RENTAL PROPERTY MANAGER USER GUIDE Version 1.00s - November 1995 _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER MKM Software 2812 Ingrid Ln Metairie, Louisiana 70003 USA Phone: (713) 488-2436 Phone: (504) 885-7470 CompuServe: 72704,3566 America Online: MKMware Copyright (C) MKM Software, 1995 All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 2 Disclaimer of Warranty 2 Definition of Shareware 2 Registration 3 Distribution 3 How to Register 3 Rental Property Manager - Version List 4 Installation 4 Operations 6 Opening a Shift 6 Closing a Shift 6 User name and Password 6 Reservation Browse Table 6 Advance Deposits and Charges 8 MasterBills 8 Front Desk - Folios 9 Front Desk Menu 9 Updating Folios 10 Transactions 10 Direct Bill Folios 10 Guest File 11 Reports 11 Utilities - Re-Index 12 Accounting - Expenses 12 Accounting - Close Account Month 12 Accounting - Close Account Year 13 Manager - Re-build AVL Tables 13 Manager - Verify Data 13 RPM - Configuration 14 Properties 14 Rate Tables 14 Owner Names 15 Unit Type Availability 15 Site Set-up 15 Parameter Set-up 16 Folio Set-up 16 Printer Set-up 18 User Names 19 Zip Codes 19 Reservation Codes 19 Travel Agents 20 General Ledger 20 Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 1 INTRODUCTION Rental Property Manager is a full working business shareware program designed to manage the reservation and billing of apartments, condominiums or other vacation property rentals on a short to medium term basis. The program calculates rates and taxes and compiles income and expenses to produce owner statements for any given date range. The program is capable of managing any number of units for one or more different properties. In addition to organizing reservations, powerful mail manager features are included to facilitate correspondence with your customer base through custom letters, or by simply printing mailing labels for a selected subset of your guest file. You can book reservations up to two years in advance and let the program calculate unit rates on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, using rate tables that you design. You can likewise enter a fixed rate at reservation or check-in time. The registered version of RPM comes with an illustrated user guide specially designed to help train new users of the program. This file is an abbreviated version of the user guide. Please refer to the online help screens for the latest program information. Also, whenever the program requires input from the user, there is always context sensitive help at the bottom of the screen. Disclaimer of Warranty Users of Rental Property Manager must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "Rental Property Manager is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of Rental Property Manager." Definition of Shareware Rental Property Manager is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for evaluation. Feel free to share it with others, but please do not give it away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user- supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 2 Registration If you find this program useful and find that you are using Rental Property Manager and continue to use Rental Property Manager after a reasonable trial period, you must make a registration payment to MKM Software. The registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. You must treat this software just like a book. An example is that this software may be used by any number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. Just as a book cannot be read by two different persons at the same time. Users of Rental Property Manager must register and pay for their copies of Rental Property Manager within 45 days of first use or their license is withdrawn. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting MKM Software. Distribution Anyone distributing the shareware version of Rental Property Manager for any kind of remuneration must first contact MKM Software for authorization. This authorization is automatically granted to distributors recognized by the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) as adhering to its guidelines for shareware distributors, and such distributors may begin offering Rental Property Manager immediately (However MKM Software must still be advised so that the distributor can be kept up-to-date with the latest version of Rental Property Manager.). You are encouraged to pass a copy of the shareware version of Rental Property Manager along to others for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find that they can use it. All registered users receive a personalized copy of the latest version of the program without any shareware notices, a printed, illustrated user manual and 90 days of free technical support. Registered users are kept apprised of program updates and additional programs that can be used to generate reports and analyze and graph current and past business data. How to Register You can register or purchase any version of Rental Property Manager directly through MKM Software if you pay by check. For a credit card purchase (MasterCard, Visa, American Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 3 Express, or Discover) contact Public (software) Library at the numbers listed below. These numbers are for registering any version of Rental Property Manager or for ordering the latest shareware version. Public (software) Library cannot provide program information or product support for Rental Property Manager. Contact MKM Software for information about dealer pricing, volume discounts, site licensing, the status of shipment of the product, the latest version number or for technical information. To Register by Check or for Technical Support, contact: MKM Software 2812 Ingrid Lane Metairie, LA 70003-USA Phone: 713-488-2436 or 504-885-7470 CompuServe: 72704,3566 America Online: MKMware You can register by credit card using either American Express, Discover, Mastercard or Visa. Contact: Public (software) Library Toll free USA only - 800-242-4775 Fax: 713-524-6398 Voice International: 713-524-6394 CompuServe: 71355,470 Be sure to provide your site name (max 35 characters) with your order so that your copy of Rental Property Manager can be stamped with your property name. Rental Property Manager - Version List Rental Property Manager comes in several versions depending on the number of units at your site. The shareware version supports up to fifty units and is distributed as shareware. Other versions which are not distributed as shareware include more units. Each version includes the modules for reservations and advance deposits. All amounts are in US currency. Include an additional charge for shipping and handling. Rental Property Manager Version List 50 units. $145 100 units. $175 101+ units. $250 Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 4 Shipping US and Canada. $4 Shipping International. $11 A multi user version or Rental Property Manager is available directly from MKM Software. Please contact us for additional information and pricing. Installation The entire Rental Property Manager program and documentation are zipped up into a single file called RNPROP.ZIP. To install the program, you will have to unzip this file, using the popular file compression program PkZip v2.04g. You will need the file PKUNZIP.EXE from the PkZip program. This program is available from most bulletin boards and online services. For this sample installation, we will install Rental Property Manager in a directory called \RPM. You can choose any directory name that you prefer. The entire Rental Property Manager program and all files are stored in a single directory. There are no subdirectories and as stated above the directory name does not matter. We recommend that you install the program in its own directory separate from any other program. Place the installation diskette in drive A: and at the C: prompt, enter these DOS commands. We assume PKUNZIP.EXE is in your DOS path. C:\=>MD \RPM C:\=>CD \RPM C:\RPM=>PKUNZIP A:RNPROP C:\RPM=>RP Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 5 OPERATIONS Opening a Shift Rental Property Manager breaks all usage of the program into segments or shifts. When you sign-on to the program, if a shift is not opened, Rental Property Manager will prompt you for a username and password to open a new shift. Once a shift is opened, all accounting activity is tracked and logged on to a shift report. Shift reports provide a way of tracking accounting data and transactions independent of the transaction date. You cannot access the program unless you either open a shift or sign-on after a shift has been opened by you or by someone else. Closing a Shift When an operator exits the program he has the option to close the current shift. Normally, the answer is Yes. At this point the program indicates what the closing cash drawer amount should be based on payments received or refunds given. It is the responsibility of the operator to balance the cash receipts and cash drawer with the shift report and turn in the amount and shift report summary of shift activity. User name and Password Whenever you sign on to Rental Property Manager and open a shift you have to enter a valid user name and password. For the shareware version of the program enter: Username: RPM Password: RPM Reservation Browse Table Rental Property Manager lets you enter reservations up to two years in advance and to accept one or more advance deposits for a reservation. All reservations are listed in a browse table. The browse table can be sorted several different ways. The default sort order is by arrival date. The browse table is one of the most important tools in Rental Property Manager. In practically all portions of the program, information is first presented or displayed in a browse table format, so once you learn to navigate the Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 6 browse table you are well on your way to understanding how to use Rental Property Manager. The browse table offers a brief overview of current reservations. Refer to the help screen for definitions of hotkeys and columns. Everything you want to accomplish with reservations can be accomplished from the browse table. Whenever you need to input data, refer to the bottom of the screen for context sensitive help. Every reservation must be attached to a guest record. You can add guest information at the beginning of the new reservation process or at the end. If you add the guest at the beginning, information from the guest's last stay is used in the new reservation, last unit type, unit number and discount, etc. You can change these values if you choose. Rental Property Manager can automatically assign unit rates or you can enter your own rate at reservation time. Following are the rate types: ormal. Normal Unit Rate; Rental Property Manager assigns a rate according to the rate tables you have set-up. If the unit night is a Friday or Saturday, the program reads the weekend rate from the appropriate rate table. If the unit night falls on a Sunday through Thursday night, the program reads the daily rate from the appropriate rate table. ssigned Daily Rate. Rental Property Manager prompts you for a per night unit rate, you enter the amount and that amount overrides the amount found in the rate table. This is a user defined rate at the time of reservation. The rate tables are not used. You assign the individual unit rate on a per night basis. eekly Rate. If the guest's stay is seven or more nights, you can instruct the program to use the weekly unit rate from the rate table. Each seven day segment of the stay is charged at the weekly unit rate. Each remaining individual night is billed at the normal unit rate. onthly Rate. If the guest's stay is thirty or more nights, you can instruct the program to use the monthly unit rate from the appropriate rate table. Each 30 day segment of the stay is charged at the monthly unit rate. Each remaining night is billed at the normal unit rate. lat Rate. This rate type lets you enter the total unit charge for the entire stay. The program then Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 7 assigns a unit charge for each night based on the total unit charge and the number of nights. This is a user defined rate at the time of reservation. It does not use the rate tables. You assign the total unit charge and the program assigns the per night unit charge. Advance Deposits and Charges An important feature of Rental Property Manager is the ability to track advance deposits for a reservation. When you press on the reservation browse table, a separate browse table is displayed for adding advance deposits or for adding additional charges to a reservation, for example, you might want to add a cleaning fee. One or more deposits or charges can be added to a reservation. Once you add a deposit, post it using the key or the key. Any charge you add cannot be posted until the guest is checked-in. You can delete a deposit or charge, if it is not posted by pressing the key. You can add another deposit or charge by pressing . These are familiar commands from other browse tables as you will see. Once a deposit is posted, you cannot delete it. Instead, you have to refund the deposit. To issue a deposit refund. Edit the reservation and change the arrival date to today and the unit number to a House Account. Check-in the guest. Post a miscellaneous charge for a cancellation fee if needed, then issue a payment from the appropriate account to accomplish the refund. You can now print, check-out and close this folio. MasterBills This feature exists to allow you to open a folio that is not attached to a unit. This open folio can be used to post any kind of charge you want not including unit charges. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 8 FRONT DESK - FOLIOS Guest Folios can be accessed through the Main Menu option; FrontDesk. After a guest has been checked-in from the reservation browse table, this is the area of the program where you perform all changes to the folio right up to check- out time. Front Desk Menu The Front Desk Menu includes these options: Folios. Access current folios for current checked-in guest. This option is the main topic of the next section. Use this option to browse through the current checked-in guests. You can select any folio and perform a variety of actions, including adding, editing, deleting or posting transactions. Also, it is here that you access folios in order to check-out a guest. DirectBill. Access folios for guests who have checked- out but whose folio is not paid. A separate section is devoted to Direct Bill folios. This option accesses a separate browse table comprised only of DirectBill folios. These folios can be edited or checked-out just like folios for current guests. WhoIsOn. Display information about the current shift and Rental Property Manager version information. This is useful information to quickly determine the status of the current shift. Payments. Display a list of all payments received during the current shift. This report should be run prior to the close of a shift. It can be used by the front desk operator to confirm that credit card receipts and cash totals match those in the computer before the operator actually closes the shift. AutoPost. Automatically, post all pending unposted charges through today's date. Prior to 3:00 pm this feature does not post today's unit charges as the screen message will indicate. This is a precaution in case a current guest should decide to check-out early. After 3:00 pm all pending charges, including unit charges are posted. Payments are not posted. These should be posted manually by the operator at the time they are added to the folio. You can run this option as often as is necessary. It will count the number of folios checked and the number of charges posted and Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 9 display the results. Daily Posts. Display a list of all folios and the posted charges and payments for each folio through a given date. Depending on the number of current guests, you may want to run this report prior to an AutoPost. You definitely want to run it after an AutoPost. This report should be turned in by the night front desk operator to affirm all folios have been prepared for the next business day. It permits you to verify folios are properly updated without having to access and view each folio individually. Updating Folios All current open folios for checked-in guests are listed in a browse table. The browse table of current folios can be sorted in several ways. The default sort order is by unit number. This is the central point for working with folios of checked-in guests. From here you can update the individual folios and it is from here that you print, check- out or close all folios. Press the help key to access a full screen of online help. Also, press the View Menu to display all reports relating to folios. Transactions The transaction browse table contains an itemized listing of all folio transactions for a given guest and whether they have been posted. The transactions are sorted by transaction date with payments preceding charges within each date. Press the help key for a complete description of all available hotkeys and options. Direct Bill Folios Direct Bill Folios are folios that have been checked out but were not closed because the balance due was not equal to zero. We have extended this definition to include any unresolved folio. You can now send any checked-out folio to direct bill without regard to the balance due. This gives you many more possibilities. Also, you can now send a MasterBill folio to direct bill. When you send a folio to direct bill, the folio is removed from the browse table of current guests so as not to clutter the screen. When you are looking at current guest folios that is all you want to see. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 10 In most cases, you need to post a final payment after which you can close and clear out the direct bill folio. You can add new charges, or print additional copies of the folio as needed, again, using the same keys you are familiar with from the browse table of current folios. However, you cannot add a new unit charge to a direct bill folio. If it is necessary to add a unit charge, use the charge option unit adjustment instead. Guest File Your first introduction to the guest file occurs when you are booking reservations. You can attach a guest record to a reservation either at the beginning or end of the reservation process. Sometimes, however, you may want to access the guest file directly to lookup specific information about a current or previous guest or to prepare a promotional mailing. You can accomplish all this by selecting the option GuestFile from the Main Menu. A submenu appears with several including the option to Browse the guest file. Select this option to access a browse table of guests. You can create up to 3 user defined letters to send to any and all guests. Refer to the help key for more information. Also, press and view the sample guest letters. The sample letters provide instructions on how you can create your own letters. Postal Codes. When you are editing a guest entry and you enter a US zip code or Canadian postal code, Rental Property Manager checks if that code is in the zip/postal code file. If it is, you can choose to let the program stuff the city, state and optionally the country name for you. This feature can over time save you many keystrokes and likewise ensure uniformity of spelling and style in the adding of city, state, province or country names. Also, you can generate revenue reports by zip code. Reports Rental Property Manager contains powerful reporting capabilities. You can display reports to the screen and subsequently print them or save them to a file to load into your favorite word processing program. Press the key for help in viewing and printing reports. Report contents can be selected by date, shift number or month number. It is best to open and close several shifts before you begin to run all the reports, especially Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 11 accounting reports. It helps to have more data in the program to run the reports. On the other hand, after you enter several reservations, move to the REPORTS | RESERVATIONS Menu and begin printing arrival reports and unit racks. These are the first reports you will want to see. Again, wait until you close a few shifts before you run the accounting reports. Utilities - Re-Index Index files are used by RPM to quickly locate specific information. If the computer is switched off while the program is running; or, if there is a loss of power, these index files can be damaged. In such cases, you should rebuild all index files using this option. From the main menu, select UTILITIES | RE-INDEX. Under normal circumstances this is not necessary. RPM will always update index files as needed. This option is made available as a precaution. Once a week, run the option to your files. This can improve program performance. To run , from the Main Menu select, UTILITIES | OPTIMIZE. Accounting - Expenses This options lets you enter expenses incurred at your site. Each expense entered must be attached to a specific unit. This feature is used to build an owner statement. The owner statement will include an itemized listing of all income and expense for a all the owner's units for any given date range. Accounting - Close Account Month Closing the month will build a monthly account summary which is really a composite of all shifts for the current account month. You can view this composite account summary prior to closing the month. If the monthly account summary is balanced and you choose to proceed, Rental Property Manager sums all totals for the current month and updates the general ledger with current totals for the month and for the year. Next it moves all cleared transactions to archive files. Again, we use the term close account month only because most users will close-out on a monthly basis. It is your choice. You might choose to close each week or each quarter. It is a matter of preference. We recommend that you close at Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 12 least each calendar month. This will maximize performance of the program. As part of the closing, Rental Property Manager takes certain steps to ensure the best performance of the program. Accounting - Close Account Year This option updates the general ledger by moving Year-to- date amounts to last year's total and resetting all YTD amounts for all accounts back to 0. You should close an account month just prior to closing the year. This is not necessary, only recommended. For best results, when you close a month or a year, we recommend that you dedicate a shift to that single activity. For example, prior to closing a month or a year, first exit the shift you are in. When asked whether to close the shift, answer es. Next, sign-on to Rental Property Manager again and open a new shift. Do not take reservations, or post transactions, instead, go directly to the accounting menu and close the month or close the year. Afterwards, exit the program and close the shift. This provides a clear demarcation between account months and between account years. Manager - Re-build AVL Tables Use this option to re-build the unit type and unit number availability tables for all properties. Whenever you change your unit set-ups, especially when you edit or delete unit numbers, or unit types, you may have changed a unit number that is currently in use by a pending reservations. This can cause discrepancies in the unit type and unit number availability tables. However, this is very simple to correct. From the main menu select, UTILITIES | MANAGER | RE-BUILD AVL TABLES. All unit type and unit number availability tables are rebuilt starting from today and working through to the end of the tables. Please note, this option only affects reservations from today forward. It does change any past reservations. Manager - Verify Data If you are updating from an earlier version of Rental Property Manager, run this option just once. It will make some adjustments to complete the update. If you should run it more than once, no harm is done. It exists to ensure compatibility between the current version of Rental Property Manager and all prior versions of the program. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 13 RPM - CONFIGURATION This menu contains all the options you need to set-up Rental Property Manager for use at your site. Work your way through these menu options to customize Rental Property Manager for your particular needs. Properties Use this option to setup each property at your site. Once you setup a property, you have to then setup each individual unit for that property. This can be quite an involved procedure, because for each unit you setup, you have to indicate which rate table the unit will use and the owner of each unit. There is a feature you can use to simply this process. Highlight the property you are currently setting up. Press to print a summary review of the property setup. This 'Property Setup Report' confirms whether the property setup is correct. Study the report for any error codes. The error codes draw your attention to which units need to be revised so that the setup is valid. Many times when you are adding units to a property setup, most of the attributes of the unit will be very similar. For that reason, do not use the key to add a new unit, rather press to 'Clone' the highlighted unit. Next just change the unit number or description to account for the slight difference. Using the 'Clone' key combination can significantly speed-up the property setup process. Take a moment to study the context sensitive help and the help screen. There are other features to simplify the setup process and ensure that the setup is correct. For each unit you add, you have to indicate which rate table this unit uses to calculate rates. Rate Tables Rental Property Manager automatically assigns unit rates at reservation time, check-in and whenever unit charges are added to a folio. The rates assigned are based on the rate tables you enter here. The assigning of unit rates is a powerful and very flexible tool provided with Rental Property Manager. You can easily use this tool in more ways than you might first realize. Or, if you choose you can bypass this option and assign your own rates at the time of reservation. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 14 Rate tables are presented in a browse table. Press to add a new table, to edit a table, to delete a rate table. Be careful not to delete tables unless the Thru Date has expired. A better method is to use the key to archive rate tables. Only the expired rate tables are deleted. Also, many times when you are adding a new table, it will be very similar to an existing table. Use to 'Clone' the old table. Rate tables are used until the rate table Thru Date expires. The rate table you assign to a unit and the transaction date of a unit charge determines what rate table to read. Make some sample reservations for which the guest's stay extends beyond the Thru Date of a table and review the daily charges for that reservation and see how the rate tables are used. The hotkey will create a new rate table from an old rate table. The new table will carry forward rates from the old table. Use this option when you want to make a new table with only minor changes from the original rate table. Owner Names Use this feature to setup the owners of the individual units. The names you enter will be available on a picklist as you setup your individual units. For each unit, you will want to assign that unit to the appropriate owner so that you can generate owner statements of income and expenses per unit. Unit Type Availability Use this option to access the unit type availability table. This table records unit use by unit type and calculates the percentage of occupancy on a daily basis for each property. If you want to have these number reflected accurately, you must enter the correct number of units per unit type for each property. Site Set-up This option lets you control many features of Rental Property Manager and customize the program for the special needs of your site. Complete each item of the Site Set-up edit window. Refer to the bottom of the screen for context sensitive help for each entry field. One important feature of the site setup is to select the Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 15 correct type of printer in use at your site. If you have a laser printer, indicate as such so that reports are correctly formatted using condensed printing. For users outside of the US, you can enter the correct format for the display and data entry of dates. The default format is MM/DD/YY for the US, however, if you are used to DD/MM/YY or some other format, this can be very confusing. There are seven different date formats. Configure the program for the date format you want. Finally, for registered users of the program there is an option to automatically backup all data files to floppy diskettes using a high speed, compressed data backup. Indicate on this screen which floppy drive you intend to use, A or B. The default choice is A. Parameter Set-up This options lets you adjust all tax rates and other system wide settings, including default charges for extra guests. Refer to the context sensitive help at the bottom of the screen as you complete each entry field. Folio Set-up This option lets you control the folio printout. You can customize the folio to appear the way you want by changing the page length or changing the location and font size of your site name. The default page length format for folios is 8.5 by 11 inch paper. However, you can change this. If you are using preprinted forms on 8.5 by 5.5 inch paper, you can easily adjust the program to handle these forms, using the options described below: Currency Symbol. Enter the currency sign or symbol used in your country. The currency symbol can be up to four characters in length. You can use upper or lower case characters. Place Symbol efore or fter Amounts. Indicate whether the currency symbol should be printed efore or fter the amount. Folio Length in Lines. Set the length in lines for your folio printout. The default is 48 for 8.5 by 11 inch forms. If you are using special forms, increase or decrease this number until you get the results you want. If you are using 8.5 by 5.5 inch forms, 24 lines should work correctly. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 16 Set Site Name Font On. Enter the printer that turns emphasized printing . For example, on an Epson printer, you can turn emphasized printing on by entering this printer code: \027E. On a laser printer, you may want to switch to a different font or larger point size to enhance the appearance of the site name on the folio printout. Leave this entry blank if you prefer to print the site name in the normal print style or font. Set Site Name Font Off. Enter the printer that turns emphasized printing . For example, on an Epson impact printer, you can turn emphasized printing off by entering this printer code: \027F. If you are using a laser printer and you switched on a different font to print the site name, you now have to switch back to the original font to print the rest of the folio. Leave this entry blank if the previous entry on this form is blank. In short, if you turned a special printer font on in the previous entry, you must at this point turn that font off or set the font back to the original font. The entries you make here depend upon the kind of printer you are using and can be found in the user guide for your printer. If you are in doubt, leave this entry and the prior entry blank. Set Folio Form Length On. If you are printing folios on specialized forms, enter the printer that sets your printer to the correct page length. For example, on an Epson impact printer if you are using 8.5 by 5.5 inch forms, you have to set the printer page length to 33 lines. The correct printer to accomplish this is: \027C\033. If you are using 8.5 by 11 inch forms, simply leave this entry blank. Set Folio Form Length Off. If you set a special form length in the prior entry, you have to reset the form length to the normal size after printing the folio. On an Epson impact printer, if you set the form length to 33 lines per page for the folio in the previous entry, here you have to reset the lines per page to 66 (the normal lines per page for 8.5 by 11 inch paper) after printing the folio. The correct printer for an Epson impact printer is: \027C\066. You have to refer to the user guide for your printer to find the correct printer code. If the previous entry is blank, leave this entry blank as well. Site Name Row, Column, Skip. These entries let you Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 17 change the location of the site name at the top of the folio: Row. Enter the row or line number where you want the site name printed. Your entry must be more than 0 and should be less than 15. If you are using forms that are only 5.5 inches in length, take care not to use too many lines at the top of the form. You may want to experiment with different locations. Column. Enter the column number where you want the site name printed. Your entry should be more than zero and less than 70; otherwise, the site name may not fit on the page. Use this option to move the site name to the left or right margin or to center the site name on the folio printout. Skip. After printing the site name, Rental Property Manager skips to the next line. If you want to skip an additional line before printing the text of the folio, enter es. Enter o if you do not want to skip an additional line. This is a matter of preference. Skipping an additional line tends to enhance the site name. Upper Case. Enter es if you want to force printing the site name in upper case. If you answer o, the program prints the site name exactly as it appears on the screen and reports. End of Folio Message. Enter a message line to print on the last line of the folio. This message appears on folio pre-bills and on the final folio printed at check- out time. The message can be up to 70 characters in length. You can enter three different messages. The default is print message 1, but you can assign any message to a particular folio. Printer Set-up Rental Property Manager comes with ten printer set-ups from which you can choose. We include Epson and HP LaserJet, two of the most popular printers. If you have another kind of printer, you need to add it to the list. Adding a printer to the printer browse table is done as always by pressing the key. Printer set-up requires that you enter the escape sequences to reset your printer and to set your printer for printing in condensed or compressed print mode. Consult your printer manual for the correct printer codes, or contact us. We Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 18 have the codes for several hundred different printers. User Names This option lets you define user names and passwords and control who has access to what parts of the program. Rental Property Manager comes preset with at least two usernames: MANAGER and RPM. Notice that these two user names are described as system users. This means they cannot be deleted. Having two system user names ensures that there are always two user names and that you do not have the problem of someone deleting all the user names. You can add as many user names as you like. However, each name you add will not be a system user name and therefore can be deleted. When you add you own user name you may want to edit the system user name MANAGER or RPM to your name so that your user name is a system user name. Overriding Restrictions. Sometimes a new user may have a shift open and as it happens you need to print an accounting report for which this user does not have access. As the system manager, simply select the option you want even though the access is restricted for the current user's name. The program warns you this option is restricted, however, you are prompted for a password. If you enter the password for either of the two system user names, you can override the restriction and access any option you want. Take care to keep the passwords assigned to the system users known to only those for whom you want access. Zip Codes Use this option to edit the zip code or postal code file. You can add and edit postal codes as you enter reservations or as you edit guest records. However, at some point you may want to access this file directly to make changes or to delete some entries. Use this option for direct access to the zip code or postal code file. If you add a US zip code, only add the first five digits. Do not add the entire nine digit zip code to any entry in the file. If you are adding a Canadian postal code, add only the first three characters. Do not add the entire six character postal code. It is too specific. Reservation Codes Use this option to add, edit or delete reservations codes. You can add and edit reservation codes as you enter Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 19 reservations or as you edit reservations. However, at some point you may want to access this file directly to make some changes or to delete some entries. Use this option for direct access to the reservation code file. Travel Agents When you select this item, a list of all travel agents currently defined are presented in a browse table. You can add, edit or delete travel agents to the browse table as needed. Also, when you are booking reservations, if you need to book a reservation from a travel agent you can add agents to the agent list while you are booking the reservation. However, at some point you will want to come to the main travel agent browse table and be sure that all information is correctly added for each agents. General Ledger View the general ledger and current amounts for each account. Rental Property Manager lets you define the exact payment, charge and expense accounts you want. You can make an account active by entering a Menu Key code, and by deleting a menu key code, the account will become inactive. Inactive accounts will not appear as a selection on menus. The account labels and account numbers are fixed, but many of the accounts can be customized. All accounts are presented in the familiar browse table. Refer to the bottom of the screen for help messages, or press for a full screen of online help. _______ ____|__ | (R) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 USA, FAX 616-788-2765 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. Rental Property Manager - User Guide Copyright (C) MKM Software 1995 - All Rights Reserved Page 20