Allocating Payments

Payments received from Tenants and / or Landlords are posted to Tenant or Landlord wallets from where the balance of money available in the respective wallets can be disbursed by means of Payment Instructions to the Bank to pay beneficiaries. The system provides for three modes of Payment Allocation namely:

  • Manual Allocation and Approval (two step process) - this process provides for manual or semi auto creation of Payment Instructions which are then submitted for approval by a user with the relevant permissions to review and approve the Payment Instructions.
  • Manual Allocation and Approval (one step process) - this process provides for  manual or semi auto creation of Payment Instructions which are then submitted and approved in one step by a user with the relevant permissions to create and approve the Payment Instructions.
  • Auto Payment Allocation and Approval - this process provides for fully automated payment allocation and submission for approval by a user with the relevant permissions. The submitted Payment Instructions will flow through to the Payment Approval dashboard where they need to be approved by a user with the relevant permissions to review and approve the Payment Instructions. This is not a user configurable option and needs to be requested from the support team.

The user profile permissions section under payments is accessible from the Portfolio & Permissions tab for a specific user under the Company Settings menu option. Provision has been made for the following distinct permissions which can be enabled on a per user basis:

  • Map and Submit Bank Payment - a user with this permission enabled can map credit bank payments received via the banking interface to tenant and landlord wallets. In addition a use with this permission can submit single or in bulk mapped payments for processing. Note that if the Auto Payment Allocation and Approval process has been configured on the back-end, a user with this permission will initiate the process to auto allocate and submit payments received for approval on the Approvals Dashboard.
  • Allocate Payments - a user with this permission enabled can access the Allocations Dashboard to allocate and submit payment instructions for approval.
  • Approve Payments - a user with this permission enabled can access the Approvals Dashboard to review and approve submitted payment instructions for payment via the Banking interface
  • Allocate and Approve Payments - a user with this permission can access the Allocations Dashboard to allocate, submit and approve payment instructions in one step for payment via the Banking interface.

Manual and semi auto payment allocations are done from the Allocations Dashboard which can be accessed by selecting the Payment Allocations option from the Payments menu drop down. Selecting this option will open the list of tenant and landlord wallets as shown below:

With reference to the list of tenant and landlord wallets shown above, note the following:

  • Balance - the available amount of money available in the wallet
  • Pending Approval - the total amount of payment instructions that have been submitted, but not approved yet
  • Pending Submission - the total amount of payment instructions that have been created, but not submitted yet for approval
  • Remaining - the total amount remaining in the wallet when the pending approval and pending submission payment instructions have been processed and paid on the bank
  • Search - use the search field to find a specific wallet based on the wallet reference, type, asset name or the primary contact
  • Show Zero Balances - use this toggle to include wallets in the list that does not have any money availble
  • Allocations - click this button to open the Allocations Dashboard for a specific wallet (see example below for Chablis 10 Tenant Wallet):

With reference to the example Allocations Dashboard above, note that the Allocation Dashboard provides for the following panels:

  • Lease Summary panel (top left) - this panel displays some basic information about the Lease
  • Notes panel (top middle) - you can use this panel to make, change or delete account notes
  • Payment Reference panel (top right) - this panel shows:
    • the Wallet Payment Reference that is normally used by Tenants or Landlords to make payments into their wallets
    • Unallocated Wallet Balance - the amount of money left in the Tenant wallet that has not been allocated yet
    • Unallocated Rent Balance - the portion of the Rent Balance that has not been allocated yet
    • Landlord Wallet Balance - the amount of money left in the Landlord wallet for this property that can also be used to pay Landlord expenses
    • Landlord Account Balance - the amount due to the Landlord taking into account all income due to the Landlord and all expenses due by the Landlord in other words Income Due minus Expenses Due
  • Payment Instruction Panel (second from top left) - the list of draft payment instructions to be submitted for approval where a payment instruction typically consists of  a Beneficiary, Category, Description, Reference and Amount. Each payment instruction has a drop down dot menu (see example below) from where you can:
    • Submit - submit individual payment instruction for approval
    • Edit - open the payment instruction form to edit some of the detail
    • Delete - delete the payment instruction

  • Submit All - click this button on the Payment Instruction panel to submit all the draft Payment Instructions for approval.
  • Submitted Payment Instructions panel (third from top left) - this panel shows the Payment Instructions that have been submitted for approval, but have not been approved yet. You can click the Unsubmit link to reject a submitted Payment Instruction. This action will return the Payment Instruction to the list of unsubmitted Payment Instruction Panel.
  • Previous Payment Instructions panel (bottom left) - this panel shows the Payment Instruction History of Payment Instructions for the Wallet that have been approved and paid in the past.
  • Tenant Balances panel (middle right) - this panel shows the Tenant Account category balances. Typically these balances need to be paid by the Tenant. When you work with a Landlord wallet, there will be no Tenant balances panel since Tenant categories cannot be paid from a Landlord wallet.
  • Landlord Expense panel (middle bottom) - this panel shows the Landlord Expense Account category balances. Typically these balances need to be paid by the Landlord. The Landlord can either use his rent received from the Tenant to pay these balances or alternative use money in the Landlord Wallet that he himself has deposited to pay some of his expenses.

How to use the Suggest Payments feature

Click the Suggest Payments button to request the system to create draft Payment Instructions to pay all Landlord and Tenant category balances. Let's take a look at a typical example to explain the process and logic that will be applied by the system to suggest draft Payment Instructions:

The Chablis 10 Tenant Wallet Payment Reference panel are shown below:

On the panel we can see the following:

  • A total of R 13 000 has been received into the Tenant wallet and is available to pay Tenant Category Balances
  • The total Unallocated Rent Balance of the Tenant is R 10 000.
  • There is an additional amount of R 5 000 available in the Landlord wallet that can be used to pay Landlord Category Balances
  • The Landlord Account balance is -R 10 787.50 which means that the Landlord expenses is more than his current Income due.

In order to understand the logic of the system suggested Payment Instructions, we must take a look at the Category Balances panel shown below:

With reference to the Category Balances above, note the following:

  • Categories will be considered for payment in the priority sequence setup on the respective Tenant and Landlord Expense accounts.
  • The Remaining Column displays the portion of the category balance left after each Payment Instruction has been created. In order to cater for short payments, the system will only pay category balances until there is no more money left in the wallet. Any short payment might therefor lead to a partial payment of a category balance and the amount unpaid will then be displayed in the Remaining column for the category.
  • In the example above and with reference to the Tenant category, the Rent category has the highest priority and will be considered first. Due to the fact that Landlord Expenses must be paid from the available Rent, the Landlord expense categories must be considered before we can pay the remaining rent after deduction of expenses to the Landlord. This is done as follows:
    • The first priority Landlord Expense category is the Commission - Rent category and the balance of this Category (R 1150) will be paid to the Business Account beneficiary. Beneficiaries are linked to categories during the account setup process and in this case the system already knows that the Business Account beneficiary has been linked to the Commission - Rent category. The remaining category balance for Commission - Rent will now be zero. The Wallet Balance as well as the unallocated Rent Balance will be reduced by the amount of R 1150).
    • The second priority Landlord Expense category is the Maintenance - Candoall category. In this case a payment arrangement was made with the contractor and a limit of R 2000 was loaded against the category on account level meaning that the system will only allocate to the limit set on account level each time the suggest feature is used. Therefor R 2000 will be paid to the CanDoAll beneficiary that has been linked to the category. The Remaining Category balance as well as the unllocated wallet balance and the unallocated rent balance will be reduced by R 2000.
    • The third priority Landlord Expense category is the Municipal category and the balance of this category (R 905) will be paid to the City of Cape Town beneficiary that has been linked to the Municipal category on account level. The remaining balance on the category as well as the unallocated wallet balance and unallocated rent balance will be reduced by R 905.
    • The fourth priority Landlord Expense category is the Body Corporate category and the balance of this category (R 1200) will be paid to the Chablis BC beneficiary that has been linked to the Body Corporate category on account level. The remaining balance on the category as well as the unallocated wallet balance and unallocated rent balance will be reduced by R 1200. The updated balances panels are shown below after completion of this step.

  • Having concluded payment Landlord expenses from the rent, we can now pay the Remaining portion of the rent to the landlord. Once again the Landlord beneficiaries have been linked on accounts level and in this case two Landlord beneficiaries have been linked to the Rent category with a 60 / 40 split. Therefor the system will create two payment instructions to pay the remaining R 4745 of the Rent category to the two landlords with a split of 60 / 40. The remaining balance of the rent category as well as the unallocated Rent balance will now be zero. The unallocated wallet balance will be reduced by R 4745 leaving R 3000 in the wallet that can be used to pay Tenant expenses over and above the rent.
  • The second priority category on the Tenant account is the Maintenance - Garden Magic category and the balance of R 2047 will be paid towards the Garden Magic beneficiary that has been linked to this category on accounts level. The remaining balance of the category as well as the wallet balance will be reduced by R 2047.
  • The third priority category on the Tenant account is the Body Corporate category.  This category has been marked as a Recovery category on accounts level meaning that the costs is recovered to the Landlord. Since there are two Landlords, the system will suggest two Payment Instructions to allocate the R 350 category balance to the two Landlords in 60 / 40 split. The remaining balance of the category as well as the wallet balance will be reduced by R 350. 
  • The fourth priority category on the Tenant Account is the Admin category and the balance of R 34.50 will be allocated to pay the Business account beneficiary that has been linked to the Admin category on accounts level. The remaining balance of the category as well as the wallet balance will be reduced by R 34.50.  When all the Tenant categories have been processed, the updated Payment Instruction and Category balances panels are shown below.

From the Payment Reference summary panel is clear that:

  • There remains an amount of R 568.50 in the Tenant wallet that can be used to pay Tenant expenses when Billing transactions are loaded against the Tenant Account.
  • The R 568.50 shows as a credit on the Tenant Account since it was received and is available in the Tenant wallet.
  • The unallocated Rent balance is zero meaning that all the Rent owed by the tenant has been paid and allocated.
  • There remains an amount of R 5 000 in the Landlord wallet that can be used to pay Landlord expenses.

How to manually create a Payment Instruction

In addition to using the Suggest Payments feature, you can manually create a Payment Instruction for any category or change a Payment Instruction for a category if it is on the unsubmitted payment instructions panel. To manually create a Payment Instruction, just click on the Note icon on the right of the relevant category to open the Payment Instruction form. See example for Commission below. You can also open the form for an existing payment instruction by selecting the Edit option from the drop down dot menu on the existing Payment Instruction.

With reference to the Payment Instruction form shown above, note the following:

  • You can only select Beneficiaries that has been approved
  • The system will populate the amount field with the amount of the category balance
  • You can edit the Description, Reference and Amounts fields. Note that the Reference field content will be sent to the Bank as the Beneficiary Reference.
  • You cannot allocate a Negative Amount or an Amount that would be more than what is available in the wallet
  • Click the Create button to create the draft Payment Instruction.

How to transfer money between Wallets

From time to time it might be necessary to transfer money between wallets. Examples of this include:

  • when Tenants would like to transfer their deposits from one property to another
  • when Landlords would like to use money from one property to pay for expenses on another property

To create a Transfer Instruction, select the Create Transfer option from the Options drop down as shown below.

The system will then open the transfer form as shown below:

With reference to the Transfer form above, note the following:

  • Select the Receiving wallet from the drop down list
  • Use the From and Receiving wallet references to ensure that the wallet history is clear and understandable
  • Click the Create button to create a Transfer Instruction. Note that Transfers happen immediately when a Transfer Instruction is approved since the money is just moved from one wallet in the Trust Account to another wallet in the same Trust Account.

Additional Navigation Features

When you click on the Unallocated Wallet Balance (text highlighted in yellow below), the system will open the Payment History query showing how the money movement in and out of the Wallet. An example is shown below as well. From the example you can see that two payments were received into the Wallet for amounts of R 6 000 and R 7 000.

When you click on the Landlord Wallet Balance (text highlighted in yellow below), the system will open the Allocations Dashboard for the Landlord Wallet from where you can continue to allocate Landlord Expenses using the Landlord wallet funds. 

Working with a Landlord Wallet

The functionality and features of a Landlord wallet is exactly the same as for a Tenant wallet. The only exception is that the Landlord wallet only contains Landlord money and therefor it does not have the Tenant category balances panel. It only has the Landlord expenses category panel since only Landlord expenses can be paid from the Landlord wallet. The Landlord Expenses Category balances displayed are the exact same category balances displayed on the Landlord Accounts Dashboard and the Landlord Expense Category balances displayed on the Tenant wallet Allocations Dashboard for the same Property. Money can be received into the Landlord wallet in one of two ways namely:

  • Money can be deposited by the Landlord directly into the Trust Account using the Landlord wallet reference number
  • Money can be transfered from another wallet (Tenant or Suspense) that contains money that is due to be paid to the Landlord

Any money in the Landlord wallet can also be refunded to the Landlord using the Refund Landlord feature available from the Options drop down on the Allocations Dashboard of the Landlord wallet.

Working with the Suspense Wallet

The Suspense Wallet is a special system wallet that does not belong to a specific Asset or Lease. The purpose of the Suspense Wallet is provide a wallet for amounts that cannot be mapped easily to a specific Tenant or Landlord wallet. Examples of this include:

  • payments received from tenants or landlords with insufficient reference information to identify the payments
  • bulk payments received as a result of debit order collections or bulk transfers from another account

The unmapped amounts can then be mapped to the Suspense wallet from where they can be disbursed by means of Transfer Instructions to other wallets when their origin has been determined. From the Suspense Wallet Allocations Dashboard you can:

  • Create new Payment Instuctions manually to any approved Beneficiary
  • Create Transfers Instructions manually to any other Wallet
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