Billing and collections¶
Everything about money in Maskani, from the monthly bill to the last shilling of arrears. Bills and payments are kept in Treasury; Maskani works out what to bill, shows the statement and chases what is owed.
The monthly cycle¶
flowchart LR
R[Meter readings<br/>accepted] --> RUN[Billing run<br/>preview, then issue]
RUN --> BILL[Bills by WhatsApp<br/>and email]
BILL --> PAY[Owner pays<br/>M-Pesa, bank, cash, cheque]
PAY --> ST[Statement and<br/>balance update]
ST --> LAD{Still owing<br/>after the due day?}
LAD -- yes --> COL[Collections ladder<br/>reminders, calls, letter]
LAD -- no --> DONE[Settled]Billing runs¶
Billing, Billing runs, New run. Pick the property, fund and month. The preview shows every unit with its lines (service charge, water from the meter reading, garbage, parking) and total. Issue it and Maskani raises one Treasury invoice per unit, then messages each owner an itemised bill with the paybill and account number. A failed line can be retried; running the same month again never bills a unit twice.
A billing schedule on the property can start the run on the billing day by itself. If readings are missing it either waits and reminds the caretaker, or runs without them once you approve that.
Statements¶
Open an account under Billing, Unit accounts. The statement lists bills, credits and payments newest first with the balance after each one, and downloads as PDF or a spreadsheet. A box above it shows how to pay this account, including the bank account and reference for bank paybills.
How residents pay¶
flowchart LR
P{How much?}
P -- up to KES 250,000 --> M[Pay now<br/>M-Pesa prompt on their phone]
P -- more than M-Pesa allows --> B[Bank transfer or cheque<br/>they enter the reference]
M --> T[Treasury settles the oldest<br/>bill first]
B --> V[Waits in To verify]
V -- someone checks the bank --> T
PB[Paybill from their phone<br/>account number on the bill] --> T- Pay now on the portal or a bill link sends an M-Pesa prompt. A payment always settles the oldest unpaid bill first; anything extra is held as credit, and the next bill (or the next sale instalment) is paid from that credit the moment it is issued.
- Paybill. Owners can pay straight to the fund's paybill with their account number. A payment with a wrong or missing account number lands in Collections, Unmatched payments, where you assign it to the right account.
- Large amounts. M-Pesa stops at KES 250,000. Above that the portal asks for a bank transfer or cheque reference instead, which waits for review.
- Staff recording a payment. On the account page, Collect payment, Record payment takes cash, a cheque, a bank transfer or an M-Pesa code typed from a statement. It waits in To verify until someone other than the recorder confirms the money arrived.
Bank paybills¶
When the paybill belongs to a bank, confirmations do not reach Maskani, so payments are matched from
the bank's statement. Under Collections, To verify, Import bank statement, choose the fund and the
CSV exported from internet banking. Maskani reads the credits, matches each to an account by the unit
reference in the narrative (it understands 2362010#TAN7), or else by the owner's phone, and sends
the matches for verification. Lines it cannot place are listed so you can record them by hand.
Chasing arrears¶
Collections, Arrears lists who owes, with how old the debt is. The collections ladder acts on its own every working day, at most one step a day per account:
| Day after due | Default step |
|---|---|
| 1, 7, 14 | Reminder to the owner by WhatsApp and email |
| 30 | The account joins the Call list |
| 45 | A demand letter is issued and sent |
| 60 | Finance and the property manager are told |
On the Call list, record each call: spoke to them, no answer, promised to pay (with a date), disputes the amount. A promise holds the letter and escalation until its date.
Payment plans¶
For an owner who cannot clear at once, open the account and Agree a payment plan: split the balance into up to 24 dated instalments. While the plan is kept, the demand letter and escalation wait. Maskani checks every day; if an instalment is more than three days late the plan is marked broken, finance is told and the ladder carries on. Issue the Payment plan agreement letter from the account's documents.
Late payment charge¶
If your estate's rules allow it and you switched it on in settings, once a month Maskani adds a late charge to each account with bills past the grace days: the percent of what is overdue plus any fixed amount, never more than the cap. Earlier late charges never count, so it never compounds.
Credits and waivers¶
When a bill was wrong, or the estate agrees to forgive a charge, open the account and Credit a bill: choose the bill, credit note or waiver, the amount and why. Only the unpaid part of a bill can be credited. It goes to Approvals; once approved, a credit note is raised in Treasury and the statement shows it under the bill.
Bill queries¶
Residents can query a bill from their statement within 30 days of it. Queries land in Collections, Bill queries with an answer date a week out. Take one so others see it is being checked, then Answer: resolved (credit the bill first if needed) or no change. The resident gets your answer by email and on the portal.
Clearance certificate¶
When an account owes nothing, issue the Clearance certificate from the account's documents. Maskani refuses it while anything is owed. A unit transfer needs every account clear first.
Documents and agreements¶
Every document is numbered and carries a verification code anyone can check on the verify page. Notices (a clearance certificate, a demand letter) are simply issued. Agreements (a payment plan, a bill-to consent, a letter of offer) also need the signature of everyone named on them:
flowchart LR
I[Issue the agreement] --> P{How do they sign?}
P -->|Portal| A[They press Accept<br/>and type the code sent to them]
P -->|At the office| C[Send code, they read it back,<br/>you type it in Signatures]
P -->|On paper| W[Photograph the signed pages,<br/>Record signed copy]
A --> S[Signed once everyone named has accepted]
C --> S
W --> S- The code goes to the phone and email already on the person's record, never to a number given on the spot, and lasts five minutes.
- Each acceptance keeps the document's fingerprint, the time and where it came from, so it can be shown later that this exact document was agreed.
- The panel shows Waiting for signatures, Partly signed or Signed. Acceptances and signed copies appear in Settings, Audit trail.