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Billing residents correctly can be difficult and time-consuming. Getting it wrong can lead to loss of revenue and can subject you to disputes with residents. Outsourcing utility billing to experts saves your employees time, maximizes revenue, reduces errors/risk, and helps get you paid on time. Here are three ways to automate portions of the billing process to make it easier on everyone from your onsite managers to your corporate offices:
AUTOMATE YOUR MANAGERS’ MONTHLY UTILITY BILLING TASKS
Each month, there are a variety of tasks a property manager must complete to prepare for the next month’s bills. While the tasks may be similar month to month, it can be overwhelming to keep track of which ones need to be done, in what order, and track the status of each of those tasks to ensure you are meeting your billing deadlines.
Automating these monthly tasks via a high-quality utility billing system makes a huge difference. You now have one centralized place for managers to track tasks and their due dates, which then increases efficiency and ensures the process is done thoroughly and consistently month to month. Automating managers’ monthly billing tasks also gives regional managers visibility into various properties’ overall task completion via a roll-up report.
AUTOMATE YOUR BILL DELIVERY
While some residents are open to Electronic Billing, others still prefer hardcopy paper bills; either way, you can make billing easier on your team by automating parts or all of the process. ManageAmerica keeps track of which residents have opted into E-Billing and which still prefer paper bills.
If your residents are open to paying rent via their computers or phones, consider…
E-Billing - residents can opt in to receive and view bill notifications via email or text. E-billing saves you money on postage, paper, and other ancillary costs. Most importantly, E-billing ensures bills are quickly delivered to residents for timely review and payment. There are two common methods:
Resident Portal allows your residents to access their accounts anytime, anywhere. From here, residents can view account and balance information, make one-time or recurring payments, and enroll in E-billing to receive and view bill notifications digitally. Our wide range of payment solutions enables residents to pay via credit card, debit card, checking account (with automated check scanning capabilities), money order, and cash. The more payment options you offer, the more likely you are to get paid on time.
Another great E-Billing option ManageAmerica offers is Text-to-Pay for residents who want the convenience of paying by phone. The bill is texted to them, and they can easily pay it right then and there in the same text thread.
If your residents still want hardcopy paper bills, consider…
Integrated Billing - while there is typically a small additional cost for partnering with a mail house, it saves your employees a ton of time each month. This frees them up to concentrate on more important property management tasks instead of wasting time stuffing envelopes.
ManageAmerica has extensive working relationships with reputable third-party bill printing and mailing partners. ManageAmerica’s tight integration results in files being sent directly and securely to our third-party partners so that our clients can remove themselves from the burdensome bill-printing and mailing process. Third-party partners will print, fold, stuff, and mail your resident bills directly to the residents.
OUTSOURCE TO AN EXPERIENCED + THOROUGH UTILITY BILLING SERVICE
Not all property management software and systems are equal. You want to find one with expertise in the specific billing regulations unique to the manufactured housing industry. In addition to this invaluable expertise, it’s crucial to work with a utility billing service that recertifies utility rates every month so that your residents are being billed properly and you are maximizing revenue, within legal limits.
ManageAmerica’s property management system and billing services are built specifically for manufactured housing communities. ManageAmerica has been crunching complex utility rates for over 20 years.
ManageAmerica helps mobile home park owners maximize their utility revenue with monthly utility rate recertifications. Our utility experts monitor and implement all rate changes so that you never miss an increase. Utility rates are always kept up-to-date so that you avoid over- or under- billing your residents.
In addition, ManageAmerica’s utility variance analyzer automatically tracks your submeter systems’ performance, helps you see a global and resident view of charges and recovery, and calculates the ratio of monthly submetered utility revenue to monthly master meter bill expense.
Contact us today to learn how ManageAmerica can make your monthly utility billing simple.