Tenancy - Rental and billing

The agreement between one tenant and one unit: who occupies which shutter, from when, and what they pay for each service. It is the record the monthly rental bill is built from.

When to use it

When a tenant takes a unit, when the agreed rate for a service changes, and when a tenant vacates.

Before you start

The customer must exist on your rental customer list and be marked as an active rental customer. A customer missing either mark does not appear here. The Customer picker enforces this, but the check is not repeated after a value is saved. It only protects you if you pick from the list instead of typing or pasting an id.
The unit must exist on the Shutter master, and its block and floor on their own masters.
The services you plan to charge, such as Rent, Electricity or common area maintenance, must exist on the Service master. The increment and fine or discount policies you want must exist on the Increment Policy and Discount Policy masters.
You need create rights on this screen. It decides what a tenant is billed, so it usually sits with whoever signs the agreements.

Where to find it

Masters > Rental > Tenancy.

The fields on this screen

Section	Field (on screen)	What to enter	Required
Tenancy	Shutter	The unit this tenant occupies. Pick it from the Shutter master, then fill the block, floor and area.	No
Tenancy	Customer	The customer billed for this unit. Their account carries the rent, so make sure it is the right one.	No
Tenancy	Active	Tick while the tenant occupies this unit. Untick it and no new charges are generated for them.	No
Location	Block	Which block this unit stands in. It is not copied from the shutter you picked, so set it to match.	No
Location	Floor	Which floor this unit is on. It is not copied from the shutter you picked, so set it to match.	No
Location	Shutter Name	Name of the unit on this tenancy. It is used to name the charges this tenancy raises.	No
Location	Area (sq ft)	Area used for per square foot rates. It is copied onto the charges when they are generated.	No
Period	Effective From	Date this tenancy starts, in BS. The rates that bill are dated on each service row below.	No
Period	Agreement Date	Date the rental agreement was signed, in BS. It is kept for the record and does not affect billing.	No
Services & Rates	Service	The charge head being billed, such as Rent, Electricity or CAM. It carries the income account and tax.	No
Services & Rates	Rate Type	How the rate is read: per month, per square foot of the area, or per metered unit.	No
Services & Rates	Rate	The agreed amount for this service. The Rate Type decides if it is per month, per sq ft or per unit.	No
Services & Rates	Effective From	First day this rate applies. Bills are priced from here, so a wrong date bills the wrong months.	No
Services & Rates	Effective To	Last day this rate applies. Leave it blank for an agreement with no end date.	No
Services & Rates	Increment From	Date the first rate rise takes effect. Leave it blank to raise one interval after Effective From.	No
Services & Rates	Increment Policy	How much the rate rises and how often. Always pick one - a blank can stop this service billing.	No
Services & Rates	Fine / Discount Policy	Fine or discount ladder for this service. On its own it does not fine - use Policy Assignment too.	No
Services & Rates	Collection Order	(not explained yet)	No

How it works

Saving records the occupation and the agreed rates. Nothing is billed yet, and pressing Save does not raise a charge.

The rates you enter on the services grid become a billing schedule when you run charge generation from the Bill Generation screen. Each service row becomes a charge for this tenant. It is dated from the rate's own effective date and priced by its rate type: a flat amount per month, an amount per square foot of the area on the tenancy, or an amount per metered unit.

The monthly billing run then reads those charges and issues one Sales Invoice a month to the tenant. That invoice goes through the normal invoice approval and posting. A metered service is priced from the units in that month's meter reading round. A per-month or per-square-foot service is worked out for the whole month, and prorated by days when the tenancy covers only part of it. Billing Run History shows what was billed and, just as useful, what was skipped and why.

Untick Active when the tenant leaves. No new charges are generated for them after that, and everything already billed stays where it is.

Tips and common mistakes

Block, floor and area are not copied from the shutter you pick. Set them to match, because a per-square-foot rate is multiplied by the area.
Bills are priced from the effective date on each service row. A wrong date bills the wrong months, and it is the most common cause of a wrong first bill. This date must be a real AD (Gregorian) date. The Tenancy header's own Effective From above it is BS, but this one is not. If you type a Nepali year here (such as 2083), it saves as an AD date decades in the future with no warning. The screen refuses a value that is not a date at all (letters or a malformed entry), but it does not yet catch a well-formed date with an unlikely year.
Rate must be a number, and the screen refuses text. A negative rate still saves with no warning.
Always pick an increment policy on a service row. A blank one can stop that service billing.
Only three rate types are offered: per month, per square foot and per unit. The billing run cannot price anything else, which is why nothing else is on the list.
A fine or discount policy chosen here does not fine anyone on its own. The tenant also has to be named on Policy Assignment.
Changing a rate that has already been billed does not correct the invoices that went out. Raise the correction on the invoice.
Shutter and Customer are not required, so you can save a tenancy that names neither. It can never be billed and just sits in the list. If you find one, it usually means someone saved before picking both.

Shutter, Block, Floor, Service, Rate Type, Increment Policy, Discount Policy, Policy Assignment, Meter Assignment, Meter Reading, Bill Generation, Billing Run History, Customer Onboarding.