List the equipment
Open a property and choose the Equipment tab. First answer the questions under The building (Answer a few questions): what kind of home it is, who looks after the building's outside and shared systems, the year built, and the heating, water and sewer. Rentiqa only asks what matters for that kind of home: an apartment whose association looks after the building is not asked about the roof or a well, while a unit in a two- to four-family house you own is. You can answer any question with Not applicable, and change the answers later with Change the building facts.
Then press Add equipment. Only the kind is needed; the model number, install date, installer and warranty dates help Rentiqa suggest the right maintenance and when to plan a replacement. The list of kinds follows the building facts; Show all types lists everything.
On an item's page, add the parts it takes under Parts (Add a part), with the size printed on them, for example the furnace's air filter. The size then shows wherever the item's maintenance lists what you need. When an item leaves the home, use Retire: its plan items come off the plan and its history stays. Added by mistake? Delete it removes an item that has no work on record.
From your listing: when your listing's amenities name equipment that is not on the list yet (a washer, dryer, dishwasher, fridge, range, microwave, TV, hot tub, grill, alarms, a fire extinguisher or a fireplace), the Equipment tab offers Your listing mentions these. Tick the ones to add and press Add the ticked ones; the ones you leave unticked are not offered again. Then add each one's brand and model, or read its label from photos.
From a room photo: on the Equipment tab, From a room photo takes one photo of a room (a kitchen, a laundry, a basement). Rentiqa lists the appliances and equipment it sees, with the brand only when its name is readable, and you tick which to add; ones already listed, or that it is not sure about, start unticked. It never reads a model or serial number from a room photo: read each item's label afterwards. The photo is not kept.
Add equipment from photos
On Add equipment, Read it from photos takes up to five photos of one item: the label with its model and serial number, the device itself, an installer's or service sticker, or a part with its size printed on it, such as the air filter. On a phone use Take a photo for each one; on a computer use Choose photos. Press Read photos and Rentiqa reads them and fills in the form.
Each value says which photo it came from. Values that were hard to read say check it, and in the model and serial number the characters a photo can mix up (0 and O, 1 and I, 5 and S) are marked. Compare them with the label, correct what is wrong, tick I checked the model and serial number against the label and press Save item. Parts read from the photos are saved with their sizes; untick any that are wrong. If no photo shows the label, Rentiqa says where that kind of item usually has it.
If the photos cannot be read, the form stays for you to fill in by hand. Either way the photos are kept at the top of the item's page under Photos: the newest large, the rest as small pictures to tap through. Add photos adds more, and Delete under the large one removes it. The manual, the receipt or the warranty card go under Documents further down. Only you and your team see them.
Credits
Each item you save from photos uses one credit. Adding an item by hand is free, and so are the plan, the reminders and the weekly email. A reading that fails costs nothing. During the beta Rentiqa counts credits but charges nothing.
The manufacturer's manual
With the brand and model number on an item, press Look up the manual on its page. Rentiqa finds the manufacturer's documents for that model, reads the maintenance they ask for, and checks every task against the page it quotes; anything it cannot find on the page is left out. It takes a minute or two, and the page fills in when it is done; if you leave the page, a notification tells you when the manual is in or could not be found. Items you add from photos are looked up by themselves.
Manual and maintenance then lists what the manual asks for, how often and who should do it, each with the quote and a link to the manufacturer's page. Parts the manual lists, such as filter sizes, can be added to the item with Add to parts. The manual's tasks wait under To review like any suggestion, marked From the manual, and replace Rentiqa's own suggestion for the same thing. If Rentiqa's version is already on your plan, it stays as it is.
If the manual cannot be found or read, upload it yourself under Upload the manual (PDF): Rentiqa reads your copy the same way, and what it finds stays on that item. A scanned manual, with no text in it, is read from its pages too (the first 60), and marked "from a scan". If something looks wrong, press Report next to it and Rentiqa checks it. If a task or part does not apply to your item (a filter size for another cabinet, say), press Remove next to it: it leaves the list, and a task also comes off your plan and is not suggested again. Removed from this item lists them, with Bring back. Looking up or reading a manual uses the item's one credit; an item already read from photos is covered.
Review the suggestions
For each item and for the building, Rentiqa suggests maintenance from its own rulebook: what to do, how often or in which season, and who usually does it. Each suggestion says where it comes from (Standard practice or Recommended).
Nothing goes on your plan by itself. Suggestions wait under To review on the Equipment tab, on the item's page and on Maintenance › Plan (Maintenance plan). Tick the ones you want (or Select all) and press Add to maintenance plan. Not now sets them aside; they come back to review later. To drop one for good, open it and use Remove with a reason (on the item's page, the bin next to a plan item removes it in one tap); it is listed under Removed, where Restore brings it back.
Your maintenance plan
Maintenance › Plan lists every item on the plan across your properties with its next date: overdue, due soon or upcoming. Filter by property, by status and by who does it. A repeating item you have no date for falls due about a month after you add it; change the date or mark it done if it was just done.
Open an item to:
- Mark done: the day it was done, who did it (you, a team member, the tenant, a contractor or someone else), the cost and how it went. The next date is worked out from the day it was done. Done today on the plan list is the short way for something you just did yourself.
- Move it to another day, or skip this one with a reason (Skip, keep the next one). Next turnover says when the home is next empty: vacant now, or between tenants (when the lease ends or the tenant gave notice, to the day before the next lease starts). Move it to the next turnover moves the item there; work marked best between tenants is suggested for that day when you send it to a contractor.
- Get it done: send it to contractors you work with or post it to contractors nearby. Tick your contractors (one who has not joined yet says so, with Resend the invite), and optionally enter Your price and Done by. With your price, the first contractor to accept it gets the job at once; without one, you compare their quotes. Tick The price is already agreed: assign it now to give it to one contractor straight away. Press Send: Rentiqa makes it a repair job (on the lease if a tenant lives there, who is told; otherwise just yours), and you confirm and pay once the contractor marks it done. Finishing the job marks the item done, by them, at the job's price; cancelling the job makes the item due again.
- See What you need: parts with their sizes, supplies, tools and the steps. Change the list to edit it.
- Change the title, schedule or who does it. A suggestion you changed is never overwritten by Rentiqa's later updates.
- Remove it with a reason.
You can add maintenance of your own with Add a maintenance item, for one item or the whole property. It goes straight on the plan.
If you marked something done by mistake, Reopen it from the item's history or the Done list shortly after; it becomes due again.
The tenant's duties in the lease
When a signed lease gives the tenant the air filter, the fridge water filter or the alarm tests, Rentiqa suggests each as In the lease, the tenant's to do, in place of its own suggestion for the same thing. Once you add them to the plan, the tenant sees them on My tasks with the due dates and what they need, marks them done, and gets a weekly reminder; the item's history shows it done by the tenant, and you can reopen it shortly after. They come off the plan when the lease ends. In the lease builder, the air filter clause starts with the filter size fitted in your heating and cooling equipment and the schedule you keep on the plan.
Give upkeep to the tenant
Simple upkeep on your plan, such as filters, cleaning and quick tests, can become the tenant's, whether Rentiqa suggested it or it came from the item's manual. Open the item: The tenant's part is beside Mark done, and the button at the top of the page takes you to it. Press Give it to the tenant. Duties the law gives you and work for a pro stay yours.
- Someone lives there under a lease: the item is theirs at once. It goes on their My tasks with the due dates and what they need, they get a weekly reminder, and they mark it done.
- Nobody lives there yet: the item waits for the next tenant and becomes theirs when their lease starts. Every lease you write for the place lists it in the Tenant maintenance schedule clause, and the lease builder shows it.
A Tenant's or For the next tenant label next to the item's name, on its page and in the plan's lists, shows who has it. Take it back makes it yours again at any time. When a lease ends, the item comes back to you and goes to the next tenant when their lease starts.
For a tenant already living there, an item you give them is a task on their list, not a term of the lease they signed. A new lease lists it, so the next tenant agrees to it when they sign.
Duties the law sets
Where Rentiqa marks a suggestion Required by law, it names the law it comes from. For homes in Maine these cover smoke and carbon monoxide alarms working at each new tenancy (the check moves to the day before a signed lease starts), radon (testing and the state's notice to tenants before they sign), private wells (a lab test every five years, with the results to tenants within 10 days) and lead paint (30 days' notice before work that may disturb paint in a building from before 1978). Rentiqa reminds you and keeps the record; the duty stays yours.
- On the radon or well item, Give it to the tenant: attach the state's form or the lab's results. They go into the lease's documents, shared with the tenant, who is emailed; the item's timeline records the day.
- On a repair job at a building from before 1978 with a tenant, Lead paint notice asks whether the work may disturb paint. Record the day you gave the notice and how (signs posted and certified mail, or the tenant's signed waiver); the job then says from which day the work may start, and warns if the visit is earlier.
Installers and repair jobs
When an item has its installer's name (typed, or read from their sticker), its Details card offers Add them to your contractors: the invite form opens with their name and phone filled in. They join your contractors only if you send it.
Repair jobs about the item, from Get it done or the item's maintenance, are listed under Repair jobs on its page. On the job itself, The equipment shows the contractor the model, the serial number, the parts with their sizes and what the manufacturer's manual asks for.
Dates from the serial number and warranty registration
For the common makers of furnaces, boilers, air conditioners, heat pumps and water heaters, Rentiqa reads the date of manufacture from the serial number when you have not entered one. The item shows it under Made as "from the serial number"; where the maker's code is only approximate it says About. A date the maker documents counts toward the item's age (for "Plan to replace"); an approximate one does not. Enter the date yourself to replace it.
When an item was installed recently and its maker gives a longer parts warranty for registering it, To review suggests Register the warranty by the last day to do it. Several makers give the longer warranty only for a home the owner lives in, so a rented home may get the standard one: the suggestion says so, and the maker's terms decide.
The maintenance record: on Done, choose a place and a period and press PDF for a record to keep with the property's papers (a sale, an insurer, a dispute), or CSV for a spreadsheet. It lists what was done or skipped, when, by whom, at what cost and the notes, with the total cost recorded.
Replacements
Replacements on the Maintenance plan lists when each item is likely to need replacing, by year, from the day it was installed (or made) and how long such items last (the manual's figure when Rentiqa has it). It is an estimate to plan and budget with; items without a date are counted at the bottom so you can add them.
Spares and the shopping list
On an item's Parts, open Spares on hand and enter how many you keep (filters, batteries). Marking a plan item done takes the parts it used from that count. Shopping list on the Maintenance plan lists the parts and supplies the items due in the next 60 days need, across your places: the same part for several items (the same kind, size and part number) is one line, with how many are needed, how many are on hand and how many to buy. Work for a pro is left out, as the pro brings the parts. Leave Spares on hand empty for a part you do not count.
Show equipment to tenants and guests
Nothing about your equipment is shown to anyone but you and your team unless you choose it. On an item's page, Who sees it has two switches: Tenants, under Your home and Guests, as a house manual card, and a How to use it note ("The remote is in the drawer; choose input HDMI 2"). Tenants and guests see the name, brand, model, where it is, your note and the maker's manual when Rentiqa found it; never the serial number, costs, your notes or your plan. Tenants can press Report a problem on an item to start a repair request about it. Guests see the cards on their trip once you confirm the stay.
Possible recalls
Every day Rentiqa checks the public list of product recalls from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission against your equipment's brand and model. When a notice may cover an item, it appears under To review as Possible recall, with Read the notice on the item, and you get a message (by email too, following your Maintenance email setting). Rentiqa cannot tell from the brand alone whether your unit is affected: compare the model and serial with the notice. Add it to your plan to follow it up, or mark it Not applicable and it will not come back. The brand and model must be on the item for this to work.
The seasons and turnovers
Seasons on the plan page lays the year ahead out by season (spring, summer, fall, winter), from each item's next date, this season first. In the first week of each season Rentiqa sends a summary of what is due in it, the tenant's and the pros' marked, following your Maintenance email setting: book the pros early.
On Maintenance › Move-outs, the turnover board lists under each departing tenant the Maintenance for this turnover: items best done between tenants, or needing entry notice, that are due before the next tenant moves in.
What was done
The Done view lists everything marked done or skipped in the last year, with who did it, the day and the cost. Each item's page keeps its full history and a timeline of every change and who made it.
A weekly email lists what is due or overdue and how many suggestions wait for review. It follows your Maintenance email setting under notification settings.
Rentiqa reminds you; the work and any legal duties stay yours.