LandlordMax Newsletter - LandlordMax Post-Release and Next Version

Where to start? We've had an incredibly busy time since version 6.05e of LandlordMax was released in late April! I've been so busy I had to skip the last newsletter due to time constraints. And here I thought I'd have a little bit of rest after our big push to release LandlordMax.

Version 6.05e was our biggest release ever in terms of effort and scale, even if we just released it as a minor letter upgrade. The reason we did that in case you're wondering, was to make it easier for people to transition from the Desktop Edition to the Network Editions. We saved people from first having to upgrade versions and then Editions, this way you only need to upgrade Editions if you want to move up to one of the Network Editions.

The Network Edition as you already know, was successfully released and is being actively used by a good number of customers, so we're happy to see it's success. And of course it continues to grow it's customer base on a regular basis along with the Desktop Edition.

This is also our 10th Year Anniversary of being in business!! We will shortly be closing our 10th fiscal year! And as is customary, I publish our revenues chart over time. Our last Fiscal Year chart can be found here. I can tell you that we've already surpassed last years fiscal revenues, we just don't know by how much yet (the fiscal year isn't over yet). Most likely by the next newsletter or so I will have published it as part of our yearly tradition, and when I do I will make sure to include the link in this newsletter.

And on that note, let's head into the detailed news for this month.

LandlordMax News and Updates:

Before I begin, those of you who are interested and want to get an appreciation of the amount of effort that went into, we published two metrics about the release.

The first was our daily status for version 6.05e as measured by the number of tasks remaining on a daily basis starting from Oct. We actually started well before that, at least a year earlier, we just didn't start to publish it before Oct 2012. In any case, the link is: http://landlordmax.com/v605estatus

In addition to this I wrote a post on my personal blog which charts the number of lines of programming code for each major version . As you can quickly in that chart, the amount of new programming code between version 6.05c and version 6.05e is more than the difference between any other two major versions!! Yes it was that big of an effort. And this was posted almost half a year before we released it, so the difference is actually larger.

That being said, we did have a few bugs that affected some of our customers because of the sheer scale of the release. The biggest one was printing on Mac computers. Basically we discovered that printing was broken in the programming language that's used to program LandlordMax on the Mac. I wrote an article about it on my personal blog which you can find here . It's a big issue and I'm not sure how it passed our testing. In any case we resolved this as quickly as possible and the software now fully works on the Mac.

The other thing we also learned before we released this version is that we can no longer support 32-bit Macs. Basically Apple has stopped supporting all of their 32-bit Macs for at least 2 years , which means these systems are NOT secure. Again there have been no system security updates for about 2 years, which is not good. As a result, and especially due to the sensitive nature of the data stored within LandlordMax, we cannot in good conscience support 32-bit Macs. This would be like supporting Windows 98 for the Windows world. It's just asking for trouble. For anyone interested in more information and discussion about this, I had an interesting discussion in our online forum with Simon.

In any case, any bugs were dealt with immediately and we released updates just as fast. That being said, I will take this opportunity to suggest to people to re-download and re-install the latest version of the software from the website to get the absolute latest version which includes some additional minor fixes. For example we fixed a bug where if you tried to save an edit more than three times in a row in the Accounts tabbed panel in the Accounting workarea without doing anything else ((a very specific and very rare scenario), it could result in an odd error message. Almost no one will see this issue but nonetheless we did resolve it. So when you have a chance, it's worth re-downloading and re-installing the latest version from the website just to be safe.

Beyond this the biggest news here is that we're very actively working on releasing the next major version of LandlordMax. This is a FEATURE release in that we're expecting a LOT of new features within the software. From things like new reports to quicker and more efficient handling of partial payments to having corporate tenants (rather than just people) to, well quite a slew of new stuff. To give you an idea, our printed list of new features is currently sitting at about 10 pages of new items (with one item per line)!! We're not sure exactly how many and how much yet will all make it but you can expect to see a lot of new stuff in the software very soon.

Also, and this is still unofficial, our current release goal is sometime in the fall to winter of this year. Work on this has already started some time ago, it's just now accelerated that the Network Editions have been released. So you can expect to see a lot of updates in the newsletter about how we're progressing. I have a feeling I'll divulge some of the features in the next newsletter.

Other News:

LandlordMax Tip:

In the latest release of LandlordMax we added a new section called "Management" This is more for management companies that use LandlordMax to manage properties for clients. What it does is allow you to select either the property owner or management company to appear in the invoices and receipts for your tenants. You can set whether or not to use the Management company or the property owners in the Preferences section of the software, under General Preferences and then "Invoice and Receipt Preferences". You can find more details and screenshots in the Release Notes available at: http://www.landlordmax.com/support/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=76#v605e

Property Management Tip:

Always have some additional capital or credit available, even if it's not cash. It can even be investments in other investment vehicles. Whatever it is, it's important to have access to capital should you ever need it. Sometimes the unexpected can and will happen, and the more capital or credit you have available the more you be able to handle should the worse ever happen. It's all too easy to be running near the edge with real estate since it's quite common to leverage yourself, to always be trying to increase your portfolio. I can completely understand this. However at least once a year you should look at what kind of financial buffer you have, and at the very least you should be able to absorb one or two big unexpected expenses without collapsing. Preferably more, but at least one or two.

Industry News, Information, and Recommendations:

Story/Tip of the Month:

• Home prices jump 12%, new home sales hit a five year high
  
• Tenant or a Professional Bum - Do You Know How to Tell?
• The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis
• Energy production causes big US earthquakes
• McDonalds' suggested budget for employees shows just how impossible it is to get by on minimum wage
• Breevy - A great little software to help you type faster by automatically expanding what you type (this is NOT a paid link nor is it an affiliate link)
  

LandlordMax Testimonial of the Month:

"I have been using LandlordMAX for a little over 18 months. Not only was the program easy to setup but has made tracking of expenses, late payments, etc. much easier. With quite a number of apartments on our books it was always difficult to see when payments were not made. The year end accounting has been a dream. My accountant no longer needs to go through our books to get the EOY numbers. Also I wanted to add that customer support has been terrific. And best of all when I have reasonable suggestions for improvement of the program they are made within weeks."

- Murray Acheson

"I've been using your software since 2007. I was one of the ones that started asking about a network version long ago. Even on its first release, your network Landlordmax software is awesome! It does EXACTLY what I was hoping for. I'm a tech geek, and I've been willing to pay any amount for good property management software for my brokerage. I've tried every other competitive solution (all of which charge substantially more), even the big name networked versions, which charge outrageous monthly fees. Yours outperforms them all. Really brilliant software.

You did great. You've really helped my brokerage succeed as it rapidly expands. My employees all love it too, and it save's me a king's ransom in training cost for new employees do to its simplicity."

- Ed Dimarco (http://www.eddimarco.com/)

Final Words:

The Network Edition has been released with success! We're now concentrating our efforts on releasing a new "feature" version of the software, which will be available for both the Desktop Edition and Network Edition. I'm also pretty sure I'll be writing about some the new upcoming features as they get completed. At least the most exciting ones, there's going to many to list. And on that note I wish you the best and we'll be in touch shortly.