FAQ: About InBizness

QUESTION FROM A READER:

I've been looking at InBizness and have a few questions about it:

1- Is inbizness a locked solution in any way, is there a limit to customization?

2- Would your solution work with IWP/CWP? If so, how well does the experience translate?

3- Do you have to physically ship inbizness?, (we are located in Barcelona...) :-)

ANSWER:

Thanks for your interest in InBizness. InBizness is not locked in any way. All elements are open for your individual customizations. None of the InBizness packages are designed for the web. So you would need to review what your web needs are, what the FileMaker limitations on the web are and then customize InBizness accordingly. In some cases, this is minor and in some case time consuming. None of these changes are that challenging technically, it is just layout and script tweaks to make the experience web compatible. InBizness is small enough to ship as an email enclosure, so delivery is almost instant!

InBizness Property Manager 3.0

InBizness 3.0 has a number of enhancements including a new fees module integrated with the payment system and a significantly upgraded tenants module. This is a third update in the last six months and this just illustrates the power and flexibility of the FileMaker database environment.

TENANT MODULE UPDATES
The tenant module has received a number of user interface and operational changes with this update. The tab bar has been updated to be more effective and streamlined. The Deposit / Move Out tab has been renamed Rental Details. Two new tabs were added as well Tenant Details and Fees.

So the tab bar for tenants now reads General, Income, Rental Details, Tenant Details, Activities, Payments, Fees, Files and Background. The addition of tenant details allowed us to move some of the tenant data from the top area to this dedicated tab. So the top area now contains just the name and phone number of the primary and secondary tenants.

The tenant details tab now has a wider array of fields supporting information of both primary and secondary tenants. This includes phone numbers, email address, SSN / EIN id numbers, drivers license, date of birth and age.

The renamed Rental Details tab contains a new collection of fields to support tracking insurance information including the company, phone number, policy number, voucher start and end dates.

The new Fees tab allows the assessment of fees (most likely late fees) to a tenant record. These assigned fees can then be easily added to payment records that go along with or independent of rental payments.

THE NEW FEES SYSTEM
The fee system is tied directly to the tenants, unit and payments modules. The user interface to access fees is available only from the tenants module.

You can add a new fee to the system by clicking its associated button.

Fees are paid via the payment system. You will see this change in the payment dialog box where unpaid fees are shown and can be added to that payment.

DEVELOPER RELATED CHANGES
Since the system is getting more robust with additional data relationships integrated within the system, the relationship graph has been updates to be easier to read and access.

InBizness Property Manager 2.0

The following is a list of updates that were added to InBizness Property Manager 2.0.

TENANT RELATED CHANGES
Added new table called TenantIncome to facilitate better tracking of multiple levels of tenant income.

Added new tab in the Tenants module called Income.

Added a new field called Annual Household Income which displays the entered monthly income by twelve.

Removed the phone 2 fields and added fields for a second tenant name and phone info
Deleted employee related fields and added that functionality back into the Tenant Income table.

Added new fields of Household Size, Household Income, Date Last Certified For Income Eligibility.

Added new list view layout that focuses upon the household income data
Tweaked the list button so it gives you a choice of the general list or the household income list.

Tweaked the button in the rentals portal to bring up a choice dialog box so you can go to the rental details or directly to the unit information.

Added field to track insurance voucher information in the Tenant form view in the Deposits / Insurance / Move Out tab.


TENANT / UNIT LINK CHANGES
Made changes to the dialog box that is used to link a tenant to an available unit. Primarily, it has more logic to automatically set the status of the unit when it is rented for the first time.

DEVELOPER RELATED CHANGES
Added a developer related script that preps the database for a new installation by deleting all records in all tables