Getting started with Maskani¶

This page takes a new estate from sign-up to its first bill. Do the steps in order; each one leans on the one before it.

flowchart LR
  subgraph S1[Organisation]
    direction TB
    A[1. Create your organisation<br/>and subscribe to Maskani] --> B[2. Choose how the<br/>property is run] --> C[3. Office settings<br/>and branding]
  end
  subgraph S2[Money]
    direction TB
    D[4. Funds and paybills] --> E[5. Charges and rates]
  end
  subgraph S3[Estate and people]
    direction TB
    F[6. Property, blocks<br/>and photos] --> G[7. Units and owners<br/>from a spreadsheet] --> H[8. Staff and roles]
  end
  subgraph S4[Go live]
    direction TB
    I[9. Meters] --> J[10. Collections rules<br/>ladder, late charge, approvals] --> K[11. Invite owners<br/>to the portal] --> L([First billing run])
  end
  S1 --> S2 --> S3 --> S4

1. Create your organisation¶

Sign up as described in Getting Started and pick a Maskani plan under Subscriptions & Billing. Your organisation's short name becomes the estate code that staff and residents type to open the estate, so choose something people can remember, for example mvumo-gardens.

The person who signs up is the tenant administrator and can do everything. Add the rest of the team in step 8.

2. Choose how the property is run¶

When you add a property you pick How it is run. This is the most important choice in setup, because it decides which parts of Maskani your staff see and which funds are opened. You can change it later, and an administrator can switch single modules on or off afterwards.

flowchart TD
  Q1{Do you sell units<br/>off plan or ready?}
  Q1 -- Only sales, nobody lives there yet --> DS[Development sales only]
  Q1 -- Yes, and you run the estate too --> ED[Estate, developer managed]
  Q1 -- No --> Q2{Who runs the estate?}
  Q2 -- The owners, through a committee --> OA[Estate, owners association]
  Q2 -- A manager letting units for landlords --> Q3{Homes or businesses?}
  Q3 -- Homes --> RL[Residential lettings]
  Q3 -- Shops, offices, warehouses --> CL[Commercial lettings]
  Q2 -- The owner, for their own units --> SL[Landlord, self managed]

Use case	Pick it when	Modules switched on	Funds opened
Estate, developer managed	You built the estate, still sell units and also run it (service charge, water, security)	Register, billing, water, sales, estate, maintenance, vendors, gate, staff, notices	Estate service fund, sales collections
Estate, owners association	The owners took over the estate and run it through a committee or a management company	Register, billing, water, estate, maintenance, vendors, gate, notices	Estate service fund
Development sales only	You sell units and collect deposits and instalments, but nobody lives there yet	Register, billing, sales, notices	Sales collections
Residential lettings	You manage rented homes for one or many landlords	Register, billing, water, lettings, portfolios, maintenance, vendors, notices	Estate fund, deposits held, rent for landlords
Commercial lettings	You manage shops, offices or warehouses	As residential lettings, plus commercial terms	Estate fund, deposits held, rent for landlords
Landlord, self managed	You own the units and manage them yourself	Register, billing, water, lettings, maintenance, vendors, notices	Estate fund, deposits held

Lettings modules (leases, portfolios, commercial terms) arrive in the next release; until then those use cases still give you the register, billing, water, maintenance and notices.

Sub use cases. Inside an estate you fine tune with modules rather than a second choice. A gated estate with guards keeps Gate on; a block of flats without a gate turns it off. An estate on council water with no meters turns Water off. An association that does not sell units leaves Sales off. Change these under Settings, Modules, either for the whole organisation or for one property from its edit form.

3. Office settings and branding¶

Settings, General holds the billing day, the due day, the meter reading window, quiet hours for messages and the support phone and email residents see. Settings, Branding sets your logo and colours for the portal, documents and emails.

4. Funds and paybills¶

A fund is a separate pot of money with its own paybill and bank account. Funds never mix: a payment to the service charge paybill can only settle service charge bills. Open Billing, Charges and funds, Funds and for each fund set:

the paybill number connected in Treasury,
the account prefix (account numbers then read like B07 or S-B07),
the paybill account number format, only if your paybill belongs to a bank.

Bank paybills. Some estates collect through a bank's paybill, for example Paybill 222111 with the estate's bank account 2362010 as the account number. Enter 2362010#{ref} if the bank accepts the unit after a #, or just 2362010 if it does not. Owners then see exactly what to type on bills, messages and the portal, and payments are matched from your bank statement (see Billing and collections).

5. Charges and rates¶

Each use case starts with sensible charges: service charge, water, garbage, a sinking fund, extra parking, special levies and repair recharges. Under Charges and funds switch on the ones you bill, then add rates: a rate can apply to the whole estate, a property, a unit type or one unit, and starts on a date so price changes never rewrite old bills. Water uses a rate per cubic metre, with blocks if your tariff has them.

6. Property, blocks and photos¶

Add the property (name, code, type, how it is run, location), then its blocks or phases. Add a few real photos on the property page; the first is the cover on cards and on the public marketplace if you publish the estate.

The property picker at the top of the console opens on your default property: the one linked to your head office branch in your organisation settings, otherwise the first by name. Every page, including reports such as the water trend, follows the property picked there. With more than one property you can also choose All properties; Maskani remembers your choice on that device.

7. Units and owners¶

Units, Import CSV loads units and owners from a spreadsheet. Maskani checks every row first and shows what it will create before anything is saved. Each owner linked to a unit opens the unit's account in the estate fund. You can also add units and link people one at a time.

8. Staff and roles¶

Invite staff under Settings, Users and give each a role. Staff limited to some properties only see those.

Staff on payroll¶

A Maskani user is someone who signs in. Estate employees who are paid by the estate (caretakers, cleaners, gardeners, in-house guards) are managed in ERP (HR, Payroll) from the app switcher: employee records and documents, salaries, monthly payroll and casual worker payments. Maskani does not read ERP employees yet. Until it does, give a caretaker who uses Maskani a user account here, and keep their pay in ERP. Linking the two (picking an ERP employee when assigning property staff or a work order, and paying a casual worker for a job from ERP) is planned.

flowchart LR
  ERP[ERP: HR and payroll<br/>employees, salaries, payroll runs,<br/>casual payments] -. planned: staff picker .-> MS[Maskani<br/>property staff, work orders]
  U[Settings, Users<br/>people who sign in] --> MS

Plan limits

Your subscription sets how many units and staff users the estate can have. Adding a unit, committing an import or inviting staff past that number is stopped with a message showing the limit and how many you already use. Upgrade the plan to go further. Owners, occupants, guards and vendor supervisors never count as staff users.

Role	Typical person	What they do
Tenant administrator	Estate manager, director	Everything, including settings, roles and approvals
Property manager	Estate or property manager	Runs assigned properties: register, works, gate, notices, documents; verifies manual payments
Finance officer	Accountant	Billing runs, collections, credits and bill queries
Sales officer	Sales team	Price lists, reservations, sale contracts
Caretaker	On-site caretaker	Meter readings, work orders, resident requests, notices; verifies manual payments
Security manager	Head of security	Gate, passes, incidents
Viewer	Board member, auditor	Read only
Guard	Gate guard	The gate tablet only

Every change to who has access is kept in Settings, Audit trail, which administrators can read: roles, invites, suspensions and property assignments, along with changes to settings, funds and paybills, money decisions such as verified payments and credits, and transfers of ownership. Day-to-day work is not recorded there, so the trail stays short enough to read.

9. Meters¶

If the property has water meters, add them (unit meters, the bulk supply and any borehole), with the walking order the caretaker follows on the round. See Water meters.

10. Collections rules¶

Under Settings, General:

Collections ladder. What happens how many days after a bill falls due. The default reminds the owner on days 1, 7 and 14, puts the account on the call list at 30, sends a demand letter at 45 and tells finance at 60.
Late payment charge. Off unless your estate rules allow it. Set a percent of what is past due, a fixed amount, or both, a monthly cap and grace days.
Approval rules. Who approves credits, waivers, large manual payments and work order quotes, by amount. Without rules, one approval is enough. See Approvals.

11. Invite owners to the portal¶

From a person's page press Invite to portal. They get a WhatsApp and an email with the link and sign in with a code sent to their phone, so there is no password to forget. Share The resident portal with them.

Your first billing run¶

Open Billing, Billing runs, New run, pick the property, fund and month, review the preview (each unit's lines and total) and issue. Bills go out by WhatsApp and email with the paybill and account number. You can also set a billing schedule so the run starts itself on the billing day, or waits for missing meter readings and reminds the caretaker.