Chapter Nine - Rentals: property and equipment contracts, their inspections, deposits and billing

01 Before we start

The Rentals module is dedicated to the properties your organization leases from landlords (the organization is the "tenant") — usually apartments to house staff and warehouses to store materials. It manages the contract, the landlord, the deposit and the inspections, and it feeds the monthly rent posting in Finance.

02 The lease contract: the heart

Everything in the module revolves around the lease contract ("Lease contracts" tab → New contract). Each contract has an automatic number (RC-…), and its fields are grouped:

Unit and location

The area, unit address (required), description, building/floor/unit number, and unit type: Residential / Warehouse / Other. The contract can be linked to a project (optional — classification/filtering, see Section 6).

Landlord, term and money

The landlord (lessor), start and end dates (end after start), the term description and number of months (suggested from the dates), the monthly cost and the total value of the contract.

The deposit

The deposit amount paid and its status: fully paid / refunded / partially refunded / undefined / forfeited, and the refund amount and date (set later at settlement — Section 5).

Disbursement (how rent is paid)

Payment day (free text), the frequency: monthly / semi-monthly / every few months, and the method: transfer to landlord / petty cash / transfer to the agent / cash (with "petty cash" the custodian's name is required).

Occupancy and status

The number of rooms, beds and occupants (and the cost per person is computed live without being stored). And the status: active / pending renewal / expired / cancelled by decision / vacant — and "cancelled by decision" requires the cancellation reason and who decided it.

03 Master data

The Master data tab gathers the lists the contract is built on, in four sections:

Areas

An internal classification of locations (name + enabled), and areas can be linked to projects for reporting purposes.

Landlords

The lessor as a full entity: the name, national ID, whether there is an agent (with their name and national ID), and a list of phones. (Its counterpart is the "landlord statement of account" in the reports.)

Beneficiaries

The party the unit serves: a job category or a specific person — and the contract is linked to one or more beneficiaries.

Inspection templates

Ready-made checklists (sections and items) for residential units and warehouses, used during inspection and edited here.

04 Inspections: check-in and check-out

The Inspections tab documents the unit's condition with photos, meter readings and an assessment, in three types: check-in and check-out and periodic (for warehouses).

The types

Check-in when entering the unit, check-out when leaving it, and periodic for monitoring warehouses. Each inspection is on an inspection template with rated items (good/working/needs attention/damaged), photos and a deduction amount, with meter readings (electricity/water/gas) and consumption calculation.

The cycle and the lock

The inspection is a draft until the company and landlord signatures are captured, then it becomes signed and is permanently locked (neither it nor its items can be edited). The Create check-out button clones a signed check-in (with its items and meters) for a "before/after" comparison.

The periodic one and exceeding the term

Warehouses have a periodic inspection; and the alert highlights the warehouses whose last inspection has exceeded the set term (180 days by default, editable).

05 The deposit and its settlement

When leaving the unit, the security deposit is settled starting from a signed check-out: the refunded and deducted amounts are determined, a journal entry is created, and the deposit status on the contract is updated.

When and where

From the inspection page on a signed check-out only, with the apply-settlement button — then the deposit fields on the contract are updated, the entry is created, and its number is stamped on the inspection.

The entry

From Cash (the refunded) + from Damages expense (the deductions, capped at the deposit), to Rent deposits (the total of the deposit).

06 Monthly billing: where rents are posted

There is no "invoice" in the Rentals module, and no posting button inside it. The monthly rent is posted from Finance (the general-ledger periods screen) — and Rentals only feeds it with the contracts.

Who posts and when

The accountant, from Finance ← general-ledger periods: previews the rent for the month then posts it. The posting is not repeated for the same month and the same contract (protected by design).

Which contracts are posted

Contracts that are "active" or "pending renewal" with a monthly cost greater than zero, and whose term overlaps the selected month — a full month per contract with no pro-rata splitting.

07 Equipment rental

In addition to properties, the module manages construction equipment rental — heavy or light — in two directions, and links its billing directly to the general ledger. You find it under Rentals ← the "Equipment" tab (two sections: "Equipment" and "Rental contracts").

The two directions

Renting out to others (you rent your equipment to a client ← revenue) or hiring in for your projects (you hire from a vendor ← cost). The direction determines the accounting entry.

The equipment register

Each item's data: the category (heavy/light), make, model and plate/serial number, the hour meter, the default rates (per hour/day/week/month), and the status (available/rented/maintenance/withdrawn).

The billing basis

Each contract has a basis: per hour · per shift · per day · per week · per month, and a unit price. With additional components: an operator (at a unit rate), fuel (within the price / billed at actual / excluded), mobilization (Mobilization — one-time), insurance, and VAT.

The usage log (the meter)

For per-hour/shift/day contracts: usage readings are recorded (a quantity, or an opening/closing meter that computes the quantity automatically, and fuel liters). And billing can be filled from the un-billed usage, and is tagged as "billed" so it is not counted twice.

Billing and accounting posting

You create a "billing period" (a draft) that shows the breakdown live (basis + operator + fuel + mobilization + VAT = the total), then post it to the ledger with a single button. The posting is idempotent per period, and "cancellation" reverses the entry and frees the usage.

08 Alerts, reports and purchase orders

Three operational tabs keep you informed: alerts, reports and outputs, and purchase orders.

Alerts

Lists computed on the dates: expired / about-to-expire contracts, critical documents nearing expiry (civil defense/insurance), and warehouses that have exceeded the periodic-inspection term (the threshold is editable by the editors).

Reports and outputs

Multiple reports: detailed by area · overall summary · expired contracts · by beneficiary · landlord statement of account · deposits · contracts without / not matching a purchase order · vacant units · monthly disbursement · cost per person and occupancy · audit log.

Purchase orders

Text reference numbers entered manually on the contract (number/months/value), with no link to the Procurement module. The tab is essentially a matching screen that highlights contracts without a purchase order or not matching one (non-blocking warnings).

09 Permissions — the limits — and the summary

▲ = only if the person is added to the "authorized editors" list (managed by the Owner/Admin), regardless of their role. Editing is generally for the Owner/Admin or the Rentals editors; the signed inspection is locked for everyone. As for the monthly posting and the deposit settlement, they require Finance permission. And the module appears only for the organizations for which the "Rentals" add-on has been enabled.