Overview
A recurring rent charge is a rent schedule that automatically adds charges to your tenants' leases on the dates and frequency you choose. This way you don't have to manually record recurring rent charges. The recurring rent charge will show up as the rent amount on your Rent Roll report as well as the "next rent" charge for your tenants in their tenant portal.
A recurring rent charge is different from a regular recurring charge — a recurring rent charge covers the base rent specified in the lease and always stays active until the lease ends or a new one replaces it, while a recurring charge covers other periodic costs like maintenance fees, utilities, or association fees, and can have its own end date. See A Recurring Rent Charge vs. a Recurring Charge for a full comparison.
The Steps
You may have already added one or more recurring rent charges when you originally created the lease. If not, you can create recurring rent charges after creating a lease through the following steps.
To create a new recurring rent charge, click on Leasing > Leases on the main menu.
Find and click on the lease you want to add a new recurring rent charge for.
Click on the Rent tab and then the Recurring Rent button.
On the Recurring Rent window, enter the required information:
Start date: Set the date you want the recurring rent charge to begin. (If you have an existing recurring rent charge, it will end and the new charge will begin as of this date.)
Frequency: Set how often you want the charge to occur on the lease. (For example, a monthly recurring rent charge will be posted every month on the same day of the month as the start date.)
Account: Choose the revenue account for the charge (likely Rent).
Description: Enter an optional explanation for the charge. (What you enter here is what the tenant will see on their lease ledger in the tenant portal. If you leave it blank, the tenant will just see the word “Charge.” )
Amount: Enter the amount for the recurring rent charge.
Add Line Item: Use this link to add additional charge items if needed. (What you add as additional line item charges will also show up on your Rent Roll report as part of the amount in the Rent column.)
Add memo: Add an optional note for your reference when reviewing the charge later. (You will also see this in the “Memo” column in relevant reports.)
Add any relevant files (optional) and click Save.
This new recurring rent charge will begin adding charges to the Transactions tab of the lease when it's scheduled to start. You can add as many future recurring rent charges as you need, and edit them later if necessary.
Tip: Scheduling a Rent Increase
You can use this same process to schedule a rent increase — just set the Start Date to when the new, higher rent should begin. The existing recurring rent charge will automatically expire on that date, and the new one will take over. You can also schedule a rent increase directly as part of creating a lease renewal.
Note: You can schedule multiple recurring rent charges for the future, but only one will be active at any given time. You don't need to set an expiration date on any of them — the system handles that automatically when the next one begins.
Note: If you create a recurring rent charge that starts on today's date, you will need to wait a few hours before the actual rent charge will post.
Tip: It's recommended to inform tenants of rent increases so they can adjust any auto-pays to the new amount. Use the Announcement feature or send an SMS Message via the Communications Center.