Setting up the MRI Qube Property Hierarchy, correctly

I have a confession. The fourth walkthrough in our "How To Qube" series is not really an underused feature of Qube. However, it is something that confuses a lot of people and consequently causes so many problems. Understanding this feature is so vitally important to effective use of Qube that I had to include it.  

So, what am I talking about? The Qube Property Hierarchy.

What is the Qube Property Hierarchy

In Qube, you have several different types of data, such as property, tenant, unit and owner. The "hierarchy" is the link between the types and levels of data. The data interrelates, and in Qube, we must abide by the hierarchy. Here's what it means in practice:

• You cannot create a Tenant unless there is a Unit.  
• You cannot create a Unit without a Property.  
• Properties can only be created if the Owner has been created.
• The Owner needs to be linked to a company on the General Ledger.  

There are also links between Tenants and Charges, as well as between Charges and Transactions. Qube PM calls these "parent" and "child" links. A Tenant is a child to a Unit but a parent to a Charge. (There is no other way to set up the hierarchy in Qube PM; it is designed this way).

It may take some time to get your head around, but you'll soon get the hang of it.

When the hierarchy is set correctly, you have the benefits of:

a) Qube PM functioning correctly!

b) being able to make use of the full power of Qube PM.

These are areas that many users oten make msitakes. So, if you're new to Qube PM or your hierarchy is confusing, don't fear. Read on and we'll get you back on track.  

The basic hierarchy

Within the Qube Property Management module, the basic hierarchy is thus:

• Owner – To have properties on Qube there must be an owner of that property. This can be freeholder, manco, right to manage etc. If ground rent is collected and paid across, this must be who receives the ground rent.

• Property – These are linked to an owner and must be created before any individual units can be created.

• Units – These are linked to a property and must be created before a Tenant/customer can be created.

• Tenant – The Tenant/customer can then be allocated to the unit.

Additional hierarchy

Within the General Ledger two additional hierarchies can be created to allow the consolidation of accounts across multiple owners.

• Company – Companies must be created and owners are linked to these for accounts preparation. Multiple owners can be linked to a single company

• Groups – Groups can be created and multiple companies can be linked to each group. This allows you to report in the General Ledger at company and group level.

Now that you're clear on the hierarchy, let's show you how to put this in action.

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Creating a company

1. Open up the General Ledger and click on Company.

2. Click on the "create new" icon.

3. Fill in the details for the company, including its three digit prefix. This prefix will be used on the chart of accounts.

4.  Your screen should look like this (if it does so, click the "Actual Dates" tab)

5. Fill in the date of the start of your current financial year. This will fill in the new year based on the period length in (4) above. Then click on the "save record" icon.

Your screen should look like this.

You can now copy your chart of accounts to the new company. It is good practice to have a template

company set up that gets updated with any new nominals to ensure everything you want is captured.

6. Go back to the General Ledger home screen and go to System > Utilities > Copy account structure.  This will allow you to copy the chart of accounts from one company to another.

If you want to see what is going to happen before you run it, change the action to "create a pre-list".  Fill in the company you want to copy from and to. If you are creating multiple companies, you can copy them all at once as long as they are concurrent. Then click "Duplicate".

In this instance, this routine will take the chart of accounts from "ZZZ". Remove the prefix ZZZ and create the chart of accounts on our new company with the prefix 005.

7.  Go back to your new company and have a look at the account codes.

8. Defined accounts need to be set up so Qube PM knows how to deal with certain processes. If we click on "Defined accounts" we will see this screen and we can edit this record

We can see from the screen above it has copied the "End of year" and "Inter-company" account codes. We can add in any that are missing. This completes the set up of the company.

Creating an owner

Every database has its own referencing structure and it is good practice to have this in place before you start. Understanding the number of characters you have at each level and future proofing is important.

1. In the Property Management module, go in to the owners section.

2. Click on the new record icon.

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3. You can begin to fill in your owner details.  You can see from the below screen shot I have linked to company 005 and entered the bank that relates to that company prefix

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4. Save the record using the save icon. Then click save again

There is now a new owner 205 created and linked to the company 005 in the General Ledger.

Creating a property

1. Properties are created at owner level. So, click on the owner you have just created and click on the properties tab on the left.

2. Click on the create new icon.

3. Begin to fill in the properties details on the form. You need to fill in details in "Summary". There are other tabs on the side are dependant on whether or not you have created custom tabs, such as "Insurance".

4. Once all the details have been filled in, click "save" and you will then receive two prompts:

a. "Do you want to make this available in Maintenance Management?"

This will depend on whether you are using that module for your property maintenance jobs.  (Don’t worry as there is a routine to pull them through later).

b. Qube will then ask you to select funds again. At this point, I would click "Cancel" as you can do this later too.

You will now see your property attached to your owner.

Creating units

The next step is to add units to your property.

1. Double click on the property you have created to go into the record. Click the units tab on the left and then click "new"

2. Fill in the information you can including any tabs down the side. The more you can fill in now the better. (Remember to click the save icon.)

3. Qube PM will then ask if you want to create some unit diaries. These will act as reminders to the property managers that certain things are due, such as: internal and external decorations, insurance, lease end based on the dates you have entered. This is only worth doing if your property managers will be using the diary functionality in Qube PM.

Creation of a Tenant

(We're on the home straight!)

Now, we're going to create tenants. Tenants are created from within a unit. To do so:

1. Double click on the unit you just created. Then, select the "Tenants" tab down the left and click on the "New" icon.

Generally, when I am creating these databases I will give the current customer the same reference as the unit and then when lease assignments take place an 01 then 02 can be added at the end. (Or and AA then AB etc.)

2. As per the previous examples, fill in as much detail as you can on the summary and other tabs.

You now have a tenant living in a unit within a property that is owned and attached to company

accounts in the GL. That's all there is to it...most of the time!  

There are some complicated scenarios. One of the more common complicated scenarios is when you have:

• an estate of houses with multiple blocks of flats.
• Each needs to be a separate property so that funds can be kept separate.

In this type of scenario, you would:

1. Set up a property as ESTATE
2. Create the houses and customers on this property
3. Link the blocks to the ESTATE.  

This will be in a separate document.

205-001 ESTATE

205-002 BLOCK

205-003 BLOCK .. etc

That should help you get things sorted. If you need any help, please do reach out for a free consultation.

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