Tenant Invoice - Disburse to Creditor Setup and Use Guide in REST Professional

Overview

The upgrade to version 15 of REST Professional includes an enhancement to existing Residential and Commercial Tenant Invoices and Tenant Water Invoices that will enable a Tenant Invoice to be linked to a Creditor Disbursement.

The Tenant Invoice – Disburse to Creditor feature provides the following benefits:

• Allows a user to directly pay a Creditor from receipted Tenant funds
• Available for all Residential tenant invoices including Water Invoicing
• Available for Commercial tenants on databases not licensed for Advanced Commercial
• After linking an invoice and disbursement, a button on each screen allows easy access to the linked transaction
• When the invoice is receipted, the linked disbursement will automatically be paid
• Outstanding disbursements will be created automatically if the owner has insufficient funds to process fees related the transaction at the time of creating the receipt.

Prerequisites

• To link a tenant invoice to a disbursement so that the linked disbursement is automatically paid when receipting funds to the invoice, the feature must first be selected in System Options > Transactions > Tenant Invoice - Disburse to Creditor
• When Tenant Invoice - Disburse to Creditor is selected, REST requires all disbursements to be created as outstanding.  A prompt will display if the Enable all disbursements as outstanding option is not already enabled.

Changes to Existing Screens in REST Professional

System Options

A new system option and checkbox labelled Tenant Invoice – Disburse to Creditor will display on the Transaction tab.  The option will be deselected by default.

Tenant Invoice Screens  

When the new System Option Tenant Invoice – Disburse to Creditor is selected, the following Tenant Invoice screens in REST will display an option to Disburse to Creditor:

• Water Invoicing screen
• Tenant Invoicing screen
• Sub-meter invoicing screen
• Split invoicing screen
• Interest on Arrears invoice screen

 

NOTE: The Disburse to Creditor option will not be available for the following invoice processes:

• Invoices created from Creditor Disbursement screens when prompted. This includes Barcode Creditor Disbursements and fileSMART Creditor Disbursements
• Rent Increase Invoices
• Water Invoices created from fileSMART Tenant Invoices.

Create a Tenant Invoice and Disburse to Creditor

To create invoices linked to disbursements:

1. Select the system Option Tenant Invoice – Disburse to Creditor
2. Load a Tenant Invoice screen and complete the required details to create the invoice
3. Select a Pay to option: Agent or Owner
4. Select the Disburse to Creditor checkbox. The Creditor Disbursement screen will load with the details of the invoice pre-filled
5. Complete and save the disbursement to create a link to the invoice.

View / Modify Invoices Linked to Disbursements

• A new label Invoice attached to disbursement will display
• The Delete button will be disabled because invoices that are linked to disbursements cannot be deleted until the linked disbursement is deleted
• The Disburse to Creditor checkbox will be selected but display in Read-only mode. Deleting the linked disbursement will re-activate the Disburse to Creditor checkbox
• The View Disbursement button will load the linked disbursement in a separate screen.

View / Modify Disbursements Linked to Invoices

• When the Outstanding Disbursement is reloaded, the View Linked Invoice button will load the linked invoice in a separate screen.

Process Tenant Invoice Payments Linked to Disbursements

• When funds are receipted to the invoice via the Rent Receipt screen, Tenant Invoice Allocation screen or the Tenant Direct Debits process, the funds will automatically be allocated to the linked disbursement.
• Fees related to the transaction e.g. Management Fees will be charged if the owner has sufficient funds. If the owner does not have sufficient funds, an outstanding journal will be created for the fees to be processed later

IMPORTANT: Outstanding disbursements should always be processed before paying an owner to ensure previous disbursements for which there were insufficient funds at the time receipting are paid to the creditor and not the owner.

Delete Tenant Invoices Linked to Outstanding Disbursements

To delete an invoice that is linked to a disbursement, the Outstanding Disbursement must first be cancelled using one of the following options:

• Load the Outstanding Disbursement screen and select the Delete – F3 button
• Cancel the disbursement by selecting Transactions > Cancel Transactions > Outstanding Disbursements

When the Outstanding Disbursement has been deleted, the invoice can also deleted.

Owner Reports

Partially or fully paid tenant invoices that are linked to Creditor Disbursements will display on owner reports as follows:

• When Pay to Agent is selected, the invoice and payment details will continue to display on the Internal Owner Ledger (AATENINV) with a type of Tinv
• When Pay to Owner is selected, the invoice and payment details will continue to display on the Owner Ledger with a type of Tinv
• When Pay to Owner is selected, the invoice and payment details will continue to display on the Owner Statement

Tenant Reports

Partially or fully paid tenant invoices that are linked to Creditor Disbursements and with Pay to Agent or Pay to Owner selected will continue to display on the Tenant Ledger.

Advanced Commercial - Linked Disbursement Functionality

• When the REST database is licensed with the Advanced Commercial module and System Options > Miscellaneous > Pay Linked Disbursements is selected, the new option Disburse to Creditor will display for Residential Tenant Invoices Only. Commercial Tenant Invoices will continue to be linked using the Save & Disb – F10 button.
• When linked disbursements have been created using the Save & Disb – F10 button, the reloaded linked invoice will display the label Invoice attached to disbursement
• The reloaded linked invoice will display a View Disbursement button, which will load the Outstanding Disbursement in a separate screen.
• The Outstanding Disbursement screen will display a View Linked Invoice button which will load the invoice in a separate screen.