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Go Rent Pro Reports - An Essential Management Tool

1. Why are reports useful?
2. Why is an income report useful?
3. Why is a bookings report useful?
4. Why is an invoice report useful?
5. Why is a renter payment report useful?
6. Why are the deposit outstanding and balance due reports useful?
7. How does Go Rent Pro help me keep track of deposits outstanding?
8. How can Go Rent Pro help me keep track of balances that are due?

Answer

Why are reports useful?
Reports are one of the great advantages of the Go Rent Pro property management system. Reports allow you to manipulate all the information that you enter into the system to help you see clearly what is happening with your business.

Reports are the tools you use to protect your business from errors and lost revenue while saving you time and money doing so. This gives you an advantage in your decision making and provides great peace of mind because you won’t be guessing about your success or challenges ahead.

Reports will verify income and bank deposits. You will use reports to cross reference your account statements to ensure you do not fall victim to banking errors.

You can see trends that you might not otherwise have noticed like when your peak times are, when you take in the most revenue, how common overdue payments are, when you have the most cancellations… You are able to see and measure the effects of any changes you make to your advertising or the way you word your correspondence and many other aspects of your business. Did you just increase your advertising? Look back at previous weeks, months and years to compare the return on your advertising dollar. Did you just start replying to your inquiries in a new way? See how much more effective your approach and ability to close a deal are with every change you make. Precisely compare last year with the current year to project your gains or losses so you can plan for renovation or business expansion or be ready to weather a rough patch. Such comparisons can be done with the click of your mouse without having to search through files and manually making spreadsheets.

The Reports provided by Go Rent Pro empower you in your decision making which can mean the difference between the success and failure of your business.


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Why is an income report useful?
An income report tells you your income for a given period. It is especially useful at tax time. With just a few quick clicks you print off the income you received for the year or any time period you choose. It is also a great way to compare one year’s income to the next. If you want to see how your rentals are doing for the current year compared to previous years you can very quickly check a few reports and have a very clear picture.

It helps to project profit or loss over the short to long term so you can make decisions about spending and grow investment to help maintain a balanced budget and avoid overextending your business or delaying fortuitous investment.


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Why is a bookings report useful?
A bookings/reservations report lists the check in and out dates of your renters. An accurate reservations/bookings report is absolutely necessary to run your vacation rental business correctly.

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Why is an invoice report useful?
A booking report is extremely useful because it tells you when your peak times are for taking bookings because it tracks the date the reservations were made. Bookings are normally made months in advance so peak reservation taking times do not coincide with peak occupancy. Knowing your busiest times of year for taking reservations allows you to plan your personal schedules and holidays around these busy times. This is especially helpful if you have more than one vacation home or if you are a property management company and need to plan your staffing schedule.

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Why is a renter payment report useful?
The renter payment report allows you to easily verify every payment you have received from a renter. Keeping track of exactly when your money is coming in helps you make sure you get it all and helps you plan your mortgage, management, maintenance, utilities, and other payments. You can select “This Months Payments” or any time period you prefer.

A renter payment report not only allows you to ensure you have been properly paid by the renters you can also use this report to verify that all the credit card payments you process are actually deposited into your bank account by the processing institution. It lets you know immediately if an expected credit card payment is missed by the bank so you don’t lose money to processing errors. For payments made by credit card there is a delay between the time you process the payment and the time the money enters your account. The renter payment report enables you to quickly and easily cross reference deposits to your bank account.


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Why are the deposit outstanding and balance due reports useful?
The usefulness of deposit outstanding and balance due reports is fairly obvious, it tells you who owes you money and hasn’t yet paid. What is less obvious is how much these reports can help you to avoid losses.

Letting overdue payments linger is one of the most common and needless causes of lost income and grief but fortunately if handled well is most often preventable. Go Rent Pro helps you handle it well. In the property rental industry difficulties tend to increase the longer overdue payments are left unchecked.

Reasons Renters Do Not Pay

1. An overdue payment can simply be caused by forgetfulness but it can also be due to a change of plan on the part of the renter.
2. When renters change plans or decide to cancel they will often neglect to call you because they either feel uncomfortable making the call so procrastinate or they simply don’t care.
3. A renter may also have an issue that has arisen that makes cancellation a high risk so they want to delay payment to see how things work out for them and keep their options open at your expense.

If the renter intends to cancel or if there is a risk of cancellation due to circumstances, you need to know right away so you can either get a firm commitment from the renter or open your calendar in time to rebook. If you delay contacting them about the overdue payments you loose the opportunity to re-rent that time period.

The deposit outstanding and balance due reports are an important tool for your business that will save you time, money and retain your peace of mind.


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How does Go Rent Pro help me keep track of deposits outstanding?
Go Rent Pro’s Deposits Outstanding report allows you to know at a glance how long you have been waiting for each deposit. Some homeowners prefer to take payments by personal cheque or money order by mail to avoid credit card transaction charges and also because you can sometimes lose bookings if a renter wants to pay by mail and you don’t accept that. Other home owners simply don’t have a merchant account to process credit cards. So Go Rent Pro helps you keep track of promised deposits. Within the US mail usually takes less than a week. From overseas mail can take up to two weeks or more. Add in a couple days grace period for the renter to get the check in the mail and you can be looking at two to three weeks before you get paid confirmation of your booking. You don’t want to turn bookings away for reservations that are not confirmed by immediate payment so the entries in the “Deposits Outstanding” report is color coded: yellow for 15 to 29 days outstanding and red for 30 days outstanding. You will quickly know who you need to give a reminder call to and what reservations it is time to cancel.

It is infuriating and costly to turn away a new booking because you were honouring another booking while waiting for a deposit that never arrives. Go Rent Pro offers this great feature that provides you with a quick time saving way to keep on top of deposits that you are waiting to receive so you can make good informed decisions.


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How can Go Rent Pro help me keep track of balances that are due?
Go Rent Pro’s booking Report always knows what balances you are due to collect. With just one click you can see what balances are due for the current month. Click another button and see what you are due to collect next month. Or set the start and end date of the time period you choose and print the report. For more see, “Why is a deposit outstanding and balance due report useful?”

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