Getting started with Domi Vera

Domi Vera runs the monthly administration of rental property: it works out what each tenant owes, produces the invoices, tracks what has been paid, and shows each owner what their property earned.

The short version: you set the rules once, and the system applies them every month.

The pieces, and how they fit

Everything in Domi Vera belongs to one company — the agency or landlord doing the managing. Inside that, five things matter.

A scheme is a development: a sectional-title block with a body corporate. Units in a scheme share an address and a body corporate, but may each have a different owner. A freehold house has no scheme — it stands on its own.

A unit is the thing that earns money. This is the important one. A unit has one owner, and it is where charges, invoices and statements are anchored — not the building, and not the owner. An owner who holds four flats has four sets of books that roll up into one view.

An owner receives the money a unit earns, less costs. A tenant rents a unit and pays for it.

A lease ties a tenant to a unit for a period, at a rent. It is the agreement, and it is what the billing actually runs from.

A tenant and a lease are not the same thing. The same person can hold a lease on one unit, end it, and start another somewhere else. Their history follows them; the billing follows the lease.

What happens every month

The cycle is the same each time:

1. The system generates the month’s invoices from each lease’s charges.
2. You review them while they are still drafts — nothing has been sent.
3. You approve them. This is the moment the numbers become real: an approved invoice shows as Issued, appears on the statement, and cannot be edited — only corrected with a credit note.
4. Payments come in and you record them, by hand or by importing a bank file.
5. At month end you issue statements — the running account for a tenant, or the payout summary for an owner.

Two things follow from step 3 that are worth understanding early, because they explain most of what surprises new users:

• An issued document is a record, not a draft. That is why corrections are credit notes rather than edits.
• Late-payment interest stays provisional until you send the statement. See how interest works.

Where to go next

If you manage property, the concepts worth reading first are charges and charge templates — the distinction that causes the most confusion — and interest.

If you are an owner, your portal shows each unit’s income and costs, and the statements behind every payout.

If you are a tenant, your portal shows what you have been invoiced, what you have paid, and what is outstanding.

A note on money

Domi Vera never moves money. It records what is owed and what was paid, and it produces the documents — but rent and payouts flow through your own bank account, exactly as they did before. Nothing in the system can initiate a payment.