Service - Rental and billing

A rental service you bill for, such as rent, common area maintenance, electricity, water or parking. It holds a default rate, the tax percentages, and the head it is billed and collected under.

When to use it

Once for each thing you charge a tenant for, before you set up any tenancy.

Before you start

The Rate Type list must hold the basis you want (Per Square Foot, Per Month, Per Unit).
The charge head product must exist in the Product master, and that product must carry the sales account you want this income posted to.

Where to find it

Masters > Rental > Service.

The fields on this screen

Section	Field (on screen)	What to enter	Required
Details	Code	Short code for this service, such as RENT or ELEC.	No
Details	Service	Name of the service as it appears on the customer's bill.	No
Details	Meter Type	Which utility this service meters - Electricity or Water.	No
Rate	Default Rate	Standard rate for this service. The rate actually billed comes from the customer's tenancy.	No
Rate	Rate Basis	How the rate is measured: per month, per square foot or per metered unit.	No
Rate	Payment Priority	Order a part payment is applied in. The lower the number, the earlier this service is settled.	No
Tax	VAT %	VAT percentage charged on this service. Leave it 0 when the service carries no VAT.	No
Tax	TDS %	TDS percentage withheld on this service. Leave it 0 when no TDS applies.	No
Accounting	Income Ledger	The income account each bill credits for this service.	No
Accounting	Charge Head Product	The charge head this service bills under. Receipts and collection reports are grouped by it.	No

How it works

A saved service appears on the Tenancy screen, where you add it to a shutter with its own rate, rate basis, dates and increment policy. The rate that is billed is the one on the tenancy line, not the Default Rate here.
When charges are generated for a period, the service supplies the charge's name, its VAT and TDS percentages, its charge head product and its payment priority. A tax percentage above zero turns that tax on for the charge, and zero turns it off.
The Charge Head Product decides where the income posts, through the sales account set on that product. It also tells a receipt which head it is settling, so a service without one is missing from the day collection report.
Payment Priority decides the order in which a customer's receipt is applied across their heads, lowest number first. The intended order is electricity, common area, water, parking, and rent last. That way the amount most likely left owing is the largest one, and the easiest to enforce.
The Rate Basis must be one billing can price: Per Square Foot, Per Month or Per Unit. Per Annum is not priced, and a tenancy line that uses it cannot be billed.
A Per Unit service is metered. It bills one month in arrears and needs a meter reading for the month, or the customer is skipped.

Tips and common mistakes

The bill does not post to Income Ledger. Set the sales account on the Charge Head Product instead, and check it before the first billing run.
A tenant may have two metered services on one meter. Only one of them can be given the units, so the others are reported as having no reading instead of being billed twice. Give each metered service its own meter.
Changing a percentage or the charge head here affects charges generated from then on. Charges already generated keep what they were given.

Tenancy (where the service is attached to a shutter and priced)
Rate Type, Increment Policy, Meter Reading
Bill Generation (the run that turns these into bills), Product