for all Past, Cancelled and Denied statuses and choose Report Summary By Charge Code. It is very important to choose Reports Summary By Charge Code on the report filter. This will show not only the resident s balance, but it will show the specific charges by charge code that are unpaid. Verify that deposit accounting has been completed for each of these residents and process write offs for all those with a balance due. All rent charges are written off to the w/or charge code unless you are an NML property. If you are an NML property, you will use the w/o-nml charge code to write off all rent charges. You designate the charge code that these charges are written off to in the Write Off Charge Code field on the write off charge filter. All other charges (everything except rent) are not written off to one particular charge code, but instead are written off to its own charge code. For example, an unpaid clean charge would be written off to clean, but an unpaid damg charge would be written off to damg. By leaving the Write Off Charge Code field blank on the write off charge filter, each other charge chosen will be written of to its own charge code. The easiest way to make sure that rent charges are written off to w/or (w/o-nml for NML properties) and other charges are written off to its own charge code, is to write off all rent charges for residents first; and then write off the other charges for residents. This way, you only have to change the Write Off Charge Code on the write off charge filter once when you switch from writing off rent to other charges. If you are writing off one resident at a time, you are constantly having to change the Write Off Charge Code back and forth, and it is very easy to forget to change it. Another tip when writing off rent charges: The Charge Code field on the write off charge filter determines what unpaid charges are brought over for the resident. If you enter rent as the Charge Code and w/or (or w/o-nml for NML properties) as the Write Off Charge Code, it will only pull over unpaid rent charges, and you will not be able to accidentally checkmark the boxes of any other charges. Monthly Posting Monthly posting will run for each property automatically in the evening on the 1 st day of each month, including holidays and weekends. Before the end of the 1 st day of each month, all move ins and move outs scheduled for the previous calendar month should be moved in, moved out or have their move in or move out date adjusted if they will no longer be moving in or moving out in the previous month. If you have a move out scheduled for the previous month, and you don t move them out prior to monthly posting, they will not be billed for the current month. This can cause many issues if they didn t actually move out in the previous month, and their move out date has to be

3 adjusted into the current month. If you have a move in scheduled for the previous month, and you don t move in them in prior to monthly posting, they will only be charged for the pro-rated amount for the previous move in, and they will never be billed for the current month. You would then have to create these charges manually. Before the end of the 1 st day of each month, all renewals/month to months effective for the current month should be entered. Run the monthly posting report only function on or before the 1 st day of each month and correct any issues by the end of the business day. If a resident was not charged through monthly posting on the 1 st, but should have been charged, you should submit a Yardi ticket to have an admin user re-run monthly posting for this one resident. It is always best for monthly charges to be created through monthly posting instead of creating the charges manually. This is especially important if the resident will be moving out in that month as the move out pro-rate will not be correct if the monthly charges are created manually. Concession Chargebacks for Late Pays If you are charging back a concession charge for a month (due to late payment/nsf) for a current resident, charge this back up to the conc or renc charge code (depending on which charge code was used to give the credit in the first place). Re-applying a Receipt When a payment is posted to the wrong ledger, you should use the Reapply button on the receipt screen to remove the payment from the current ledger and post it to the correct ledger. There is a small issue with the reapply receipt function in Yardi when you need to move a payment from one ledger to another because the payment has been posted to the wrong resident. When you click on the reapply button on the receipt screen and the new receipt screen opens to allow you to post the payment to the correct ledger, the original resident s code pre-populates the resident field. If you only enter the unit number of the resident where the payment should be reapplied and click on enter detail, it does not populate the resident field with the correct new resident code. It will continue to use the original resident code, and the payment will not be reapplied to the correct ledger. I have contacted Yardi about the issue, but there is a simple work around until the issue is addressed. Before clicking on enter detail on the new receipt screen, click on the resident link and click on the box next to the correct resident. You can then click on OK, and the correct resident code will be populated in the resident field. You can then continue entering the new receipt and click on Save.

4 Deposit Accounting It is the policy of FMG that all deposit accountings should be processed within 7 days of the move out. You must review the resident s ledger prior to going into the deposit accounting screen. The ledger will show you all charges for this resident whereas the deposit accounting screen will only show you the unpaid portions of these charges. You must verify that the resident has been billed for the correct number of days according to his move out date. You must also review the ending dates on the active lease charges to ensure they are equal to the actual move out date. If the resident should be charged or credited for additional days, this credit or charge should be created automatically through deposit accounting. If you are a property that has a third party vendor who bills the tenant for water, trash and or sewer charges, you should request a final bill for this resident prior to doing deposit accounting. This final bill should be charged to the resident during the deposit accounting process. Please verify the usage dates on the final water bill. If your resident s utility charges are imported into Yardi for you monthly, it s possible that the resident owes for usage for dates previous to the final water bill that have not been imported into Yardi yet. If this is the case, make sure you create the additional charges for that usage period when processing deposit accounting. There is a chance that your resident may have additional charges imported into Yardi after you request the final water bill and complete deposit accounting in Yardi. This is due to the timing of the water company creating the import file and you requesting the final bill. If additional charges are imported, and the resident does not owe these additional charges because they were included in the final water bill, these charges should be reversed. Please submit a Yardi ticket for help with reversing these charges. If a resident moves out before the end of the month, but owes through the end of the month (or even for a future month) due to insufficient notice or lease termination, you should never uncheck the move our pro-rate credits/charges created through deposit accounting. It is very necessary for these pro-rates to hit the resident s ledger to record accurate vacancy for that unit. Instead of unchecking these boxes, you should let them hit and charge it back up to the notice or term charge code, depending on the situation. You would also never want to charge back for these additional days using the rent charge code. Rent charges help to determine the vacancy for that unit. If you uncheck the move out pro-rate boxes or charge it back to rent, your vacancy will be reduced incorrectly. Concessions Related to Deposit Accounting If you have already charged back the full monthly concession for the current month, and the resident moves out before the end of that month, you should always check the concession move out pro-rate. In most (if not all) of these cases, you already gave the concession for the full month, and you already charged back the concession for the full month, so the net concession given for the month is $0. Yardi has no way of determining that you already charged back the concession for the month, and it will create a move out pro-rate for the concession too. In this

5 scenario, you would uncheck the move out pro-rate box for the concession, or you would be charging more for concession this month than was given. If a resident breaks his lease and is to be charged back for all concessions given during his lease term, and you do not think the resident will pay these fees, please use the term charge code to charge for the concession charge backs. In the Description on deposit accounting, please note that the charge is for concession charge back due to lease break/skip. If a resident breaks his lease and is to be charged back for all concessions given during his lease term, and the resident has already paid (or you know he will pay) all of the lease break fees including concession payback, you should charge back any concessions to conc or renc (depending on which charge code was used to give the concessions in the first place). On Site Transfers When a resident wishes to transfer on site, the Transfer Unit function should be used to do this. This function will create the future resident on the new unit, and change the status of the resident on the old unit to notice. The procedures for the Transfer Unit function are located in the Yardi Procedures Manual. The Notice of Transfer date on the transfer unit filter should NEVER be entered as a date in the future. The Notice of Transfer Date should be the date that the resident gave notice that he would like to transfer. The Transfer Unit function allows you to transfer any security deposits or credits from the old unit to the new unit. It can also transfer any balance due to the new unit. Please note that security deposit credits from the old unit transfer over as a credit on the new account. You must create the dep charge if the amount is to remain a security deposit on the new unit. In order for the credit/balance to be transferred to the new unit, you must checkmark the Include Security Deposit Balance in transfer box on the transfer unit workflow. This box should be checkmarked by default. The credit/balance from the old unit is not transferred until you process deposit accounting. Make sure that the move out date for the old unit is set for the date that the resident will actually be vacating the unit, just like any other move out, even if you are not charging the resident for the days it takes to move from one unit to the other. These days can later be concessed. The move in date for the new unit should always be the actual move in date that is noted on the lease. The move out pro-rate on the old unit is determined by the move out date. If you are not charging the resident for additional days that it takes to move from one unit to the other, you can credit the account for those days using the conc charge code. When the transfer unit function is completed, the notice resident is assigned a new resident code in Yardi while the future resident is assigned the original resident code. Water charges that are imported and Property Bridge payments that are imported are linked to that resident code, so you may notice that water charges and Property Bridge payments for the notice unit are imported on the future resident record in error. If this happens, you can reverse the charges on the future resident record and re-enter them on the notice resident record. To correct a

6 Property Bridge payment that is applied to the future resident instead of the notice resident, you can use the re-apply receipt function in Yardi to move the payment to the correct account. If the resident cancels his transfer, the original resident code stays with the cancelled resident record instead of it being assigned back to the notice resident. Yardi has also been made aware of this issue. Renewals/Month to Months All renewals and month to months should be entered in Yardi in a timely manner. The easiest way to determine who is month to month and if they are being charged a month to month fee is to pull your Daily Activity Report (located on your dashboard in Yardi) and review the Month to Month section. I suggest pulling this report on the 1 st business day of each month prior to monthly posting being completed that evening. It will then show you all residents whose leases expired in the previous calendar month and all months prior. It will also show the month to month charge currently being billed. If no month to month charge is currently being billed, and it should be, you should perform the month to month function on this resident before monthly posting is completed. It is important that renewals and month to months are entered prior to monthly posting being processed, if the new renewal or month to month rate if effective that month. For example, a renewal has been signed by a resident, and the rate is going up by $20 beginning in January. This renewal should be entered in Yardi prior to January monthly posting being completed to ensure that the charges are billed correctly for that month. If a renewal or month to month is effective in a month where monthly posting has already been completed, it is important to correct any charges already created on the resident s ledger for the month. The lease charges for the current month should always match what was actually charged to the resident s ledger that month unless a lease charge correction for a previous month was processed in the current month. For example, a resident was being charged $800 for rent and -$40 for conc on the old lease. The lease ended December 31 st, and he signed a renewal with the new rate to begin in January of $810 rent and -$30 renc. His renewal was not entered before monthly posting was done for January, and he was billed $800 to rent and -$40 to conc. You would create a $10 charge to rent, $40 charge to conc and a -$30 charge to renc. Now the net charges for the month are $810 rent, $0 conc and -$30 to renc, and these charges match the lease charges for the current month. For those of you with staggered lease ending dates, it is very important to change the ending date and beginning date of new lease charges created through the renewal and month to month function (if you are not charging them for the old rate through the ending day of their old lease and starting the new rate the day the new lease begins). For example, a resident s lease expires January 18 th, and his new renewal begins January 19 th, but the resident will pay the old rate for the entire month of January. The new rate isn t effective until February 1 st. When the renewal is entered, it will end the old rent lease charge as of January 18 th, and start the new rent lease charge as of January 19 th. You will need to go into the

7 lease charges and change the ending date on the old lease charge to January 31 st, and change the start date of the new rent lease charge to February 1 st. Apply Credits When running apply credits, always choose Post to G/L on the filter. Never choose Create Batch as this will create a receipt batch that then has to be posted by the property. Notice to Vacates When a resident is put on notice, you must end the lease charges as of the expected move out date. By doing this, Yardi will only charge for the days the resident is expected to live there when monthly posting is completed on the 1 st. It is important that the resident is only charged for those days in case he has a recurring online payment set up or in case he wants to make a one-time online payment for his move out pro-rate. If the lease charges are not ended, the resident will be charged for the entire month, and his recurring payment (if set up) would draft this full month s balance. The resident would not be able to make a onetime online payment for his move out pro-rate because he is required to pay his full balance in Yardi. Any time a move out date is adjusted, the ending dates on the resident s lease charges must be adjusted to the new move out date. If the resident adjusted his move out date to a date in the same month as the original move out date, nothing else needs to be done. You should not manually charge for any additional days. Any additional days will be charged or credited automatically when the deposit accounting is completed. If the resident adjusted his move out date to a date in a different month than the original move out date, you must manually charge for the remainder of the current month that was not charged through monthly posting on the 1 st. Please make sure that you charge the remainder of the month back to each individual charge code. You must delete the ending dates on the resident s lease charges when a notice to vacate is canceled, and you must manually charge for the remainder of the current month that was not charged through monthly posting on the 1 st. Please make sure that you charge the remainder of the month back to each individual charge code. Cleaning Up Small Balances/Prepays for Current Residents You should always notify the resident of a small balance or prepay first and attempt to collect the money or allow the resident to use the prepay prior to removing it from Yardi. If the small balance is not paid or the small prepay used, balances and prepays under $10 can be removed in Yardi. To get rid of these small balances in Yardi, you should create a negative charge to disc in the amount of the balance. To get rid of these small prepays in Yardi, you should create a positive charge to disc in the amount of the prepay.