Everyone using Simon will be glad to know that Simon will handle rent due and past due notices automatically. Simon knows when your boxholders’ mailbox rents are coming due. Simon knows when a boxholder is past due. Simon allows you to do notices any day that you want to do them. Simon will figure out on a day-to-day basis when boxholders need due notices. All you need to do is tell Simon how you want to time this. At the earliest, how much notice do you want to give boxholders notice that rents are nearly due? When do you want to consider a boxholder past due (i.e., on their actual due date, or do you want to give a little grace)? Do you want to charge late fees? Simon is pretty clever about all of this and handles the complexities of distributing notices with ease.
There are three preference areas in Simon. One specifically allows you to set options that will tailor your mailbox rental portion of your business. If you go to the Preferences menu, you will see the preference items there. Open the Mailbox Rental Preferences form. A form will appear that looks like the one shown here, minus the bullets which I added to give insight into what specific preferences mean. Once the form opens, click on the 'Timings' item in the list box as shown in the Mailbox Rental Store Preferences image. See, bullet A.
The options shown at bullet B allows you to expand or contract the size of the range of days when you will distribute notices. This option, in the image above, is set to 30 days. You can set this option to any number of days you want, but it should follow a logic that can be envisioned using the timeline shown below. For instance, if you plan to give out notices twice a month, having a 30-day range works out nicely. All of your clients will receive notice well in advance of their due date, unless you plan to give out notices on the 1st and the 5th. But, you wouldn’t do that, right?!?
Hypothetically, if you are distributing notices on July 1st, anyone coming up due from July 1st through July 31st will be given notice. If you are distributing notices on July 15th, anyone coming up due from July 15th through August 14th will be given notice. If you do your notices regularly, Simon will always be able to give out notices with reasonable notice to your customers. By allowing Simon to handle this for you, you are not tied to a particular schedule as far as giving out notices, but Simon does want you to be regular about this very important task.
The option at Bullet C allows you to set a grace period before issuing past due notices, if you want such a grace period. You certainly do not have to, but something must be entered in this box even if it is a zero. Simon is not keen on those who decide to leave an option blank. So, if a customers rent due date is August 23rd, and you have a 10-day grace period, he or she will not receive past due notice until after September 3rd.
The option at Bullet D will provide notice to you when a boxholder has not paid rent and is past due by a certain number of days. This should be set to a number of days past the due date when you will typically close a box for non-payment of rents. For instance, if you set this value to 60 days, and the boxholder's rent is due on July 4th, Simon will give you notice on September 4th to close the box. Of course, if they pay, Simon will not give such notice as it would be a null point.
Now, if you want to set late fees, you should click on Rental Late Fees from the list as shown next to bullet E.
The option at Bullet F allows you to set late fees. You can not only change the number of days past due when the late fee might increase, you can also change the fee. When someone comes into pay their rents and they are late, you can tell Simon that you will forgive the late fee, or you can charge the standard late fee. Simon will not force you to charge the late fee.
From the image shown above, you can see that Simon will suggest a $10.00 late fee when a boxholder comes in to pay rent if they are at least 10 days late. Of course, you are not forced to charge this fee. Simon is very forgiving as far as late fees are concerned.
Nice set of options, huh?!?
Hypothetical Due Notice Analysis
I know that most Simon users, especially those who have been using Simon for many, many years, understand how all of this works. However, there are a few who are skeptical as to how Simon manages to keep track of all of this. Well, Simon does and does this correctly. Let's look at a hypothetical boxholder situation to help explain all of this.
As you can see in the boxholder history screen shown below, this client's rent is due on August 25, 2008. We will work with this date in the timeline to show how Simon figures out when and how to give notice.
Let’s look at the timeline below. This boxholder is due on the 25th of August, which is noted by the red dot. You have set a range of 30 days for distributing rent due notices, which is noted on the timeline as the light red area. You have also set a 15-day grace period after a boxholder’s actual due date before past due notice is given, which is noted by the light blue/purple area running form August 25th through September 10th. You have plans to distribute notices on the 1st and the 15th of each month as noted by the aqua dots. Also, there are three periods where late fees are charged, noted by the light green, yellow, purple and aqua ranges.
As you can see, when you distribute due notices on August 1st, a rent due notice will be distributed to this boxholder. Now, if you do notices on July 31st rather than on August 1st due to the fact that you will be out of the office on the 1st, this client will still get notice that they are due. Let's also say that you are going on vacation and will be distributing notices on July 23rd instead. In this case, the 23rd is outside of the range and this boxholder will not get a rent due notice. Thus, his notice will have to wait until you distribute notice on the 15th of August which is still 10 days before he is actually due.
Once notice is given for this client, no other rent due notice will be given to this client. Simon, using the standard method of distributing notices, will not allow distribution of more than one rent due and one past due notice. You do, however, have the ability to reissue notices using other methods that will be discussed later.
So, let's say that this client fails to pay rent after being given a rent due notice as outlined above. The next distribution date will be on September 1st. He will not get a past due notice on this date, however. Why? Because he falls within the 15-day grace period before being issued a past due notice. On the 15th of September, he will be issued a past due notice. And, as shown on the timeline, he will be on the cusp of the $5.00 late fee and the $10.00 late fee.
Now, if this client fails to pay rent, Simon will notify you each time you open Simon that he should be closed for non-payment. As you can see, the date when he is considered beyond the length of time that you are willing to wait for payment is 60 days beyond a client's due date. So, on or about October 25th Simon will start notifying you that his box should be closed for non-payment. Got it?
Rent Due and Past Due Notice Generator
When you are ready to do rent due and past due notices, you will want to use the tool created specifically for this purpose. See, the Rent Due and Past Due Notices form image shown below. When you open this form, it will automatically be set to do rent due and past due notices for those that are currently due (See, where is shows 'Current' as chosen in the middle of the form and, to the right, 'Rent Due & Past Due' is chosen. You can change the settings, but if you are just doing a routine roundup of those that are coming due, or past due, you needn’t change a thing. I will outline the options on this form.
Let's start at the top. Today's date will appear as the date notice will be given. Of course, you can change this date to any date you want by clicking on the calendar button to the right of the date box and choose a date from the calendar. If you change the date, the lists at the bottom will change to only include those boxholders whose due date falls within the date range as specified by the date you enter in this box.
There are three options in the 'Options' area. The first option, "Would you like to set the client record to show that notice was given?," starts off as being checked. If you produce printed notices, and if you leave this checked, Simon will mark the history record of these boxholders that were printed as having been distributed and will no longer given notice for this boxholder again. Simon only allows one rent due notice and one past due notice using the [Current] option. Of course, you can do notices on other ways as will be discussed below, or you can always [Undo] a faulty distribution using the [Undo] tool as noted by the button in the upper, right corner.
As you can see in the image shown above, this illustrates how Simon handles marking a client's record when notices are distributed. By opening the Boxholder Information form, moving to the History area, and then choosing a "DUE: Mailbox rent." item from the history list that is shown as having been paid, and then clicking on the "..." button, the History Preview and Adjustment Window will appear. Choose "Notices" from this list along the right edge and this form window will appear. I can ascertain from this window that Ron Dodd does not wait until he is past due to pay his rent. Good client.
The second option here is whether or not to print a credit card payment report. If you have boxholders who prefer to have rents paid by credit card, Simon will produce a report where you can do the charges and mark them off as you do them.
The third option allows you to send emails to those clients who have listed their emails within your Simon program. If you look at the list of boxholders in the image, you will see that only one client has listed an email address. This client can be sent email notice along with others on the list who have given you their email address. To send an email to those with email, click on the world globe button. Simon will send email without further adieu.
The "Which Notice(s) Do You Want?" area has five choice, which will allow you to create any type of notice you might want. Of course, the [Current] option has already been discussed thoroughly above and is the most commonly used tool. The other options will be discussed briefly below.
The 'Individual' option will show you a list of your individual boxholders where you can choose to print a specific notice from the list of notices. Just choose a client from the list and then print the notice. Simple enough.
The 'Rent Due Notice Given, Not Yet Past Due' option is exactly as it is listed. This option will produce rent due notices for anyone who has not paid their rent yet, but are not considered past due yet.
The 'Past Due Notice Given, Still Unpaid' option is also self-explanatory. This option will produce past due notice for those clients who have already received a past due notice but have not paid their rent yet.
The 'By Date' option allows you to print notices for a specific date in the past when you printed and distributed notices. You will have to choose a date from the list.
The 'Type of Notice(s) You Want?' option is pretty clear. If you only want rent due notices, you would set the [Rent Due] option.
The 'Show Due List' option's only purpose is simply to change the list content to the right of the buttons.
By clicking on the button at the top right, a form will appear that will present you with a list showing the dates when due notices were distributed. You can choose a date from the list and then undo (a) all notices for that date, (b) only rent due notices for that date, or (c) only past due notices for that date. This tool is great when you produce notices and fail to get them printed as you wanted. You can go in, undo the notices for that date and then create the notices again.
The second button along the right edge is for printing the notices as outlined on the form. Please be aware that the notices appear in preview mode and must be printed individually. All rent due notices will appear on one report. So they will need to be printed. Close the window for the rent due notice so you can see the past due notices, if applicable. Then print the past due notices. Then, close the past due notices report so you can see the credit card report, if applicable.
The next button on the list is for sending emails to clients with email addresses. This button starts off as disabled and can be enabled if you set it so under Options.
The last button brings up a help screen that is not as thorough as this one, but this article can be reached from that help screen if your help is up to date.
That is it. I hope you understand how Simon can simply and easily do all of this for you without you having to work at it. Cheers!