Property - Safety Checks

Recording the detail around when Safety Checks (Smoke Alarm checks, Electrical, Gas and Plumbing checks) took place previously, and when they are expected to happen in the future, is mandatory for some organisations in some states in Australia. Chintaro records how often Safety Checks are required and when they are due via Inventory Items, and records the completion details of the last safety check through Maintenance Tasks. 

Reporting on the checks is completed through the Statutory Reporting Analyser screen, the Manage Inventory Items screen and into the Homes Victoria template (VIC users) (Information for Victorian Chintaro Users regarding RTA Legislation). 

This solution details:

• Overview of how Safety Checks are recorded in Chintaro
• Setting up if you do have Safety Checks already recorded as Inventory Items currently
• Setting up if you do NOT have Safety Checks already recorded as Inventory Items currently
• Raising the Safety Check Maintenance Task/Job in Chintaro

And also covers:

• Reporting on Gas and Electrical Safety Checks 
  • Statutory Reporting Analyser screen
  • Manage Inventory Items screen
  • Running the Homes Victoria Statutory Report (spreadsheet)

Information for Victorian Chintaro Users regarding RTA Legislation

From 29 March 2021 new rental laws under the Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (RTA) came into effect regarding the management and reporting on Gas and Safety checks for properties managed by registered housing agencies under the General Lease and Housing Provider Framework programs. The safety checks required for these programs are:

1. Electrical Safety: check of all electrical installations, appliances or fittings every 2 years
2. Gas Safety: check of all appliances, fixtures or fittings which supply gas every 2 years
3. Smoke Alarm Safety: Installed and working correctly, including battery checks every 12 months

Overview of how Safety Checks are recorded in Chintaro

Safety Checks are initially set up as Inventory Items, where the cyclical maintenance fields (when, and how often the checks are required) are determined. Chintaro will automatically create (but not send) a Maintenance Task for the safety check when it is due. The Maintenance Task is then sent to the Tradesperson by the user, and when the Tradesperson confirms the check is complete, the user adds the date and detail to the Maintenance Task to close the task.

The information from the Inventory Item, along with the information from the Maintenance Task about when the checks were completed, by which Tradesperson and when the next check is due is can be viewed and reported on from various screens in the system.  

Setting up if you do have Safety Checks already recorded as Inventory Items currently

If you currently have safety checks recorded in Chintaro as Inventory Items, you will need to begin by checking that the item type for all safety checks has a 'Safety' grouping in the Reference Table. This is crucial to the items showing in the reporting sections of Chintaro.

To check the items have a safety grouping, from the Home screen, click System Maintenance and Reference Tables.

Select the Item Type Reference Table. For all Safety Check Item Types (EG Electrical Safety, Gas Safety, Smoke Alarm Checks OR individual checks such as Gas Stove, Electric Heater, Ducted Heating etc), select the appropriate safety grouping from the Safety column's drop down list:

Once the Safety option has been selected for all Items relating to safety, Exit the screen to save.

The next step in the process is to ensure the data is entered correctly for each Inventory Item relating to safety. From the Home screen, click Properties, then click Manage Inventory Items.

Filter the Item Name column to include any Safety Items, and scroll across to the right hand side of the screen so that you can see the Safety columns (Safety Item, Safety Quantity, Safety Last Checked, etc):

For accurate reporting, check that each item includes:

Field on Manage Inventory Items screen	Name on Inventory Item screen	Screenshot	Description
Item Name	Item Name		The name of the item
Safety Item	Item Type		The group the item belongs to (for instance, Smoke Alarms)
Safety Quantity	Quantity		The number of items within the property
Safety Interval	Maintenance Cycle		For creating cyclical maintenance tasks by the system, the frequency of how often the maintenance is required.
Safety Next Check	Next Maintenance Due Date		The next date the maintenance is required on this item.

Double clicking on any row on this screen opens the Inventory Item, where you can update the information on the above 5 fields, if it's missing or inaccurate. 

If the Inventory Item is missing information in either the Quantity, Maintenance Cycle or Next Maintenance Due Date, you are able to enter or select the appropriate option from the Manage Inventory Items screen. These 3 fields are updatable on the screen to assist you with data entry, without having to open each individual item to update or change the data:

The last step in the setup is the ensure that each Property has an ISIP/UPI number. Open the Property screen and ensure it's entered into the field below:

If you are required to report by Room, rather then Property, open the Room Details screen and enter the UPI/ISIP into this field:

Once your Property (or Room) has an ISIP/UPI number, the Inventory Item has a Item Type with a Safety category, Quantity, and the Cyclical Maintenance fields are selected/entered on the Maintenance Task, Chintaro will be able to create the Maintenance Task at the appropriate time for you and you can begin reporting on your Safety Checks. 

Skip down to the section Raising the Safety Check Maintenance Task/Job in Chintaro for the next step in the process.

Setting up if you do NOT have Safety Checks already recorded as Inventory Items currently

If you do not currently record your safety checks as Inventory Items in Chintaro, you will need to add the different Safety checks that you are required to do into the system for your properties that you need to report on. You only need to add one Inventory Item for each different safety check, and that item can be cloned across to other properties to save you time in setting the data up. 

Before you begin, you need to ensure that you have Safety Checks as Item Types in the system. To check the items have a safety grouping, from the Home screen, click System Maintenance and Reference Tables.

Select the Item Type Reference Table. For all Safety Check Item Types (EG Electrical Safety, Gas Safety, Smoke Alarm Checks OR individual checks such as Gas Stove, Electric Heater, Ducted Heating etc), select the appropriate safety grouping from the Safety column's drop down list:

Once the Safety option has been selected for all Items relating to safety, Exit the screen to save.

You will then need to open a Property that requires a Safety Check. Click Property in the toolbar and double click on any property that requires a Safety Check:

On the Property page, ensure there is a ISIP/UPI number in the field below. Open the Property screen and ensure it's entered into the field below:

If you are required to report by Room, rather then Property, open the Room Details screen and enter the UPI/ISIP into this field, then click Exit:

Next, click Inventory and Add Item:

This Inventory Item will be copied across to other properties, so only enter the information into the fields that is generic to the safety check, for example:

The specifics about the safety check, such as the quantity to be checked, the frequency of the checks and when the first check should take place will be added from a different screen at later time. 

Click Exit to save, and the new Item will show in the item list:

Repeat the process of creating new inventory items for all safety checks (EG Electrical, Plumbing, Gas) if required.

When you have one property with all Safety Check templates set up, you will want to clone the items you created across to all properties that require the safety checks. To do this, go to the Home screen, then Properties menu, and Clone Inventory Items.

Select the property that you have created the items for in the Source Property drop down and the inventory items will appear in the box below. 

Select the Inventory Item(s) you would like to clone from the multi select box (where you can click more than one), and individually select the property, or properties, you would like to clone to in the box on the right hand side (click Select All if you wish to clone to all):

Click the Create a copy of the selected Inventory Items in ALL of these properties button and Chintaro will confirm the number of cloned items when the action has completed. 

At this point, you can add the specifics about how often and when you would like the first checks to take place on these items. To do this, go back to the Properties menu, and select Manage Inventory Items. 

Filter this screen by the Item Name column to show the safety items you would like to update, for example, drop the arrow down, unselect all and tick the items you would like to update for:

Scroll across to the right hand side of the screen so that you can see the columns with Safety in the name:

3 columns on this screen are updatable, meaning you can type or select options on the Manage Inventory Items screen if they are missing. The information you can update on this screen is:

Field on Manage Inventory Items screen	Name on Inventory Item screen	Screenshot in Inventory Item	Description
Safety Quantity	Quantity		The number of items within the property. Type in the number of the checks required in this field on the Manage Inventory Items screen:
Safety Interval	Maintenance Cycle		For creating cyclical maintenance tasks by the system, the frequency of how often the maintenance is required. Select the frequency of the checks required in this field from the drop down list on Manage Inventory Items screen:
Safety Next Check	Next Maintenance Due Date		The next date the maintenance is required on this item. Enter the next date the checks are required in this field from the drop down list on Manage Inventory Items screen:

For accurate reporting, ensure all items also have:

Field on Manage Inventory Items screen	Name on Inventory Item screen	Screenshot	Description
Item Name	Item Name		The name of the item
Safety Item	Item Type		The group the item belongs to (for instance, Smoke Alarms)

The fields for Safety Last Checked, Safety Last Outcome and Safety Checked By will be entered once the checks have been carried out by the contractor. NOTE: If you are currently recording this outside of Chintaro, please contact support@chintaro.com.au so that we can assist you with importing this historical data into your database. 

At this point, you can move on to the section Raising the Safety Check Maintenance Task/Job in Chintaro for the next step in the process.

Raising the Safety Check Maintenance Task/Job in Chintaro

Once you have set up your Safety Checks set up as Inventory Items using the steps above, Chintaro will automatically create the jobs for you at any number of days out from the scheduled completion date that you wish (this can be configured in System Maintenance > Preferences > Maintenance > Cyclical Maintenance Days). 

The Tasks will appear on your Home screen, in the Incomplete Maintenance Tasks section, under the Maintenance Type of Cyclical:

Double clicking on the name cyclical will open all tasks that need to be allocated and sent to a tradesperson. Chintaro will not send the tasks automatically, you will need to open the tasks individually and send them to the tradesperson. When you open the task, ensure you enter the following fields:

Field Name	Screenshot	Description
Tradesperson		*Required for Safety Reporting. Select the Tradesperson you would like to send the work order to from the drop down list.
Access Instructions		Any specific information about accessing the property, including arranging keys.
Tradesperson Alert/Instructions		Any specific information warning a tradesperson about potential dangers at the property or with the tenant(s).
Send Work Order To		Click this button when you're ready to send the work order to the tradesperson.

The next action is to be taken when the Safety Checks are completed. 

When a Safety Check has been completed, you will need to open the Maintenance Task from the Home screen, in the Incomplete Maintenance Tasks section, under the Maintenance Type of Cyclical:

Open the task that was completed by double clicking on its row, and click the Completion / Forecast button.

The data required for reporting on Safety Checks is:

Name on Maintenance Task screen	Screenshot	Description
Actual Completed Date		The date the safety check was confirmed as completed. Entering a date into this field will trigger the Active task box to be unticked and close the job.
Work Completed		The details provided by the tradesperson about the checks completed.

NOTE: You may be required to enter further information for your own reporting (EG Actual Cost).

Reporting on Gas and Electrical Safety Checks 

There are 3 screens that you can use to check your Gas and Electrical Safety check data. These are:

1. Statutory Reporting Analyser screen

The Statutory Reporting Analyser screen can be viewed at any time to see how your safety check data is tracking, without having to run the statutory report. From the Home screen, to open the Statutory Reporting Analyser screen, click Reports and Exports, then Statutory Reporting Analyser.

Enter the dates you would like to view the safety checks between from the Start and End date at the top of the analyser screen:

Click the + symbol for the Vic Safety Report and select the VIC Safety Report option. The screen will populate with all properties that have an Inventory Item with a Safety Item of Gas, Smoke Alarm, Plumbing or Electrical:

Column Name	Field in Chintaro	Description
Full Address		Combination of the Property Address & City fields.
UPI		Unique Property Identifier found on Property Screen > Room > ISIP.
ISIP		Unique Property Identifier found on Property Screen > ISIP. Field name may show as UPI on Property screen.
Item Name		Found on Property > Inventory Item> Item Name.
Last Checked		Populated from most recent Maintenance Task linked to Item > Completion Details > Actual Completion date field.
Previous Checked		Populated from previously recorded Maintenance Task > Completion Details > Actual Completion date field.
Last Outcome		Populated from most recentMaintenance Task > Completion Details > Work Completed field.
Last Completed		Populated from most recent Maintenance Task linked to Item > Completion Details > Actual Completion date field.
Program		Populated rom Property > Program field.
Safety Item	N/A	Populated from Safety Group in System Maintenance > Reference Tables > Item Type > Safety Group.
Active		Populated from Inventory Item > Active box.
ID	N/A	Unique ID for Inventory Item created by Chintaro

Double clicking any row will open the Inventory Item screen for the item, where you can update most fields. To update any blank fields relating to a Maintenance Task, you will need to open the specific task relating to the maintenance, and to update the ISIP/UPI number, you will need to open the Property screen.

2. Manage Inventory Items screen

The Manage Inventory Items screen can be used to view, report or update some details relating to the Safety Checks. From the Home scree, click Properties, then Manage Inventory Items. 

Filter this screen by the Item Name column to show the safety items you would like to display by dropping the black arrow down, unselect all and tick the items you would like to update for:

Scroll across to the right hand side of the screen so that you can see the columns with Safety in the name:

If data in the columns is blank or shows 'No Report'. there has not been a Maintenance Task raised for the Safety Check at this stage. 

There are 3 updatable fields on this screen, if you need to change the data:

Field on Manage Inventory Items screen	Name on Inventory Item screen	Screenshot in Inventory Item	Description
Safety Quantity	Quantity		The number of items within the property. Type in the number of the checks required in this field on the Manage Inventory Items screen:
Safety Interval	Maintenance Cycle		For creating cyclical maintenance tasks by the system, the frequency of how often the maintenance is required. Select the frequency of the checks required in this field from the drop down list on Manage Inventory Items screen:
Safety Next Check	Next Maintenance Due Date		The next date the maintenance is required on this item. Enter the next date the checks are required in this field from the drop down list on Manage Inventory Items screen:

To report on this information outside of Chintaro, click Export, and to create a view just for Safety Checks for future reference, click Save View (click here for more information on creating Saved Views).

3. Running the Homes Victoria Statutory Report (spreadsheet)

When you are ready to run the Statutory Report for Safety Checks, from the Home screen, click Reports and Exports, then VIC Reports and Safety Check Report.

When you have reviewed all fields, click Create Report. The report will be created with the Statement period of the Last Checked Before Date selected. If fields are showing blank, or the Additional Works column shows 'No Report', there has not yet been a Safety Check Maintenance Task created in Chintaro for the Inventory Item: