Charges and charge templates

These two words sound interchangeable and are not. Almost every question about “why did my change not apply” comes down to the difference, so it is worth two minutes.

A charge template lives on a unit. It is a default: this unit normally bills rent of R8 500, water, and a levy contribution. A template never bills anybody.

A charge lives on a lease. It is real. It is what actually appears on an invoice.

The rule: copied, not linked

When you create a lease, the unit’s templates are copied onto it as real charges. From that moment the two are independent:

• Editing a lease charge does not touch the unit’s template.
• Editing a unit template does not touch any lease that already exists.

This is deliberate, and it protects you. If templates stayed linked, correcting a typo on a unit would silently rewrite the rent on a live lease that someone had already negotiated down — and the tenant’s next invoice would change without anyone deciding it should.

So a template change affects future leases only. To change what an existing tenant is billed, edit the charge on their lease.

Which one do I want?

You want to…	Edit the…
Change what one tenant pays	charge, on their lease
Change what new leases on this unit will start with	template, on the unit
Set up a unit before it has a tenant	template, on the unit
Fix a mistake on next month’s invoice	charge, on the lease

Kinds of charge

Fixed — the same every month. Rent is the obvious one.

Variable — the amount changes each month and you enter it per period. A municipal water bill that differs every month is variable. An invoice will not send while a variable charge for that period is still blank, because a blank is not the same as zero — a zero is a valid answer, and the system will accept it if you mean it.

Metered — a variable charge that also records the reading behind it, in kℓ or kWh. The consumption is kept with the amount, so a tenant querying a water bill can be shown the reading it came from rather than just a number.

Once-off — a single charge that does not repeat.

Pro-rata

A charge marked pro-ratable is scaled when a lease does not cover the whole month — a tenant who moves in on the 20th is billed for the days they actually had. Rent is normally pro-ratable; a fixed monthly admin fee usually is not. You choose per charge, because both answers are right in different cases.

Owner charges and tenant charges

A charge is borne by either the tenant or the owner. Tenant charges become tenant invoices. Owner charges — management fees, maintenance, levies paid on the owner’s behalf — reduce what the owner is paid out.

Both can be templated on the unit, and they are kept separate throughout, because a tenant must never see what the owner is charged.