Property Management - Import charges

If you’re using the Property Management and Accounts functionality within Alto, rather than have your accounts team manually enter tenancy rent charges and the associated management commission percentage, you can import them.

Within Alto, you have the ability to import tenancy rent charges and the associated management commission percentage for active tenancies*, based on the tenancy schedules in Jupix. This offers significant time-saving benefits, in comparison to previously needing to add them manually.
*Active tenancies (Active, Active - Renewing, Active - Not Renewing, Active - Periodic) with a Jupix Management Type of Fully Managed or Rent Collection Only.

For a full end to end walkthrough of the import charges process, please see the below video.

Stopping automated charges

Prior to starting the import process, we encourage you to turn off overnight automatic raising of charges. Only once the process is complete and you've checked the imported charges should you then turn it back on. 

To turn off automatic raising of charges:

1. Click Tools on the main navigation bar
2. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
3. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
4. Click Companies
5. Click Edit next to the relevant company
6. Scroll down and tick Stop Automated Charges. (If this is ticked, the process will be turned OFF)
7. Click Save, then Refresh your browser

Importing your charges

The import process will migrate the following source data from Jupix into Alto:

• Rent charges, including
  • Rent amount
  • Rent frequency
  • Next rent due date
  • Rent payment method
  • Rent payment reference
• Tenancy management commission percentages (migrated into Alto as property commission charges)

To start the import process:

1. Click Accounts on the main navigation bar
2. Within Transactions, click Import Charges on the side menu
3. Use the calendar to select the date that you want to start charging rent (this must be today’s date or a date in the future)
4. Click Start Import
5. Confirm that you want to continue with the import charges process
6. Alto will collect the source data from Jupix (tenancy schedules and management commission percentages for active tenancies) and create rent charges against the tenancy, and property commission charges against the property, in Alto. The process can take up to five minutes and you'll be notified when the import is complete via a popup notification

Post import checks

To verify that the charges have been imported successfully, we advise you to review the Errors and warnings report, and run some post import checks. This includes checking your rent charges, commission charges, and tenancies.

Errors and warnings report

1. Once the import is complete, below 2) Import your charges, click the errors and warning report
2. Review that all rent charges and/or all management commissions have imported

If all rent charges and/or all management commissions have failed to import, this will be indicated in the File Errors section of the report.

Any specific charges not imported will appear in the Tenancy Charge Errors or Property Commission Errors section of the report.

• Unable To Map Jupix Entity - The Jupix tenancy record cannot be found in Alto, i.e. the record doesn't exist in Alto. This could be due to it being added in Jupix after the original data migration and as such the record and charges will need to be added to Alto manually
• Fixed commission is not supported for import - Fixed amount management charges will need to be added to Alto manually
• Commission for multiple active tenancies not supported for import - Management commission charges are not migrated where there are multiple active tenancies linked to a property. The commission will need to be added manually to the property record in Alto

Checking your rent charges, commission charges, and tenancies

1. Check rent and commission charges exist where expected and only where expected
   1. To do this, click Reports on the main navigation bar, click Property Management Financials, then click the Charges To Raise report. Run the Charges To Raise report to check the rent charges created by the import and compare it to your Jupix Rent Pipeline report
      For more information on Running reports, click here
2. Check there are no rent charges on vacated records
   1. To do this, click Home, then click the Property Management Dashboard. View (and click) the Vacated Tenancy Charges widget. It'll show (and detail) the number of vacated/vacating tenancies with charges
      For more information on Dashboard - vacated tenancy charges, click here
3. Check for active tenancies with expired rent charges. These tenancies should be updated in Alto i.e. Renewals, Periodic or Vacated 
   1. To do this, click Home, then click the Property Management Dashboard. View (and click) the Expired Charges widget. It'll show (and detail) the number of records with expired charges, i.e. all charges that have gone past their specified end date and are no longer active, and you can choose to delete them
      For more information on Dashboard - expired charges, click here
      For more information on Renewing or editing a tenancy, click here
4. Share tenancy rent charges between tenants, if applicable
   1. For more information on Raising shared charges on a joint tenancy, click here

Add charges

With the checks done, you'll then need to manually add charges as normal:

1. Add non-rent charges, i.e. utilities, gardening, via the tenancy or contact record
   
   1. For more information on Raising an expense charge on a tenancy, click here
   2. For more information on Raising an expense charge to a supplier, click here
2. Add commission percentage charges for properties with more than one active tenancy
3. Add fixed management commission charges
   1. For more information on Setting up recurring management commission on a property, click here

Starting automated charges

When you've completed your post import checks, you can once again turn on overnight automatic raising of charges i.e. start charging rent automatically.

To turn on automatic raising of charges:

1. Click Tools on the main navigation bar
2. In the dropdown menu, click Templates and admin
3. On the side menu, under System Tools, click System Administration
4. Click Companies
5. Click Edit next to the relevant company
6. Scroll down and untick Stop Automated Charges. This will allow Alto to raise invoices just after midnight on their due date
7. Click Save, then Refresh your browser