Note: Registered users are entitled to free updates for one year.
Updates are easily installed by selecting the "Check for Updates" option in the VRP Tools menu.
-
5/16/2008 v.1.0.1448 - All email functions now
provide the option of saving emails and attachments into a "Docs folder"
stored separately for each individual Booking, Tenant or Contact.
There is also a new button added to each of these forms allowing you to open
the Docs folders in order to view, copy, add or delete saved emails and
files. The Bookings form popup calendars for both Check-in and
Check-out dates now show color-shaded days pertaining to other bookings for
the specified property. This allows you to easily see other booked
dates while selecting dates for the current booking.
-
5/13/2008 v.1.0.1447 - The Bookings form has a
new "Available?" button above the grid, which allows you to quickly search
for
available dates in a specified range across multiple properties. This
also allows printing or pasting into emails - the list of
available properties along with their descriptions, rates, and available
dates. See the Help topic on "Searching Available Dates" for more
info. The Floating Calendar now shows Tentative status bookings in
shades of Red. Actual/confirmed bookings are shown in other colors in
order to help identify dates that are "open or Tentative" vs. Unavailable.
Holding the mouse over the Status column in the Bookings grid now shows the
Total Sale amount of the bookings without having to open the bookings.
There is a new pre-defined filter in the Bookings form for "Payments Due".
There is also a new option in the Bookings "Options..." button to "Send
emails for the Bookings listed". This option can be used for example
to send Payment Due notices for all Bookings with payments due. See
the new Help topic on "Emailing Multiple Bookings".
-
5/4/2008 v.1.0.1441 - Important: This
version includes a new Template Placeholder and a change to an existing Placeholder.
The new Placeholder is %ActualSale% which is the Total Sale of the
Booking - and acknowledges any processing fee or discount based on if the
booking is marked as 'Paid by cash/check'. The existing %TotalSale%
Placeholder was modified to now be the Sale amount plus the processing fee
or discount - regardless if the booking is marked as 'Paid by cash/check' or
not. Therefore, you may wish to change your templates that use the %TotalSale%
placeholder to use %ActualSale% instead if you intend to show the "Actual
Sale" (acknowledging if it was paid by cash/check or not). For Rate Quotes
and Inquiry Replies you'll want to continue using %TotalSale%.
However, for Rental Receipts you'll want to use %ActualSale%.
Please review your Templates and change them as preferred. In addition, this
version allows setting up Default Booking Reminders in the Properties form
"Misc page". Also, the standard Rate Quotes used in Word and
Html Templates now suppress printing of the Adjustment and Processing Fee
amounts if these are zero.
-
4/29/2008 v.1.0.1438 - In the Bookings form you
can now Filter on the Fees and Commissions, either from the Fees page
or Commissions page, or from the Query Designer.
Report Previews are now shown in a separate window so that it is easier to
close the preview display. You can now use the new %MyFilesFolder%
Placeholder in the Property Photos page, too. After posting web pages,
you can now Ctrl+click on the links shown in order to view the posted web pages.
The last Backup folder selected is now remembered between backups and
restores. In all Accounts/Categories you can now include the 'Class'
to post transactions to in QuickBooks and Quicken (using '%C=Class').
The grids in both the Bookings and Properties forms now maintain the color
coding of the currently selected row in the grid. There is a new
option in the Bookings form 'Options' button which allows 'Locking in the
amounts'. This allows you to change the dates of the booking without
effecting the total rent. This can be used for example when a tenant
leaves early and you want to open up the dates without changing the total
rent, and other scenarios.
-
4/16/2008 v.1.0.1426 - The Housekeeping Report
can now be run for selected Cleaners. The Booking Chart report has a
new option to show Tenant detail information. A new %MyFilesFolder% Placeholder exists
for specifying the "MyFiles" disk folder location, which can be used to
specify attachment files, logo or signature images in Document Templates.
In the various Calendar popups, you can now jump forward or backward 6
months by clicking on the month name. Inquiry Reply template text can
now optionally have Html formatting. A log of Backups and Restores is
now kept by the system. You can view the Backup log in the File menu.
There is a new User Preference for Days to Remind between doing Backups.
There is a new User Preference for automatically changing the Booking status
from Quoted to Tentative when the Agreement is sent. You can now embed
%Expression% placeholders within %Expression% placeholders in Document
Templates to allow more flexibility with expressions. The Booking
Chart report has a new option to include Security Deposits in the Gross
Receipts. You can now export to Excel Tenant and Contact info (See the
Options button on both forms). This can be used for Word Mail Merge,
etc.
-
3/26/2008 v.1.0.1412 - The Security Deposit
Return Date can now be overridden in the Bookings form, and changed from the calculated
date based on the Property setting.
The Housekeeping Cleaning Schedule report now includes the number of
Adults/Childs/Pets. FTP backups now also keep a copy of the backup zip
file on the local drive. In the Bookings form, you can now designate
the originating booking for "Extension bookings". Extension bookings
can be generated when tenants extend their stay by selecting a new option in
the Bookings form's "Options" button. See the Help topic on "Extending
Bookings" for more info. When specifying "Special Check-in or
Check-out Times" in the Bookings form, a new Red box is added to the
beginning or end of
the Bookings form timeline grid. There are two new options for
"Printing Invoices" in the Bookings form's "Options" button. See the
Help topic on "Printing Invoices" for more info. When defining Htm
formatted Document Templates you can now specify whether to convert the
document to a PDF file or not. The Booking Chart reports has a new
option to chart Total Sale in addition to Total Revenue.
-
3/12/2008 v.1.0.1403 - The Bookings form now
alerts you when manually changing the Booking Status to "Fully Paid" when
there is still an Amount Due. You can now resize the Bookings form "Horizontally", in addition to vertically. It can
also be "Maximized" to fill the entire screen. The
columns in the Time Line grid can also be resized. There is a new option to
"Base" Rental Fee percentages
on - called "Security Deposit". This can be helpful if you charge
Tenants a Processing Fee on the Security Deposit separately. Also, you
can now specify the default "Apply Processing Fee" setting in the Property
Fees form. The Floating Calendar now allows you to choose the type of
rate up front when clicking the "Create a New Booking" button.
Added validation for JCB credit cards.
-
2/24/2008 v.1.0.1395 - This version adds the
option to Interface with
Webervations.com
for Online Bookings & Interactive Availability Calendars. This requires that you
already have an account and properties set up on Webervations.com.
Currently, they charge $80/year, and this includes multiple "Units".
"Units" in Webervations is the same as Properties in VRP. Note,
that the interface feature in VRP requires a 3 user or more license.
You can upgrade to this license on the Purchase
page if needed. We are excited about our relationship with
Webervations and their experience in this area. We think this is a
great site with outstanding features at a great price. Note, that
Webervations is close to rolling out a new interface on their site that will
provide more options and ease of use. Along with this, the Properties
form has a new "Interface" page, for specifying your Webervations Account
and interface options. Please see the new Help topic in VRP for
"Online Booking Interfaces" for more info.
Click on the link below to view a sample of how you can have your
Webervations Online Bookings site appear. You can add a link such as
this to your existing Property web sites, (after changing the "memberid="
portion to be your Account ID).
http://www.webervations.com/magic-scripts/resbook.asp?memberid=bbbinnres
Webervations offers many different options for how you want your
booking site to appear. You can learn about these options on their site.
-
2/18/2008 v.1.0.1387 - You can now designate
that a Booking has a "Special Check-in or Check-out" by checking either of
the checkboxes next to the Check-in and Check-out times in the Bookings
form. This will also cause the Check-in and Check-out dates in the
Bookings grid to show bright red in order to alert you when viewing the grid
by Bookings. The Property Linking feature has been changed to only
block out linked properties when the Booking status is set to "Signed
Agreement" or higher and not "Closed". This is so that bookings for related properties
will only be created automatically when there is a firm booking. The
Available Dates inserted in the Inquiry Reply templates (using the %AvailDates%
Placeholder) now ignore Tentative bookings, meaning that Tentatively booked
dates will show as available in Inquiry Replies. Fixed a recent issue
with posting Property Group web pages. The Book ID column in the
Bookings from grid now shows with a grey background for Linked bookings to
help identify these at a glance. In the Query Designer and Filter
Recall you can now modify someone else's saved Filter if needed. The
Commissions & Payments Received report now identifies cash and credit card
payments seperately with totals for each. When sending emails from the
Bookings form, you can now select to "Send Email without Document Preview".
The selection for "Show/Hide dates outside the current month" in the
Floating Calendar is now remembered when rerunning the form.
-
2/7/2008 v.1.0.1382 - There is a new item in
the Tools menu to View the Current Users and when they last accessed the
application. When creating a new booking, any Credit Card info for the
Tenant is now copied to the new booking. When specifying the Next
Payment Due date in the booking, an alert message is displayed if the Credit
Card expires before the payment due date. The Credit Card# in the
Bookings form now shows the CC Type (as determined from the CC#). The
Contact and Resources form now includes a "Country" field. This form also includes a
new "Options" button, which allows printing envelopes and doing mass emailings for Contacts
(the same as Tenants). If you use the option in the Floating
Calendar's Tenant Name field to include a mailing address after the Tenant
Name, then you must now include the Country as the last item of the address.
See Help on "Creating a Booking from the Floating Calendar" for more info.
The Bookings form Filter drop-down selection at the top of the form now
remembers the "most recently used selections". This can be turned on
and off by right-clicking on the drop-down box. Other minor changes.
-
1/20/2008 v.1.0.1377 - Holidays can now be
specified in the System Preferences and will appear in all date selection
calendars and the Floating Calendar. Individual Booking Fee
amounts can now be referenced in the Templates by using a new Placeholder: "%Fee.FeeShortName.Amount%,
where "FeeShortName" refers to an individual Fee's Short Name. This is
also available to "Inquiry Reply" Templates. See Help on Placeholders.
There is a new option to "Exclude Cleaning Expenses" on the Property
Statement reports. The download time when doing "Check for updates" is
reduced to approx 50%. Also, you can now specify a disk location to
download the updates to, and then subsequently install the updates from this
location. This is helpful for network installations so that one user
can download the updates to a network drive and then other users on the
network can install from that disk location. A new "camera" button in
the toolbar allows you to capture / print an image of the screen or the
currently active form. The Property Statement report has a new option
to "Show Rental Rates" on the report.
-
1/8/2008 v.1.0.1372 - There is a new feature to
allow tracking "Owner Pre-payments" in the Commissions page of the Bookings
form. Owner pre-payments are not actually commissions, but are
deducted from the Net Due to Owner amount on the Property Statements.
As such, the Property Statement report now includes a new section to show
Owner Pre-payments and the amount deducted. Other minor changes: The
Bookings form grid rows have been made slightly taller to make the grid a
little easier to read. Also, the Filter of "Current & Future Bookings"
now includes "previous bookings" as you click the "Back" buttons in the
Timeline. The "Property" and "Reply" drop-down selections in the Floating Calendar have a
new Right-click option to turn on and off the "Recent Items" list when making
selections. The graphical Bookings Chart reports now include months in
the selected date range which do not have bookings. There is also a
new option on this report to specify how to calculate average nights and
average rental revenue. Various reports have been modified to exclude
"Linked bookings" generated by the recently added Property Linking feature.
-
12/26/2007 v.1.0.1361 - A new feature called
"Property Linking" has been added. (Note, this feature requires a
3-user license or higher). This allows defining Parent/Child Property
relationships for purposes of automatically blocking out dates when booking
adjoining properties of a larger suite, and vice versa. Property
relationships can be defined in the Properties form Misc page. Added a
new Booking Status called "Declined" in order to provide the option of distinguishing
between bookings that were only Quoted and then declined by the
tenant, and those that were actually booked and later canceled. Use of
this new status is optional. There is a new System Preference option
called "Explicit Edit Mode". Turning this mode "on" will require
pressing an "Edit" button at the top of each form before making any changes.
There is a new "Quoted Bookings" option in the Bookings form pre-defined
Filters. Selecting this option automatically selects the "Show Quotes"
check-box also. There is a new option in the Bookings form Options
button to "Create a New Owner or Blockout Booking". This provides a
second and faster method to block out days for a property. Other minor
changes.
-
12/20/2007 v.1.0.1357 - The Floating Calendar can
now be "expanded" to show multiple months (up to 5) by clicking on the new
Expand button. You can see an example
here. Note that this
requires additional overhead and can slow down the calendar slightly when
changing months and properties. When adding new Payments in
the Bookings form, the payment amount defaults to 0 now, not the amount due.
This is so the prompt for clearing the Next Payment Due can be triggered when a payment
in is made in full. The Cleaning Notice placeholders for %PreviousBooking,
%ThisBooking% and %NextBooking% now include the number of Adults, Children
and Pets. The Bookings form grid has been improved as follows: 1)
Setting the Timeline Compression factor to 0 spreads out the days. 2)
Columns for each day, (not just weekend days), now have alternate shading.
3) The Check-in and Check-out dates in the grid have been changed to the
format as in "Dec 01". These changes should make it easier to identify
days in the grid and view more days in the timeline. Also, the grids
in all forms are now a little more "mouse-wheel friendly" - by not requiring
you to first click into the grid if the grid does not currently have the
focus. There is a new Property Title field on the Properties form Web
page for specifying the web page title bar text. Three new fields have
been added to the Property Groups form: Title, Short Description and Long
Description. These allow you to add text to the property group web
pages, similar to the property pages. The field Right-click menus now
show the Copy, Cut and Paste options. Fixed an issue when emailing
multiple attachments using the Smtp option.
-
12/13/2007 v.1.0.1345 - The Floating Calendar has
two new buttons to show the "Calendar Web Site" and "Property Web Site".
These provide a means to quickly access your calendars on Rentors.org, for
example. The web sites can be specified in the Properties form.
You can also specify the number of Adults / Children in the Floating
Calendar now. This enables the inclusion of Fees based on Extra
Persons in the generated Rate Quotes. The number of Adults/Children is
also used when Creating a New Booking from the Floating Calendar.
Added an option to the Bookings and Properties forms to specify whether
Security Deposits are Commissionable or not. Implemented verification
of current licenses for program updates. The uploading speed of
multiple web pages has been increased. You can now post a Property
Group web page (without reposting each individual property page). The
maximum length of the Property Summary field has been increased. Other
minor changes.
-
12/7/2007 v.1.0.1340 - For users who have a 5
user license or higher, there is a new option in the Tools menu for
designing queries and reports using "any" tables in the database. This
is for experienced SQL users who need to export or report on information for
which the current system does not already provide. This update also
includes other enhancements including the following: The Name of the various
Note fields in the Bookings form can be customized in System Preferences so
that the use of these notes can be specified. The Bookings Calendar
Report has a new option to post the report directly to an FTP web site.
The Bookings Calendar also has two more options for specifying what
information to include on the Calendar (ie. Tenant Names). The FTP
Backup System Preference can now include the backup filename. The
Bookings form grid has two new buttons for Fast Backward and Fast Forward.
The Bookings Chart Report can be run now directly from the Options button on
the Bookings form. Fixed an issue with auto emailing reports and
printing envelopes.
-
11/29/2007 v.1.0.1335 - You can now design and
send your Document Templates as Microsoft Word documents. This
provides a third option for creating Templates, and provides the benefits
of: 1) Allowing you to format your documents anyway you want with images,
footers, etc. 2) Allows you to make any special changes to the
generated document before clicking the email Send button. See the Help
topic on Word Document Templates. Fees can now be created for "Extra
Persons" and "Extra Fees per night". See the "Base % on" selection in
the Rental Fees. The Extra Fees can be useful, for example, if the
tenant wants to rent a parking space, or have coffee served each morning.
Also, you can now specify the "Standard Number of Persons" and an amount to
"Pay Cleaner per Extra Person" in the Property form's "Misc" page. The
extra amount to pay the cleaner will get calculated in the Bookings form
automatically. The background image in the Floating Calendar has been
changed to a gradient color. A few people said it was hard to read the
the text over the image.
-
11/20/2007 v.1.0.1328 - Your Company Name,
(optionally specified in System Preferences) is now included in the header
of all reports. The Floating Calendar's Property and Reply drop-down
selections now "remember" the most recently selected items, and lists these
at the top of the drop-down lists. This facilitates selecting commonly used
items. Other minor changes.
-
10/31/2007 v.1.0.1325 - A new check-box has been
added to the Rental Fees in order to designate whether or not to include
each fee in Commission calculations. Previously, the "Is Revenue"
check-box served this purpose. This allows you to designate these two
categories independently now. The Property Statement report has been
changed to: 1) simplify the columns shown, and 2) include Taxes and
Processing Fees in the Total Revenue according to the designation in each
Booking. This may or may not effect your Net Check to Owner amount,
depending if you have Taxes and Processing Fees flagged as Revenue
in your bookings. Please double-check your next Property Statement
reports. A new Placeholder Option called [Value] is available.
(See Help on Placeholders for more info). Also, you can now do date
calculations on Placeholders. (ie. %CheckInDate%[-30] will insert a
date 30 days prior to the check-in date). The graphical Bookings
Calendar report has a new option to show the Check-In/Out times and Other
Info. This allows the report to be "another" option for Housekeeping
use. A new Placeholder %PaymentsList2% has been added which includes payment
notes. Added a "Reply-to" tab to the Document Templates form, which
allows overriding the default Reply-to for emails sent. The default
Reply-to is specified in User
Preferences. Web pages can now be posted to an FTP site without a
folder name specified. A new Report Option was added to the Booking
Chart Report, which shows Taxes Received.
-
10/24/2007 v.1.0.1320 - The Filter button's "Find
Text in Any Field" option now includes the Tenant name in the Bookings form
and Vendor name in the Expense form when it searches. This Filter
option can be very handy in case you haven't used it before, and is
available in all forms. A "Lock-in Rate" option has been added to the
"Rate" drop-down box on the Bookings form. This new option "Locks-in"
the rate regardless if the Booking dates change to a different Rate period.
A new option has been added to the Bookings form (Options button) to allow
changing the Rate Calculation Method for existing bookings. A new
"Property Rates" report was added to the Reports menu.
The application has been updated to the latest underlying technology
released by Microsoft this month. New runtime libraries are included
in this update. If you notice any issues, please report them to us
promptly. Actual bookings now overlay any Quoted and Tentative
bookings in the "View by Property" grid on Bookings form.
-
10/20/2007 v.1.0.1313 - You can now specify the
Rental Rate Calculation Method for each Property. This determines how
default rates are retrieved from the Property Rates table. The two
methods are: "Use the Check-In date" or "Use an Average of rates that match
the booking dates". This allows rates for bookings that cross multiple
rate date ranges to reflect the different rates. As before, you can
always override the rates on Bookings or Inquiry Replies. Changing the
rate method does not affect existing Bookings. See the Help topic on
Property Rates for more info. The Bookings Chart Report was modified
to show the Total Non-Revenue and Sale before Security Deposit in order to make it
easier to reconcile. Fixed an issue with using images in Html
Templates. Expanded the Short Note on Rental Fees by 1 character.
This effects the Rental Fee lists returned by the %FeesList% and %FeeNames%
Placeholders. Please check any custom Rate Quotes in your Templates
to make sure they line up as expected. A new "Company Name" system
preference was added which will display in the screen title bar. A new
check-box option to "Show Quotes" was added to the Bookings form grid,
allowing Quotes to be included in the list or not.
-
10/15/2007 v.1.0.1309 - Rental Fees can now be
entered as a Percentage based on either Total Rent, Total Sale, or other
options. This allows you to add fees such as Travel Insurance, which
are calculated based on the total sale as opposed to the rental amount.
The total for fees based on Total Sale will show on the Billing Info page of
the Bookings Form as "Additional Fees". Also, you can now
specify a "Min and Max Days" for each Fee. This in effect "triggers"
when the fee will be applied. For example, this can be used to add a
fee (or issue a discount) if the number of nights occupied meets a certain
criteria. In addition, both the Bookings, Properties, and Tenants forms now show who initially entered the Booking or Property,
and when. These fields will be initially set to the "Last Update By"
fields. The graphical Bookings Calendar includes a few minor changes
regarding sorting and default property colors. The Calendar also has a
new option to "Compact" the calendar or not. This basically removes
space on the calendar for days that are not booked. An option was
added to the Bookings form to "Create a New Booking for this Tenant", which can be useful
for month-to-month type bookings.
-
10/9/2007 v.1.0.1305 - This update requires a
download and re-install of the software from the website, as the message
shows when doing "Check for Updates". A new 3rd-party component was
purchased and incorporated in this version which allows generating PDF files
from your Html Formatted Templates (if you use the Html Formatted Templates
option). This has the benefit that any images used in your Html
Templates will now be included in the PDF document file generated.
Previously, if you used the Html option with images, you had to store and
reference your images on the web. There is a new section in the Help
on Html Document Templates. Please read this if you use this option.
Also, going forward, each update will be installed using an "installer",
rather than unzipping and replacing files as it used to do. This will
make it easier for us to include new components in the future.
-
10/4/2007 v.1.0.1302 - The Property Statement
report has a new option to "Summarize Commissions". A new System
Preference to "Show Tenant in Cleaning Schedules" was added. (We
recommend setting this to the default: "No", so that Tenant names are not
shown, unless necessary). A new Security Privilege is now available to
"disallow" certain users or groups from running Financial type reports.
See the Help topic on Security. Added a new Report to generate a
graphical "Booking Calendar", which can be run for one or more months and one or more properties at a
time. See a sample here.
You can also generate Booking Calendars from the Booking form's "Options"
button. Added a "Click to Refresh" button to the Availability and Cleaning Calendar
web pages.
A new predefined Filter was added to the Bookings form which will show
"Current & Future Bookings excluding Quotes".
-
9/25/2007 v.1.0.1298 - The Sales Tax and Lodging
Tax fields displayed throughout the application can now be changed in the
System Preferences to any tax names you like. In addition, the Tax
Calculation Method can also be specified for each property. Note, this will not effect existing bookings unless
the booking is changed to a different property. These changes are to
accommodate Canadian and other tax requirements. Other changes include
a new option in the Tenant form's Options to allow printing Envelopes for one or
more Tenants. There is also a new "My Return Address" field in the
User Preferences form. Fixed a couple of issues involving Weekend Rate
Adjustments, Mapi emails, and copying Templates. Added a pre-defined
filter in the Bookings form to show "This Tenant's Bookings" so you can
quickly see all bookings for a tenant.
-
9/21/2007 v.1.0.1292 - Added user-defined
"Booking Reminders" to the Bookings Workflow page. Any reminders that
are due will be included in the Alerts popup. Also added a pre-defined
filter in the Bookings form to show only bookings with Outstanding
Reminders. The Floating Calendar now allows an optional "Address" to
be included along with the "Tenant Name" (using semi-colons as delimiters),
as in: "John Doe; 111 Some St; Some City, HI 99999". See the Help
topic on the Floating Calendar for more info. Added a new "Weekend
Daily Rate" field to the Bookings form. Having this in the Bookings
form allows you to see the weekend rate that was used and also allows you to
override it. In addition you can include it in the Document Templates
using two new Placeholders. The standard rate quote used in the
agreements, and the rate quote used when replying to rental inquries have
both been modified to include the Weekend Daily Rate if it is not zero.
Note that previous bookings are not changed during the update and will not
show the new weekend rate. However, you can set the weekend rate
manually or by changing the rate, the check-in/out dates, property, etc.,
which will cause the weekend rate to be pulled in from the property rates.
Also added a new option on the Tenants form to allow copying the Tenant's
name and address to the Windows Clipboard. This can be helpful for
pasting the tenant's info into a Word doc as when printing envelopes.
-
9/17/2007 v.1.0.1290 - Added a gradient color appearance to all forms.
Added the ability to automatically email reports (ie. Property Statements)
to multiple parties using a new Template type called "Auto Email". See
the instructions when creating a template of this type. Added an
"Alert upon Booking" flag to the Tenant form, which will display an alert
whenever new Bookings are made for the tenant. (Useful for flagging
problematic tenants). Changed the Floating Calendar and the Show
Available Dates option in the Bookings form to ignore "Quoted" bookings.
Added an option to the Preferences to set the Default Bookings Status to use
when new bookings are created. The Web Cleaning Schedule now includes
the "Other Info" Booking Notes and the number of Adults/Children/Pets.
This allows special instructions and the number of guests to be provided to
the Cleaner in the cleaning schedule. Added calendar date popup
buttons to the Property Rates form. Also rates can now be modified
similar to a spreadsheet without having to Save each individual rate.
Removed the requirement to "Refresh lists" on all drop-down selections when
the underlying lists have been updated.
-
9/4/2007 v.1.0.1284 - Added 2 new Template
Placeholders (%PreviousBooking.Fieldname% and %NextBooking.Fieldname%).
These can be used to include any field from either the Previous Booking or
the Next Booking in relation to the current booking into a document or
email Template. Also added 2 new Placeholder Options ([FirstWord] and [LastWord])
which can be used to include just the First Name or Last Name of a Tenant,
Contact, etc. Added 3 new fields to the Property Notes page, which can
be included in the Document Templates for specifying the property web site
and other info.
-
8/20/2007 v.1.0.1282 - The Data Restore was
improved to remove any "read-only" attributes which can occur
when files are backed up to "write-once" type CDs. Updated the
Commissions Report to prevent duplicate records when Payment dates are
selected.
-
8/08/2007 v.1.0.1281 - Added a new "Property
Groups" form so that properties can be assigned to user-defined "groups"
(in addition to "Locations").
In addition, you can now post Property Group Web pages, which list each property
in the group along with links to each property's web page. See a
sample here.
There is also a new "Property Web Page Format" option on the Properties form
with an option that allows Availability Calendars to be "embeded" in
Property Web pages. See a sample
here.
You can also specify the FTP information once for each Property Group rather
than having to specify it for each Property. Also, the format of the
Availability Web Calendars has changed to accommodate showing "In-line"
calendars on web pages. Added a "Check-out date" selection to the
Commissions report. Expanded the Tax Rate fields from 3 to 4 decimal places.
-
7/23/2007 v.1.0.1275 - Added Security Deposit
Amount Returned to the Bookings Workflow page. Enhanced the Bulk Email
List functions in the Tenants and Bookings forms so that you can track which email
campaigns were sent and when. The Status column on the Bookings Grid
now shows Alerts in Red when Payments are Due or Security Deposit Returns
are due. Tested and verified integration with the new Outlook 2007
calendar. Corrected a grid display issue in the Document Templates
form. Changed the Post Availability Calendar so that the "Avail
Calendar Columns" preference cannot be set to zero. Added a new
option to the Filter button at the top of forms to allow filtering on a
specified text value contained in any text field. This is helpful for
quickly locating tenants or other information based on text in a note field,
name, etc. Fixed an issue with the Check for Updates function. Other minor changes.
-
6/26/2007 v.1.0.1258 - You can now schedule when
to return security deposits by setting the new Number of Days to Return
Deposits after Check-out in the Properties form. The Alerts popup will
also notify you of past due or upcoming Deposit Return dates. The
Follow-up Report has 3 new reporting options which show: Outstanding
Security Deposits not Returned, Unpaid Cleaner Payments, and Balances Due
from Tenants. The report can also be run based on Check-in or
Check-out dates. The Bookings form now allows Inactive Properties to
be selected in the Property Filter drop-down. A Country field was
added to the Tenant form. Also, the option to build a list of tenant
email addresses for mass mailings was fixed. The Options button in the
Tenant form has a new option to "Show all Bookings for this Tenant".
Fixed minor issue when entering negative values. An option was added
to both the Property Commissions form and Property Fees form to quickly copy
records to another property. The Help file is now stored on the local
drive, even in a network installation. This allows the Help to be
opened faster on a network and avoids security issues that can prevent
proper display of remote help.chm files.
-
6/13/2007 v.1.0.1250 - A new Housekeeping Cleaning
Schedule report was added. This report has several options, and shows
a prioritized view of cleaning schedules for the properties and time period
selected. It also includes a separate Check-Ins list which can be used
for a final "room check". The Property Statement report has
two new
options to include the Gross Receipts and Adjustment & Fees or not. All forms now have the
ability to quickly print out the current record and select which fields to
include. This option is in the "Find" button at the top of all forms.
All reports now have “dynamic date” ranges that can be selected (ie.
This Year, Last Quarter, Last Year, Next 7 Days, etc.). New checkboxes
were added to both the Bookings form and Properties form to specify whether
Taxes Received and Processing Fees are to be included in Commission calculations.
The Bookings Chart Detail report now optionally includes a list of the
Rental Fees. Both the Booking Chart and Property Statement reports can
now use either the Check-in or Check-out dates for report data selection.
A duplicate booking check is not performed if the current booking status is
less than "Tentative". There is a new option in the Properties Web/Misc
page for specifying the number of monthly columns to display in the Web
Availability Calendar. Other minor changes.
-
6/4/2007 v.1.0.1243 - When entering partial
payments, the Booking status changes to Partial Paid.
The Alerts popup excludes purged bookings. The Bookings
Chart detail listing report now also shows totals by month as well as property.
There is also a new report option to include Revenue type fees in the total
rent amount. Highlighting issue with drop-down boxes
was fixed when running under Vista. The web Cleaning Schedules now show the
"internal" booking status, rather than the "display availability" status,
(which the Availability calendar displays). Minor changes to the Registration form
and the version Update process.
-
5/24/2007 v.1.0.1235 - You can
now change the final sale amount on bookings and bypass any processing fee
calculations due to a new column in the Booking Fees page which allows turning
off the processing fee or cash discount calculation.
This can be useful if a tenant pays part of the booking with a credit card
and part with a check. Another change in this release allows
"Canceled" bookings to be posted to QuickBooks or Quicken with all
the amounts
reversed. This is only useful if you've already posted a booking which
is later canceled. The Alerts popup screen now lets you go directly to
any of the bookings listed that have alerts. There is a new field in
the Properties form for setting the default number of days for Payment Due
prior to Check-In. There is also a new button in the Bookings form on
the Billings page for setting the Next Payment due. Some minor changes to the report preview, backup,
restore, filtering and post transactions.
-
5/17/2007 v.1.0.1230 - A new reporting preview
engine was implemented, which provides outputting reports to any of the
following formats: PDF, Html, RTF, Excel, and image.
A new charting engine was also implemented for the Booking Chart reports.
The booking chart graphs now show both the nights rented and the rental
revenue together on one page. Also, the graphs can be generated for
each selected property or in summary form. You can see a
sample here. The Document Template
previews now match the PDF output, where the line spacing used to be
slightly different, it is now the same. Two additional photos (8
total) can now be
specified in the Properties form, and posted to the property web sites.
The Availability and Cleaning calendars have a slightly changed background
color. Tax rates with 3 decimal places are now displayed without
rounding.
-
5/12/2007 v.1.0.1227 - If your application
database currently resides within the 'Program Files' folder, a message will
be displayed upon startup. This message asks you to change the
database location by using the option in the File menu. This will
prevent problems if you ever upgrade to the Vista operating system in the
future. Also, some minor changes.
-
5/7/2007 v.1.0.1221 - A new form was added (in the Forms menu) called "Pay
Fees and Commissions".
This form provides the ability to print "Payment Vouchers" and to set the "Paid
Dates" for cleanings and commissions across multiple bookings.
Expenses can also be printed and marked as paid using this form. See the Help topic for information on using this form. A "Received
Date" was added to the Welcome Info/Confirmation, and a "Confirmed Date" was
added to the Cleaner Notified workflow areas in the Bookings form. A
"Cleaner Charges" amount field was added to the Property form. This is
used as the default "Pay Cleaner" amount for new Bookings. Basically,
these new features provide more tools to monitor and pay for cleanings, commissions
and expenses owed. Also, two new buttons were added to the Property form to copy
Document Templates and Accounts from another Property to the current
Property, thus making it easier to create multiple properties using the same
templates and accounts.
-
4/28/2007 v.1.0.1217 - This update brings several important changes in order to comply with the new
Vista operating system standards. You can now specify and change the
location of your database. See the option in the File menu.
If you are running Vista, you may be prompted in various places to run
the application with an elevated privilege when trying to run certain
functions such as updating the software, changing the data location, etc.
Beginning with this version, the logic for determining the maximum number of
users per license has changed. User licenses are now on a per User ID
basis. Registered users prior to this date are automatically given 2
extra user licenses in order to help with this change. Licenses used
to be based on the number of concurrent users, but that logic is more
difficult in Vista, and the new method frees up some processing overhead.
There are 2 new pre-defined filters for "Un-paid" and "Paid Commissions" in
the Bookings form. Placeholders can now be used in the 3 file
specifications in the templates, allowing attachment and image filenames to
be generated based on the property. For example you can create generic
templates with different attachment and image files
included automatically based on the property. There are several new
Placeholder "prefixes" that allow you to access all fields in the
Bookings, Property, Tenant, Cleaner, Owner, and Manager records.
Examples are: %Cleaner.Name%, %Owner.WorkPhone%, etc. One benefit is that you now have access to the Cleaner, Owner, and
Manager information in the templates. See the template instructions for the new
placeholders. You can now post property calendars as well as property
web pages from the Web Post page of the Properties form. The Booking
Chart Detail and Follow-up reports have property subtotals added. As
usual, please report any issues. Mahalo.
-
4/20/2007 v.1.0.1213 - For those who've asked for
more workflow flexibility, you'll be pleased with this update.
Many changes in the Document Templates and Workflow area include the
following: Two new user-defined workflow documents with sent dates.
You can now customize 5 of the 7 workflow items with your own descriptions
and notes using the new Document Types form. So if you don't use a
'Thank You Note' or a 'Rental Receipt' for example, you can change it to
something else. All 7 of the workflow document templates now allow you
to generate a user-defined document in addition to the email message.
You can also specify the Send To:, CC:, and BCC: recipients (using
placeholders), and include 2 images in the document. Basically, the
same logic used for generating the Rental Agreement is now available for all
workflow documents, and they can be generated as both PDF or Html.
There are also some new placeholders. You can now define whether or
not the Cleaning Notice displays the Previous, Current, and/or Next booking
info, depending on how you want to notify your cleaner (before or after a
booking). There are 3 new Placeholders to do this. A couple of new
options were added to the Options... button on the Bookings form. One
is to 'Clear all amounts (Owner bookings)', another is to run the Follow-up
Report for the current bookings listed.
-
4/18/2007 v.1.0.1212 - Added Cleaning Fee Payable
amount to the Workflow page of the Bookings form. This cleaning fee
amount is also included in the Property Statement report. The Cleaning
fee amount can also be exported to Quicken/QuickBooks as an expense.
Added Cleaner Paid Date to the Follow Up report. Added ability to
specify fixed commission amounts in the Bookings form - by specifying a 0%
commission rate. Added the ability to backup
and restore to and from your own FTP web site. All data including the MyFiles folder is backed up and encrypted for secure
storage. You can now use multiple email
attachments when emailing through Outlook using the Mapi preference. Other minor changes.
-
3/31/2007 v.1.0.1198 - Added the ability to
design your own rate quotes used for the Inquiry Reply templates (see the
Rate Quote page in the templates). Added a few additional template
placeholders. Added a 'Location' drop-down selection to the Properties
form so bookings and available dates can be viewed by location in the
Bookings form (using the Property filter drop-down). Added an
Active/Inactive flag to the Properties form. This can also be selected
in the Property filter in the Bookings form. Attachments can now be
added to the Welcome Info, Cleaning Notice, and Rental Receipt email
templates. Expanded the Properties list timeline in the Bookings form
to show more days going across. Added two new filters for selecting
'Closed' bookings in the Bookings form. Fixed an alignment issue with
the generated Rate Quotes. Added 'PDA Sync Folder' specification to
the Preferences form.
-
3/19/2007 v.1.0.1188 - Added an option to list
bookings by property (one row per property) in the Bookings form. (See the
'Show Properties' button). Also corrected some emailing functions.
There is a new 'Booking Notes' field in the Property form's Notes page.
This is displayed in the Booking form on the new Properties grid as a quick
reference when making bookings.
-
3/13/2007 v.1.0.1185 -
The standard Rate Quote format was changed to make it simpler to understand. Some
template placeholders were changed (they will be converted during the
update), and some were added. Please carefully review
your templates and generated documents. Two Memo note fields were
added to the Bookings form Notes page (with correlating placeholders).
You can now Remove Posted History Transactions after they are finalized if
you need to re-export them to QuickBooks or Quicken. Web posting and
Check for Updates was modified in order to work on PC's where IE 7 is
installed.
-
3/9/2007 v.1.0.1179 - Several new and important
features were added. Also, due to a recent 4-day outage by our hosting
service we have switched to a new hosting service. Sorry for the
inconvenience. This switch prompted us to change the mechanism we
use for uploading calendars and checking for new updates. To get
this update you need to download the evaluation software from this
website and re-install it into the same location on your hard drive. (Your
data will be preserved and automatically backed up). From then on you
can continue to use the Check for Updates function in VRP.
Important changes include: 1) Changes to the Template
Placeholders. Several placeholders have been added and a few have
changed. 2) The angle < > brackets used for Placeholder Options
have been changed to square [ ] brackets (to allow for the new Html option -
see below). They will be converted during the update 3) Currency symbols are no longer added to
monetary values by
default. There is a new [$] option you can use. 4) Leading
spaces are no longer removed from numeric values by default. There
is a new [trim] option you can use. Please carefully review your
templates and generated documents and emails.
New features and fixes in this version include: 1) You can now
optionally create documents and emails in "Html format". This allows
you to use an Html editor such as FrontPage in order to create even more highly
formatted templates. The Html option is only suggested for those who
understand Html and are familiar with using tools like FrontPage. See the new sample
Html Templates in the MyFiles
folder in VRP. 2) Tenant addresses now get exported to Quickbooks.
3) There is a new 'Include Notes' option on the Booking Chart reports. 4)
Bookings are now viewable in the Alerts popup. 5) You can now set
which days are Weekend days for weekend rate calculations (See the System Prefs Help
topic. The default is Friday & Saturday.) 6) Bookings with a
status of Closed now have a different color on the Bookings grid. 7) A
new "CSC" field has been added to the credit card number fields.
8) The credit card fields have been fixed. 9) A new "Pets" field has
been added. 10) New "Beds" and "Baths" fields have been added to the
Property form and are also displayed in the Bookings grid. 11) The
Bookings form now removes any previous commissions and fees when the
Property is changed. 12) You can now view sample email messages from
the Document Templates form and select which booking to use as a sample.
Plus, other minor changes.
-
2/27/2007 v.1.0.1173 - Added Expense Tracking
form. Also added a new Property Statement for Owners report which
shows the bookings, commissions and expenses for the date range and
properties selected.
-
2/20/2007 v.1.0.1169 - Implemented a new Reporting
engine, along with new PDF and Zip drivers for Windows Vista compatibility and improved
functionality. Added option to include a logo image on generated
rental agreements. Also added a "Rate Quote" tab to the Rental
Agreements Template where you can design your own rate quote format.
-
2/3/2007 v.1.0.1160 - Added ability to create and
post Property web pages. Also added the option to post both calendars
and property pages to your own web site using your own FTP site information.
In addition, up to six photos can now be specified for each property along with
other web page related info.
-
1/23/2007 v.1.0.1148 - Added Agreement Received
Date and Security Deposit Returned Note fields to the Bookings form.
Also added pre-defined filters that show bookings with Checkins & Checkouts
occurring today or in the next 5 days. Added 2 reports to the Options
button of the Bookings form so that these reports can now be printed
or emailed directly from within the Bookings form using the current filter.
-
12/30/2006 v1.0.1133 - Added a Property filter
selection box above the Bookings form grid. Added an option to the Bookings
Chart Report to exclude financial info, which can be used to fax bookings to
housekeepers, etc. Resizing of forms is now remembered between
sessions. A new Preferences option allows Automatically
updating Outlook's calendar when bookings are added or changed. Other
minor
improvements.
-
12/12/2006 v1.0.1127 - Added an option in the
Bookings form to create Microsoft Outlook calendar entries for individual
bookings. Modified the Quicken and Quickbooks Export so that dates are
forced to US format in the Import files, regardless of the Regional
Settings. Other minor improvements.
-
10/31/2006 v1.0.1119 - In both the Bookings and
Tenant forms, there is a new Options button. One of the options
builds a list of Tenant email addresses for the list of bookings or tenants shown
in
the current filter. This is useful for emailing
tenants that meet a specific criteria.
-
10/9/2006 v1.0.1105 - New feature to post
Availability Calendars and Cleaning Schedules to the Web was added. Currency symbol
and dates format can now
be changed (see Help). New "Web" tab was added to the Properties form.
Added "Other Info" field and a corresponding Template Placeholder to
the Bookings Notes which can be used for special instructions to the tenant, manager
or housekeeper.
-
9/20/2006 v1.0.1097 - Added option to the
Bookings Chart report to graph the number
of nights and rent earned per month. Added an option in the
Preferences to specify how many days in advance to remind you of check-ins,
check-outs and payments due.
-
9/17/2006 - You can now track Advertising and
Referral Sources for your bookings. In addition, a new Advertising &
Referral Sources Report helps you analyze how to better spend your
advertising budget. A new option in the Preferences allows the mobile
PDA sync file to be updated automatically whenever there are changes to
bookings. When you set the Security Deposit Returned date for a
booking, the status will automatically change from Fully Paid to Closed.
-
9/9/2006 - In addition to Weekly and Monthly
rental rates, there is a new "By Week" and "By Month"
rental rate. This allows calculating weekly and monthly rentals both
ways, either by the number of nights, or the number of weeks or months.
The Rental Agreement Templates have a new button which allows viewing how
the entire agreement will appear without having to go to the bookings form.
Email addresses of Contacts and Resources can now be selected from a list,
as in Outlook or Outlook Express.
-
8/18/2006 - All columns on all grids in all forms
are now sortable by clicking on the column headers. The templates form
has been improved with specific pages for each type of template. A new
template type called "Generic Email" was created. This is
very useful for things like emailing tenant referral requests to other property owners and managers.
-
8/11/2006 - Several new and powerful Placeholders
were added for use with the templates. The Check for new updates and email
functions have been improved. The text Zoom windows have a new Print and
Find option. A new Tools menu was added.
-
7/24/2006 - Added Payments Received to the
Commissions Report and the ability to select on Payment Receipt dates.
This provides a variety of data on one report that can be used for
determining taxes, total rent, payments received, commissions paid and
unpaid, and amounts due.
-
7/20/2006 - In addition to the SMTP email server
option, you can now specify MAPI type email clients (ie. Outlook and Outlook Express), or
Lotus Notes as email
sending options.
-
7/14/2006 - Added a checkbox option to Show Available Dates
along with more sort options in the Bookings form (Useful for locating available
dates among multiple properties).
-
7/12/2006 - Added new Template placeholders (see
Help doc). Added a zoom button to Template definitions. Added Property
Amenities and an Amenity Types form. Added Backup/Restore functions to the
file menu. Added Property Agreement Note. Added sort option to Bookings
grid. Modified the Cash Discount to allow either a Cash Discount or a Noncash Fee. The Days/Timeline Unit in the Bookings grid is now remembered
between sessions.
-
7/6/2006 - Added Weekend Rates capability to the
Daily Rental Rates calculation. Added a new Commissions Report which
also shows the paid status of each commission.
-
7/3/2006 - Added Commissions tracking to bookings. Changed
Rental Rates to include specifying the year, and added the ability to copy rental rates
from one property to another.
-
6/24/2006 - Added an option to allow users to
automatically log on rather than having to enter their user ID and password.
Default is automatic logon. Also, added user-defined color coding for
properties.
-
6/18/2006 - Added the ability to define and select an
unlimited number of rental fees for properties and individual bookings.
These fees can also have the tax calculations specified for each.
Also, added a Payment Receipts template.
-
2/19/2006 - Added the Export to Quicken and
QuickBooks feature. Note: Quicken and QuickBooks are trademarks of
Intuit, Inc.
