Processing Your First Incoming Payments

Q: I'm new to agentOS—what does "processing incoming payments" mean?

A: Processing incoming payments means recording and allocating money that's come into your client account, primarily tenant rent payments and council payments. You'll need to tell agentOS which property and tenant each payment relates to, so the system can update their account correctly. This is a daily task that ensures tenants' accounts are kept up to date.

Q: How do I process my first tenant rent payment in agentOS?

A: When you see a new tenant rent payment with a unique description, go to Actions and select "Link as Repeat Person Electronic Payment". You'll then search for and select the property and head tenant. Once you've found the right tenant, link it as a repeat person to save the entry—it will turn blue once successfully linked. The "repeat person" part means agentOS will remember this linkage for future payments from the same tenant, making it quicker next time.

Q: What does the blue colour mean on payment entries?

A: Blue entries are payments that have been previously linked to a tenant—either by you or someone else in your organisation. Once a payment has been set up as a "repeat person electronic payment", future payments from that same source will appear in blue automatically. For these blue entries, you simply need to verify them visually (check they look correct), tick them, and post them. It's much quicker than setting up new payments!

Q: As a new agentOS user, how do I know which tenant to link a payment to?

A: The payment description on your bank statement usually includes identifying information like the tenant's name, property address, or a reference number. Look for these details and use them to search for the correct tenant in agentOS. If you're unsure, it's better to contact Support than to guess—linking a payment to the wrong tenant creates problems that take time to fix.

Q: What do I do with council payments for tenants?

A: Council payments work differently depending on the property. For a single tenant property, use "Link as Once Only Person Electronic Posting" to process the council payment. For properties with multiple tenants (HMOs), contact Support for guidance on how to allocate the payment correctly. As a new agentOS user, don't worry if you're not yet familiar with which properties have multiple tenants—Support will help you until you're comfortable with the system.

Q: Where can I learn more about linking different types of payments?

A: For detailed information about the various ways to link and reconcile bank statement transactions, please refer to the "Reconciling & Linking Bank Statement" article. This is a really useful reference guide as you're learning agentOS, and you might want to keep it open while you process your first few payments.