Gross Rent Changes: Our Recommended Work Process

Inside this issue:

From Client Care: Gross

Rent Changes: Our

Recommended Work

Process

1

Come Meet Us 1

From Quality Assurance:

EIV Notice Issued

March 2013

3

From Sales: Let iWork Order Help Keep Your Maintenance

Staff Working Efficiently

6

Coming in May 6

“What the world

really needs is

more love and

less paperwork.” – Pearl Bailey

For most of our CornerStone users, Gross Rent changes are a fact of life. However, they do not occur on a monthly basis, so it is easy to forget the correct process and sometimes difficult to remember exactly why certain things went wrong the last time there was a change for one of your properties. There are certain things that you must keep in mind when you need to enter a Gross Rent Change.

1. You must have a signed, approved Rent schedule from HUD or your Contract Administrator. The Rent Schedule will list the new rents that you need to enter into your software and an effective date for the change.

2. The Gross Rent Change should not be processed for a future date. 3. We recommend you complete and send all certifications due on or before the

effective date of the rent change prior to actually processing the Gross Rent Change.

4. Make sure the voucher month is in the correct period before processing the rent change.

5. Make a single property back up immediately prior to processing the Gross Rent Change, even if you have a regular back up routine and you know a back up was done the night before. Do a new single property back up, make sure the back up is valid, and be sure that you know where it is located.

6. The review and verification steps in the wizard are vital to processing the rent change. Always be certain the information showing on the screen is correct before clicking verify on the screens or clicking the Process Gross Rent Change button.

7. After completing the Gross Rent Change and processing all certifications, you should still update the market rent tables, even if you do not currently have any market rent tenants.

(continued page 2, see GRC)

IPM Software

Volume 5, Issue 4

April 15, 2013

Notes from Client Care

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Page 2

Continued from pg 1 - GRC

While entering a Gross Rent Change is an automated process using the CornerStone Gross Rent Change wizard, care needs to be taken to make sure the rent changes are entered correctly and the resulting charges show correctly for each tenant. Taking the correct steps in the correct order can make a big difference in the process and re-duces the number of certifications that might need to be corrected.

Before starting a rent change, you must have the correct documentation from HUD or your Contract Administrator. The document must be a signed, approved rent schedule. The effective date may be for a prior, current, or future effective date. The Gross Rent Change must be entered using the correct effective date to insure the certifications and adjustments are correct.

If the Rent Schedule has a future effective date, the Gross Rent change should not be entered until that date. According to the MAT User Guide section 4.13 GR Submitted in Advance of the GR Effective Date: “It is not good practice to submit gross rent changes in advance of the GR effective date as it creates challenges for site, CA and TRACS software. All GRs, as they can involve corrections to existing certifications, should be submitted after the fact, even if they are effective on the first of the month. However they should be submitted promptly after they take effect. In fact, the new requirements for creating HAP Vouchers (See Appendix H, HAP Vouchers/Voucher Creation) do not allow a future GR (one effective after the first of the month prior to the voucher date) to appear on a voucher.“

Try to process and send all the certifications due on or before the effective date of the rent change. TRACS needs the most recent certifications for all your tenants in their database. According to the MAT User Guide section 4.13, issues may arise for GR’s effective after an AR or other cert that has not been transmitted, the GR may be at-tached to an incorrect certification. A MI prior to the effective date but after the GR has been processed may not generate a GR for the MI certification only. A MO after the GR has been sent but prior to the GR effective date will require some adjustments.

If you need to verify which files need to be included to make sure the TRACS database is up to date, you can always build and print the voucher. Print the Detail and/or the Adjustments. Look at Column 13a Turnover Code and column 15 Change Code. Create TRACS files for those certifications and send them via iMAX.

After sending those files, you are ready to start the Gross Rent Change process. The first step is always to make a back up. In this case, a single property backup is recom-mended. Go to the Tools option at the top of the screen and click on Single Property Backup/Restore. Click on the Backup option and click Next. Select the location to backup to, using the second open folder icon at the end of the second line. Click Next. Select the property you would like to backup and click Start Backup / Restore.

Once the backup is complete, you are ready to start the Gross Rent Change process. Open the Property module. Click on Utilities on the top menu bar and select Process Gross Rent Change. The first question you see is:

Volume 5, Issue 4 IPM Software

Now available at: http://www.ipm-software.net/update.html

CornerStone v.5.3.0.1

HUDControl v. 9.10

RHSControl Pro 2011 v.1.3.0

(continued page 3, see GRC)

IPMIPMIPMIPM----Software Software Software Software would like to would like to would like to would like to welcome our new welcome our new welcome our new welcome our new business.business.business.business.

To all of our current To all of our current To all of our current To all of our current clients, thank you clients, thank you clients, thank you clients, thank you for your continued for your continued for your continued for your continued support.support.support.support.

“Success is more “Success is more “Success is more “Success is more permanent when permanent when permanent when permanent when you achieve it withyou achieve it withyou achieve it withyou achieve it with---- out destroying your out destroying your out destroying your out destroying your principles.” principles.” principles.” principles.” - Walter Cronkite

Since you just completed your single property backup, click Yes to continue.

If you did not already do the backup, you need to click No and follow the instructions on doing the backup. Please realize the warning message is there for a good reason. Failure to do a backup before processing the GRC can be a major problem. After completing the Gross Rent Change process, if you realize something was entered incorrectly, restoring a backup can put your data back to where it was before you started the process and you are free to re-enter the Gross Rent Change with the correct information.

Once you have selected your property and contract, you will see a screen with the current rent schedule. To enter the new information, select the new effective date and the voucher month for the submission of the changes. Using the rent schedule enter the new rates. Review your entries and click Next if they are correct.

(continued page 4, see GRC)

Continued from pg 2 – GRC

Volume 5, Issue 4 Newsletter April 2013

HUD released Housing Notice 2013-06 Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) System on March 08, 2013. The purpose is to update the instructions for using the EIV system. The use of EIV has been mandatory since January 31, 2013. While the changes are minimal, they include information on the link to identify the number of households reported as not verified, report name modifications for No Income Reported HHS or SSA, new information on the No Income Reported on 50059 report, access to the New Hires Report from Verification Reports section, and allows for a penalty for not accessing or using EIV to be assessed outside of an MOR. The full notice is located at: http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=13-06hsgn.pdf

EIV Notice Issued March 2013

Notes from Quality Assurance

Page 3

Continued from pg 3 – GRC

IPM Software

Next takes you to the confirmation screen where you will verify that what you entered is correct. The property name, subsidy type, contract number, effective date and voucher month assigned to the GRC are displayed.

The new rent table is displayed, as well as a table showing the amount of change per floor plan.

If all this information is correct, you will click on the box at the top right corner to indicate you have verified everything is correct. You cannot move forward until you have clicked the Verified box. If anything is wrong, you need to click Previous, make the corrections, and then review the verification screen again.

When you are sure everything is correct, check the Verified box then click Next.

At this point, you will need to review all the certifications that will be created. Tenants needing verification will show in red. After manually verifying all tenants and their changes in tenant rent / subsidy, click on the Verified Certifications check box. After the check mark is put in the Verified Certifications box, the Print button will be enabled. Click Print to generate a Gross Rent Change Preview Report. Review all the information on the report before you continue processing the GRC.

After you print and verify the information on the Gross Rent Change Preview Report, the Process Gross Rent Change button will be enabled. Click the Process Gross Rent Change button. The next screen will give you the option to mass print all Gross Rent Change Certifications.

Volume 5, Issue 4

Page 4

(continued page 5, see GRC)

1.

2.

3.

First click on Print Selected Certs and then click on the Print button to print the certifications. Do not close out of this screen until all the certifications have finished printing. This is the only time you can mass print the certifications. After you have printed all the certifications, you can close out of the Gross Rent Change Wizard.

After the rents for all of your subsidized tenants have been entered using the Gross Rent Change wizard, you still need to update the market rent tables under the Property module. We recommend the Market Rent tables be updated at the same time that you process the Gross Rent Change. Even fully subsidized properties must occasionally move someone to Market. Some reasons tenants could move to Market are the following: increase in income exceeding Gross Rent, unable to supply citizenship/ eligible alien documentation, failure to re-certify on time, subsidy contract expired- not renewed, ineligible student, or double subsidy at move-in. The Market Rent tables are located in the Property module. Open Property and click on the Floor Plans icon. Click the Search F3 bar to see the list of Floor Plans for the property. Highlight the first floor plan and then then go to the drop down list for the Rent Type field. All Floor Plans and all their Rent Types will need to be updated.

On the selected table, click on the small red add button and enter the effective date and new Gross Rent amount. (The termination date for the previous rents will update to the day prior to the effective date of the new rents and the new rent termination will automatically pre-fill with a future date ex. 01/01/2800, when the changes are saved.)

Save the changes by clicking on the small red Save button and then the big red Save button on the top tool-bar.

Repeat the steps for each Rent Type (HUD, Conventional, etc.) for that Floor Plan and then repeat the process for each of the other Floor Plans.

For detailed instructions on processing Gross Rent Changes in CornerStone, please refer to the following documents,

Process GRC in CornerStone: http://www.ipm-software.net/downloads/177_CS_CornerStone%20Processing%20a%20GRC.pdf

Process GRC for Market: http://www.ipm-software.net/downloads/help_documents/169-CS-Process.Market.GRC.in.HUD.Property.pdf

Pam Busing, with technical assistance from Karen Stevenson and Tara Hillman

Continued from pg 4 – GRC

Volume 5, Issue 4 Newsletter April 2013

Page 5

If you would like more information on any topic in this email or have questions, or comments, please email us at support@ipm-software.net

Let iWork Order Help Keep Your Maintenance Staff Working Efficiently

Our Mission Statement

Our continuing mission and commitment is to profitably offer the most accurate property management and compliance software to the Affordable Multi-Family Housing Industry and to provide our customers the best possible service and support.

Notes from the Sales Department

Contact Your IPM-Software Sales Representative

at (800) 944-5572

Karen Stevenson ext. 7018 kstevenson@ipm-software.net

Rue Fox ext. 7012 rfox@ipm-software.net

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For information on iWork Order, please contact your CornerStone Sales Representative today!

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Volume 5, Issue 4

Page 6

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