Now that you've receipted and reconciled your bank transactions, you can begin allocating funds on the owner ledgers.

To get started, head to the Accounting tab on the left and click on the Allocate Funds tab.

This page will show you a list of owner and tenancy ledgers that have unallocated funds on the ledger. For example, owner ledgers where rent income has just come in from the tenant. And tenancy ledgers where rent has come in but not yet been allocated to a charge.

The tenancies in credit tab is informational only and gives you a breakdown of any tenancies that have unallocated funds on them. For example this may be tenants who have paid early, overpaid their rent or have excess money left after moving out. It's important to note that you cannot perform any actions from this tab, other than viewing the tenancy and ledger.

The Owners in Credit tab shows any owner ledgers that have funds available. Here you can see a breakdown of the money received, their float amount, any charges and what to pay the owner. The process here is to allocate the available funds to the relevant charges.

On the right hand side, next to the Allocate button, there is a document icon which is the 'preview statement option'. This allows you to see what the statement will look, based on the income and charges. When the payment is allocated, that payment advice will generate and will appear in the ledger.

If you have set a preferred payment date on an owner's record, this will be displayed next to the preview payment advice button. This is a visual prompt only - you can still proceed with allocation at any time, but it helps you prioritise which owners are due to be paid.

If an owner is a portfolio landlord, you will see the portfolio icon next to the property address in the Owner column. This is informational at this stage, so you can be aware before allocating.

When allocating owner funds you have three options; Quick Allocation, Detailed Allocation or Smart Allocation.

Clicking the Allocate button will allocate that payment instantly and give you a 3 second timer to cancel the allocation should you need to. This should be used if you can visually see that everything is correct and makes sense, for example a simple rent cycle including rent income, management fee and owner payment.

Clicking the drop down arrow to the right hand side of the Allocate button gives you a detailed breakdown of the allocation. Here you can see exactly what income has come in, what charges are on the ledger and choose which charge to allocate to.

For example, you have £1,000 rent income, £120 management fee and a maintenance charge for £125 but you may have agreed to pay the contractor next month. In this case you can untick the maintenance charge and ensure you pay the owner £880.

If there are any upcoming maintenance jobs where the contractor has been instructed, these are displayed in the section below and if a contractor quote has been provided, the quote amount will also show.

This is purely informational, but allows you to make a decision early whether you should withhold money.

When you are ready to proceed, click Allocate for each owner and you can move on to the Payments to Make section.

Smart Allocation allows you to allocate funds across multiple owner ledgers in a single action, rather than reviewing and allocating each property one at a time. Instead of opening each row individually, you can review all qualifying allocations together and process them in one go.

Before using Smart Allocation, you will need to configure the rules that determine which allocations qualify. This is done from the Owner tab in your Allocation Settings. For a full guide on setting up the rules, see our Allocation Settings help article.

Once your rules are configured, you will see a 'Review Suggested Allocations' option on the Allocate Funds page. You will also notice a green lightning icon next to any property that qualifies for smart allocation based on your rules, making it easy to see at a glance which allocations are included.

Clicking 'Review Suggested Allocations' will run through your rule set and pull back every qualifying allocation. From here you can review the full list of suggested allocations.

Each allocation is ticked by default. If there are any you do not want to include, simply untick them. Once you are happy with the selection, confirm to proceed and all ticked allocations will be processed in one go.

If you have marked an owner as a Non Resident Landlord, you will see the relevant NRL deduction (or refund) in the detailed allocation section.

For a detailed breakdown of NRL, see our NRL Tax help article.

If you have any held by owner deposits where the funds have moved from the tenancy ledger to the owner ledger, these funds are locked from being used for any charges and must be paid to the owner. In this case, you will see a banner highlighting this and showing how many funds are available for allocation to invoices.

When you are ready to proceed, you can move on to the Payments to Make section.