Adding a commercial property

Tell Abodient a property is commercial when you add it, and answer the few questions that set its compliance.

This article shows how to add a shop, café, office or other business premises. A business let differs from a home in what Abodient tracks: a business lease with its own terms, a different compliance list, and rent that falls due by the quarter. The first pictures show a new address, 20 Hardy Road, being added (nothing is saved). The last one shows Unit 3 Cordwainer Row, the shop let to Pennyroyal Provisions Limited that the rest of this section follows.

Start from Properties

Open Properties, press Add and choose Add a property.

The Properties page with the Add button and its menu: Add a property, Add a block

Add the address and the owner

Type the postcode or address and pick the right line from the list.
Under Who owns it?, choose who owns it. Press Continue.

The Add a property window with an address confirmed and I own it personally chosen

Choose Commercial

The next window asks What kind of property is this? Pick Commercial for a shop, office or unit let to a business. Residential is for a home.

The What kind of property is this? window with Residential and Commercial side by side

The choice shapes the rest: which tabs the property gets, which compliance duties it carries, and how rent is shown.

Answer the questions about the premises

About the premises asks a few things that decide what Abodient tracks.

The About the premises window: Use set to Shop, and VAT and built before 2000 switched on, and a lift and gas appliances left off

Use: shop, café or restaurant, clinic or health practice, office, industrial or storage, pub, takeaway, betting shop or similar, or other.
Do you charge VAT on the rent? Switch on only if you have opted to tax with HMRC. Rent demands then show 20% VAT on top.
Building built before 2000? Adds the asbestos duty.
Does the building have a lift? Adds six-monthly lift examinations.
Do you keep any gas appliances in the premises? Adds gas appliance servicing.

Press Create property.

Your new property

The property opens with a Lease tab where a home has Tenancy. Unit 3 is shown here with its lease filled in; a brand-new property starts on No lease yet.

Unit 3 Cordwainer Row opened on its Lease tab, showing lease terms, the current lease and the occupier

Add the lease next: see The Lease tab. Then the occupier: see Your commercial tenant.

If something's not right

You answered a question wrongly. VAT can be changed later under Lease terms on the Lease tab. The lift question comes back as a Yes or No box on the Compliance tab if you left it unanswered.