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HI-TECH TALK Newsletter: January 2001 Newsletter Index
Please complete the enclosed survey... OUR GOAL for 2001 is to update how we communicate with our customers. To date, our primary method of customer communication is what is for us a passive and negative system: if you have a problem you call us. This is a reactive system, and we believe we can better serve our customers by being more proactive. Even our web site, which provides quite a bit of information, is a passive communication method. We do get a chance to be proactive through this newsletter and through our education seminars. However, the newsletters are not published frequently enough and our education seminars only reach a small fraction of our users. Fortunately, there is a very good tool that we can utilize and that is e-mail. One of our goals therefore is to obtain an e-mail address for every one of our customers. Even those of you diehards out there that still do not have one! With e-mail capability for all our customers we can provide alerts, bug reports, workarounds, hints and tricks, news and announcements, even software updates. In turn, your e-mail messages to us reach the desks of our sales and support representatives almost instantly. To work, however, we have to have an e-mail address for everyone. On site is best, but an off-site e-mail address is okay if that is all you have. Currently, we have e-mail addresses for only about 25% of our customers, which means we have to collect a lot more before we can really take advantage of the powers of e-mail. Please help us collect this information by completing the survey enclosed in this newsletter and returning it to HI-Tech. We are also looking at a couple of other
very interesting technologies, including a series of Web-broadcast seminars.
These seminars allow you to login and view the presentation on screen. Views
can switch from a streaming video of the instructor to a live view of the
instructor’s screen to an on-screen ‘whiteboard’. Questions can be
asked and answered live during the broadcast. Best of all, you can always go
back and replay a seminar again or view a seminar that you missed. We will
keep you posted (by e-mail, of course!) on developments in this area. Click
here to view the survey.
HI-TECH Seminar in Las Vegas—Sign up today! HI-TECH has announced that it will be holding a one-day Education Seminar on January 30, 2001 at the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The seminar, for customers of HI-TECH, will focus on the setup and daily use of RentPlus. Additional topics, including RentPlus for Multiple-Site Operations and conversion from Mini-StoragePlus to RentPlus, will also be offered. The seminar is designed for anyone using or considering RentPlus, including both owners and managers. The seminar is held just prior to the Inside Self Storage Expo at the Rio Suites Resort and Casino January 31-February 2, 2001. Special Offer for Mini-StoragePlus Customers: Upgrade to RentPlus prior to January 30th and receive free attendance for up to two people! A registration form is included in
this newsletter, or call 800-551-8324 or visit our web site
(www.hitechsoftware.com) to register. RentPlus v1.6 Ships to Customers The new RentPlus version 1.6 CD-ROM was mailed out to all customers in mid-January. If you have not received your CD by the end of the month, please contact customer service right away to verify shipment. If you have received the CD but not yet installed the new version, you should so right away. The CD will upgrade all earlier versions of RentPlus. Version 1.6 contains several hundred modifications from version 1.5. Modifications include bug fixes, new forms and reports, and enhancements to existing forms and reports. Some key enhancements include:
As usual, we have already begun planning
for the next version of RentPlus. Do you have any ideas or suggestions? If
so, please share them with us by sending an e-mail message to us at info@hitechsoftware.com. Effective January 1, 2001, a new law went into effect in California that regulates the maximum late charge that can be charged. This law affects only California operators; however, similar legislation is quite possible in more states in the future. The law states first that late charges may not be charged prior to the 10th day after the due date (that’s the 11th if the rent is due on the 1st). Then it allows for a graduated late charge schedule with maximum late charge amounts that may be charged. Be sure to review your rental agreement as well as your policies and procedures and your software setup to ensure that you are in compliance with the new law. The following chart shows the maximum late charges that are allowed by the new law: Monthly Rent Maximum Late Charge
If your late charge is added after ten days and your late charge is $10 or less, you don’t have to make any changes. If not, be sure to check your procedures and charges against the rules of the law, and consult your attorney to be sure your contract is correct. If you are using RentPlus version 1.6, we have added a checkbox on the Late Charge setup screen for California Late Law compliance. This makes use of the above rules to charge the maximum late charge allowed. Change your rental plans to make the change effective for new customers, and use the Change Contract Wizard to make the change effective for existing customers. If you are using Mini-StoragePlus and wish to charge the maximum amount allowed, you can do so by setting your standard late charge to $10. Customers with rent above $60 can then be edited to change their late charge to the maximum allowed. To do so, select the customer in Customer Processing then select Maintain Customer Data and modify the Late Charge field to reflect the proper late charge amount. Important!
Monthly rent is defined as the net rent after any discounts. Applying
the maximum fees to customers without consideration of any discounts can
lead to overcharging late fees. Featured Product—Checks for Laser and Inkjet Printers Printing your refund and expense checks
provides a number of immediate benefits. The first is that all the
accounting for the check is done at the time the check is printed, so you
don’t have to remember to do the extra bookkeeping necessary whenever you
manually write a check. Checks are automatically printed with the address,
so you can use the matching window envelopes to eliminate the extra work of
addressing envelopes or printing mailing labels. And, printed checks give
you a very professional image. Usually, printing your checks through the
computer will make it easier for you to balance your checkbook. Laser and Inkjet printer checks come on a single 8½x11 page that is perforated into 3 parts: the check, a voucher for the recipient, and a voucher for you. Both RentPlus and Mini-StoragePlus provide
easy-to-use entry screens for checks to be printed. Checks are available in
a variety of styles and colors to meet your needs. All checks have matching
window envelopes. Add your logo for a custom touch. For a catalog, a
free sample, or to order, call 800-551-8324.
RentPlus Version 1.6
New Feature: One of the most noticeable changes in version 1.6 from earlier versions is the main page of the customer screen. The top portion of the screen (name, address, phones, units, picture) is unchanged. Instead of the Ledger, however, version 1.6 displays a variety of information about the customer, including the due date and amount (with colors indicating the status), a list of the charges due, any notes on the customers accounts, and a few other useful pieces of information and handy shortcut buttons. To view the customer’s ledger, just click Ledger. The list of charges due instead of the
ledger information is more useful to the operator, since it is those charges
which are of most interest, rather that the history that the ledger shows.
The notes are visible on the right side of the screen; you can edit or print
them by double-clicking anywhere in the notes area. RentPlus v1.6: New Backup/Restore program One of the most significant updates to RentPlus with version 1.6 is the inclusion of an internal backup and restore utility. This utility can be seen by choosing Exit from the File menu, or by clicking the End-of-Day icon on the toolbar. If you are exiting RentPlus for the last time that day, make sure you do the backup. Backups must be done every day! RentPlus will also automatically save a backup of RentPlus on your hard disk, each time the backup is done. By default, 25 previous backups are saved as archives. In addition, RentPlus will create an archive automatically if a backup has not been done within 24 hours. Archives are NOT a replacement for backups, because if your hard drive crashes or your computer is stolen—you will not have anything and will have to start all over! Review the Backup chapter in the RentPlus Help. Pay especial attention to testing your backups, to make sure that you are backing up properly. When restoring, there are often a number of issues that complicate things, such as credit card charges, updating the gate system, and reporting to a home office. The Backup chapter in the RentPlus Help also discusses these issues, so we strongly suggest you review that section carefully. Remember: Daily Backups are a prerequisite
to receiving technical support! Running Faster Because the customer and unit folders have many more entries than some of the other folders, RentPlus will work a little quicker if you leave the Explorer on one of the folders that has only a few entries, for example, Undeposited Receipts or Prospects. Choosing the Hide Inactive Customers option will also speed things up some (right-click on any customer record to Hide or Show inactive items). Still too slow? Consider upgrading to a system with an 800 MHz or faster processor or with 128MB or more of RAM. Business Summary Report You can see details for any section of the
Business Summary report by double-clicking in that part of the report. The
details report for that section will be displayed using the same date range
as the date range selected in the Business Summary report. When you close
the detail report, the Business Summary report will be redisplayed. Mini-StoragePlus
TechTip: To reverse a payment entered through the
Miscellaneous Receipts program, use Miscellaneous Receipts again, just enter
the amount as a negative number, then complete the rest of the screen and
press F9 to save. The entries for customer name and location should be the
same as the original entry, but the description should reflect that you are
entering a reverse or return. Enter the amount charged as a negative number,
the payment amount and the tax amount will be computed automatically to
reflect the negative amount. The amount entered will be deducted from the
bank deposit on the day you enter this negative entry.
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