Knowledgebase

Step 1: Inputting Your Agency Details

When you first log in to Resident all settings will be default and the details for your own company will need to be input first.

Updating Agency details:

Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Agency Details’. Enter details

Updating Branch details:

Navigate to ‘Settings’ > ‘Branch Details’. Enter details

 Why do I need to do this? 

Resident uses a dynamic system to create all documentation meaning that any time you wish to display your details on an invoice etc. these details will be pulled from here. The Agency details in particular are used to create your signature in outgoing emails.

Step 2: Adding A New Block

Adding a block on Resident is a 7-step process (most of which can be skipped if not needed):

• Block details (Mandatory)
• Create/ choose an Estate (Optional)
• Create/ choose a Company (Optional)
• Create/ choose an RTM (Optional)
• Create/ choose a Freeholder (Optional)
• Create/ choose a client (Mandatory)

Begin by opening the ‘Creation Centre’ and selecting ‘New Block’.

This will now bring up the block creation wizard.

Block

Enter then name, ID, and address of the block.

   Tip: When entering addresses anywhere on Resident it is best practice to click ‘Edit’ and enter the details into the correct lines to make sure that they are pulled correctly in the document templates.

Estate

When creating the Estate, you will be presented with two buttons:

You can now choose to either create a new Estate, choose an existing Estate or skip this entirely if there is no Estate. You will need to choose existing if you are trying to add a new block to an estate.

You can choose to skip this step if the block is not under an estate.

Company, RTM, Freeholder

You will have the same options as Estate here.

Client

Here you must enter the details of your client or court appointment.

Once you have created your client you will be met with a summary page. Please check these details and click ‘create’.

Once you have clicked ‘create’ you will receive confirmation of block creation as shown below:

You now have a new block set up. You can now choose to click the above button and move on to importing units.

   Navigation tip: 

Using the search menu: When you log into Resident again or want to open another block etc you will need to use the search menu to get around. The search menu can be found on the top left of Resident. Clicking on it will bring up this menu:

Here you can type in each of these items and it will bring up the results in the full page

What if I don’t know what I’m searching for or I just want to see the whole list?

If you want to see the whole list of an item, for example blocks, then you can use the options at the top of the page to see all (as shown below):

Step 3: Importing Units And Owners

There are two ways to add units to Resident:

• Importing
• Adding manually

You will find both methods by clicking ‘Block’ > ‘Unit list’. Importing units is the best way to add units but if you want to add just one unit then it can be done by simply clicking the ‘New Unit’ button here and filling out the details.

To import units, it is as simple as opening this page and clicking ‘More Actions’ > ‘Import Units & Owners’.

   Note: This will only work if you use the template given and do not change or delete any columns as the data is imported directly from these references.

Tip: If a Leaseholder is a Director or Shareholder then simply place the letter Y into the relevant blank cell to indicate this. 

This will take you to a page with two tabs:

The first tab allows you to upload a spreadsheet of all units and owner details. The ‘Usage Instructions’ tab gives you a download button for the template.

Once you upload the file you will be given a preview of the upload and you can make any amendments needed.

Once you are happy simply click 'Import' to begin uploading the units and owners.

Step 4: Importing Suppliers

You can import suppliers the same way as Units & Owners. Start by navigating to ‘Settings’ > ‘Branch Contacts’ > ‘Suppliers’.

 Now click ‘More Actions’ and choose ‘Import Suppliers’. 

As with the Units & Owners please download and fill out the template found on the 'Usage Instructions' tab.

Once saved then you can upload to the 'Upload User Data' tab on the same page. Once you have chosen your file you will be given a preview so that you can check the data you are importing and make any last amendments. Once you are happy please click 'Import' and your suppliers will be live.

Step 5: Uploading Your Schedule Contributions (Apportionment)

Uploading the contributions is done in much the same was as units and owners. Navigate to ‘Block’ > ‘Unit list’ then click ‘More Actions’ again but this time choose ‘Import Units & Schedule Contributions’.

Here you will find the same type of page as before with the two tabs. 'Usage Instructions' for downloading the template and 'Upload User Data' for importing. 

Download the template and fill it out either of these ways:

Once you have imported your sheet you will find the schedules in ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Schedules’. 

Here you can assign categories to each schedule by opening the schedule you would like to change (using the eye icon) and clicking on the 'Categories' tab. 

Please tick the categories you require and click 'Update' at the bottom of the page to save.

Step 6: Create A budget

   Before you start: Ensure that you have input a bank account and a financial period for this block. These can be found in ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ under ‘Bank Accounts’ and ‘Financial Periods’ respectively. Ensure that your financial period is not overlapping any other financial period. 

If you are using a bank account for all blocks: If you have an account which is to be used globally please set this up in ‘Branch Finance’ > ‘Bank Accounts’

You will need to make sure you have at least one schedule set up before you begin.

To begin creating a budget, navigate to ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Budgets’. Once here select ‘New Budget’.

The budget consists of 4 tabs as shown below.

The ‘Details’ tab holds all details shown above. This is the basic information regarding the budget.

- Budget name - this will show in Resident and on top of the PDF copy of your budget

- Financial Period - every budget needs to be linked to a financial period. This will be important for all reports created by the financial period and year-end pack

- Invoice Frequency - this option will set how many invoices each leaseholder will receive

- Custom Id - you can assign an Id to your budget but this is optional

- Invoice Item Description - You can add next to the invoice item

- Bank Account - this will link the budget and all invoices to that bank account

- Schedules - this lists all the schedules that have been created.  By ticking the box next to the schedule name you can choose which one you want to use

The ‘Amounts’ tab allows you to choose each schedule and input the contribution amounts within:

   Tip: If nothing is showing once you choose your schedule then chances are there have been no categories assigned to the schedule yet. 

You do not have to add amounts to all categories. Those you leave empty will not show in the budget once you approve it.

The ‘Totals Per Unit’ tab shows the annual amounts and breakdown of what will be invoiced. Here is where you should check that the amounts are good.

Once the budget has been approved by clicking ‘More Actions’ > ‘Approve’, the ‘Demand Dates’ tab will show like this (depending on the frequency chosen. This is half yearly):

You can choose here whether the invoice will generate themselves based on the dates you choose in the ‘Start’ and ‘End’ dates and whether they will automatically email to the leaseholders. 

Once you have chosen this and made sure the dates are good then you can click ‘Generate’ for the period you are raising.

This will create an invoice group for this period. Here you can see the invoices by clicking on the ‘Invoices’ tab which will now be showing the number of invoices raised in a small circle.

You have options here to view, download, or send the invoices.

The email icon will turn green when an invoice has been sent out to a leaseholder and will give you a date, time and the name of the user who sent it when you hover over it.

To send or download all of the invoices simply click ‘More Actions’ and you will have these options. You will be given the option to download all invoices, invoices based on email availability, or based on preference (which can be selected in the owner profile).

Please bear in mind that after you approve a budget you will not be able to amend any figures (as this may affect payments). Once approved, you will still be able to make some minor changes, such as changing dates or descriptions.

You can also Re-open your budget using an option in More Actions, but this will delete all invoice and payments associated with them. It is not recommended you Re-open your budget late in your financial year as you might lose all the work you have done for reconciliation.

Step 7: Create A Supplementary Invoice/Demand

You can raise an individual or group invoice/demand but navigating to ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Invoice Group’

To create an invoice group is similar to creating a budget in that it uses schedules to apportion the charges. Unlike a budget, invoice groups will only take into account the entire schedule and not the categories within.

Creating a singular supplementary invoice/demand has a few different features outlines below:

Here you will see that you must choose the unit and the owner (for the purpose of having a past owner). You may set a description for your own reference.

You must add items to the invoice rather than using a schedule.

Here you can choose whether the item is related to a schedule or just the unit. You can also add VAT.

Another new feature is the recurrence. This can be accessed using the recurrence button on the top right of the page.

Clicking this icon will bring up the following window:

There are options for weekly and monthly but you can choose certain amounts of weeks/months too. For example, you can see an invoice to recur once every 3 months on the 1^st of the month.

Once created this invoice will show in ‘Accounts’ > ‘Invoices’ under the ‘Supplementary Invoices’ tab as well as the unit statement for the relevant unit.

Step 8: Raising A Maintenance Invoice

You will find this menu in ‘Block’ > ‘Maintenance’ > ‘Invoices’.

Please fill out the form as follows:

Invoice Reference: Reference used to identify invoice

Bank Account: Account the money will be paid from

Invoice Date: Issue date of invoice

Payment Due Date: Due date of invoice

Define Period: You may define a period here for reference

Supplier: Clicking this drop-down box will give you a list of suppliers used for this block already. The black book will open a list of all suppliers available to choose from.

Invoice Description: Internal notes. These will not appear on the invoice.

Invoice Items: Click the orange plus sign here to add an item. You will be met with this window:

Here you will need to complete the following:

Description: Name given to item on invoice (e.g. Lift Repair).

Category: This will allow you to assign this item to an expense category for reporting.

Amount: This is the cost amount for the item and VAT percentage (please enter amount before VAT if you are adding VAT percentage and it will add automatically).

Type: Here you can choose to create this invoice as part of the schedule or to create it as an invoice related only to one unit. This will change whether this amount shows up in the budget vs expenditure report.

You can also find all invoices for a supplier by navigating to ‘Settings’ > ‘Agency Contacts’ > ‘Suppliers’ and clicking the view icon next to the supplier you choose. Now you can open the ‘invoices’ menu and access all invoices for that supplier.

Step 9: Section 20

The section 20 feature on resident can be found by navigating to ‘Block’ > ‘Maintenance’ > ‘Work Order List’. It is divided into 2 sections; The workflow and the instructed work.

The ‘Workflow Status’ tab allows you to manage both the approval process and keep track of the work process.

Here you can send out the notice of intention and the statement of estimates (recorded on the quotes tab) to the leaseholder and record all steps of the process.

The ‘Quotes’ tab allows you to add quotes and request quotes from suppliers. All quotes recorded here will be included in the statement of estimates sent to the leaseholders.

The ‘Work’ tab allows you to input the approved quote amount and email the supplier to start work. The approved quote does not have to be a supplier or amount in the quotes tab. You can skip the quotes tab entirely if you wish to go straight to instructing work.

Once this is complete an ‘Invoice’ tab will appear here so that you can easily create a maintenance invoice in relation to this work order.

Step 10: Arrears

The arrears page can be found in ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Arrears’. Here you will see a list of leaseholders and their arrears in the ‘Pending’ tab. These will move along the tabs as the arrears process escalates.  The arrears process is down to yourself to customise to suit your own needs. By default, the arrears process is set up with 8 steps.

To begin the process, you must find the leaseholder you wish to send the first letter to and click the arrow:

Once you have begun the process you will have the options to download the letter, retract steps, email the next step and settle. You may also click ‘More Actions’ and delete the whole process if it was created by accident.

Step 11: Mail Merge

The mail merge feature allows you to send dynamic documents out to leaseholders or simply to create these so that you can post them.

To create a template to start you out please navigate to ‘Block’ > ‘Mail Merges’ and click ‘Create New Mail Merge’. The window which pops up will allow you to create a new template or select an existing.

When creating a new template, you will be shown what is called a ‘Message Template’. This means you will be able to customize here what is written in the subject and body of the email sent out. We have ‘tags’ here which can be seen by clicking the ‘Tags’ button. These tags will pull the referenced data from Resident onto the email for each leaseholder. To add a tag simply click the tag you would like to add and it will auto-copy for you. Now simply paste it where you want it.

   What on earth is a tag and how does it work?

A tag is a code which references a certain piece of data on Resident and pulls it to display on the page. Here is an example:

We are sending out an email to all leaseholders regarding blocked drains. Mr Joe Bloggs is the leaseholder for Flat 10 and Mrs Jane Doe owns Flat 11. 

I have set up the message template for this email to begin with: Dear ##LandlordSalutation##,

This is how the email shows up for Joe:

Dear Mr Bloggs,

This is how is shows for Jane:

Dear Mrs Doe,

Once you have the email written you can attach your letter, change the margins and add a header or footer if you have one set up. Now click create.

Now that you have a template simply navigate back to create a new mail merge. This time you can select the audience and the template and click ‘Create New Mail Merge’.

You will be able to select which leaseholders to create a mail merge for and click ‘Preview’ to see how the letter will show (the header and footer will not render on the preview but will show in the end result).

Now you can choose to ‘Create’ or ‘Create and email’. Regardless of what you have chosen here you will be given an option to send all and download all after you have clicked.

Step 12: Reconciliation

Once everything is set up you can now begin to reconcile your bank transactions in a few ways.

• Manually
• Online
• Automatic

   Before you begin: Ensure that your bank account is set up for the option you require. You can find this option by navigating to ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Bank Accounts’. Here you can open the account you require and you will see the option for ‘Reconciliation Type’. 

Manually

Manual Reconciliation is a solution created for Resident clients who do not wish to upload Bank Transactions or use Bank Feeds.

Once the Bank Account's reconciliation is set up navigate to 'Block' > 'Block accounts' > 'Transactions' and select 'More Actions' > 'Payment Manual Reconciliation.

The next page shows all Payments registered manually and on the right-hand side, there is an option to mark them as Reconciled ('Tick' icon) or access details ('Eye' icon).

Should you need to change you can revert any action in the second tab.

You can change this to Online or Automatic in Accounts/Bank Accounts/Transactions at any time.

Online

Online is the most common reconciliation type for now. This type allows you to upload bank transactions onto Resident using CSV files downloaded from your bank.

Start by downloading the csv file and saving it onto your computer. Now navigate to ‘Block’ > ‘Block Accounts’ > ‘Transactions’. Here click ‘More Actions’ and select ‘Import Bank Statement’. Here you must select the account this is coming from, click the ‘Choose File’ button and select the bank file.

As with the Units & Owners and other imports you will get a preview but this one has a slight difference.

Since all banks have a different way of exporting statements there will be differing orders to the layout. The preview will give you the opportunity to make sure that the headings are correct for each column so that it uploads correctly. Take your time making sure that these are correct before you complete the import. Headings and content are as follows:

Date: This column should contain the incoming/outgoing date.

Description: This column should contain the description you would like to import.

Amount: The should be selected only if the bank file combines both credit and debit amounts into one column.

Amount Debit & Amount Credit: These two heading should be used with debit and credit only if they are split between two columns on the bank file.

None: Use this heading on all other columns.

WARNING: Make sure these headings are correct before you proceed as importing the wrong content under the wrong heading can cause a lot of clean-up.

Once you have imported these you can go back to the ‘transactions’ page and they will be there.

To begin reconciling these click ‘More Actions’ and this time select ‘Bank Reconciliation’.

Here you will see all transactions laid out on the left of the screen. On the right you will see the options you have for reconciliation. If the transaction is a credit then these options will refer to leaseholder invoices or credits and supplier refunds. If the transaction is a debit then the opposite will be true.

Click the blue ‘Assign Invoice Payment’ button to assign the transaction to an invoice. You will be able to choose the unit/supplier and how much you would like to assign exactly (up to the maximum of the transaction of course).

The Orange ‘Add Ledger Item’ will create a ledger item against a unit or the whole block. This best used for cases like bank charges etc. Here you will be able to choose a counter party (where the money came from), category, and schedule.

The ‘More Actions’ button will show two menus depending on whether the transaction is a debit or credit. See below:

Credit

Debit

The difference between ‘Assign’ and ‘Create’ depends on whether the refund/credit has already been manually added to the account. If it has then ‘Assign’ is the correct selection.

Once you have created the reconciliation you can click ‘Assign’ and either click ‘Save’ or add another to the same transaction if there are still some funds left. You can add as many of these as you would like. They will simply stack like so until you click 'Save':

Automatic

Automatic is using Bank Feeds. This allows you to pull data directly from the bank. If you are interested in this please contact hello@resident.uk.com for more information.