Sending Accurate Owner Payments

Happy owners are something that just about every property management company worries about. In an ideal world, your owners would never be paid too much or too little, they would be paid "just right". In today's blog, we are going to explore reports and work flows that will make your owners Goldilocks-happy.

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Check Your Owner Payments

If you're someone that wants to double check the accuracy of the "Pay Owners" function, then you've come to the right blog! There are a few different reports that can be used, but one in particular will take the least amount of steps and give you the most accurate results...the Trust Account Balance (TAB) report! Customize the report as follows:

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• Properties: All
• Bank account: All
• Additional cash accounts: None
• Add columns: Unused Prepayments, Unpaid Bills, Reserves, Work Order Estimates
• Remove columns: Security Deposit Cash, Security Deposit GL, Additional Deposits & Owner (optional)
• Grouping: Owner
• "Update"

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Now, drag the Unused Prepayment, Unpaid Bills, Reserves and Work Order Estimates to the right of your Rental/Cash In Bank/Operating/Trust cash account. Export the report to Excel or CSV and open your preferred application. Create an additional column to the right of the cash and additional columns and call it "Owner Payment". In that new column, enter a formula that takes the operating cash and deducts the other 4 columns - that number should be your owner's payment.

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Common owner questions

Yay! Now you've double checked your owner payments and sent out statements, now onto the nex-....oh. Look at that, 10 new emails all from your owners asking about their most recent payment. They might look something like this:

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• My payment seems short, why?
• Why didn't I get a payment this month?
• Can I get a report detailing my income and expenses for this month?

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I've got the answers and the reports that will satisfy just about every owner. There will be the occasional owner that wants the Cash Flow, Income Statement and Balance Sheet for 12 months and a detailed General Ledger report, in which case, I wish you luck (just kidding, email us and we can figure it out together)! In most cases, these responses will earn you a gold star with your owners:

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• A short payment: Provide a Delinquency report, as well as an Income Statement. These reports will show the owner that some tenants have yet to pay their outstanding charges, and provide a breakdown of income and expense. When owners receive less than they expect, it can generally be explained by these two reports.
  
• No payment: Typically, this one can be explained by the owner statement alone, but an additional report or two never hurt anyone. I would recommend sending over a Cash Flow Statement to show where the money went. The Cash Flow report allows you to customize the additional accounts that could be affecting their cash. For example, I would probably include the Prepaid Rent account, Owner Contribution and Owner Distribution accounts. You can change the GL account settings under Accounting > GL accounts > Select the account > "Edit" > Check the box to "Include on Cash Flow".
  
• Additional reports: In this case, I would recommend providing your owner with a Cash Flow Statement. Like I mentioned above, this report is very customizable. Just be sure that the Ending Cash Balance on the Cash Flow ties with the Owner Statement before sending it over to avoid more questions. If you they don't match, feel free to reach out to us and we can help!

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Make them happy!

At this point, the owner is paid, you've provided them with a solid explanation for their payment...everything is "just right"! APM Help is here to ensure that your owner payments are correct every month. If your books are clean, then your owner payments are sure to be accurate as well!

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Have questions on how to get clean or owner payments? Reach out to us at (281) 949-8755 or email info@apmhelp.com.