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Billing

The Billing module handles invoices, payments, statements, and the financial side of running the estate.

What residents see

Residents have My Billing:

  • Outstanding balance — total amount owed across all open invoices.
  • Open invoices — each with its line items (service charge, parking, utilities, late fees), due date, and a Pay now button.
  • Pay now offers MoMo (MTN, Vodafone, AirtelTigo via Hubtel or Paystack), card, bank transfer, or upload a payment receipt for manual reconciliation.
  • Receipts — every payment with a downloadable PDF receipt.
  • Statement — full transaction history for the unit, exportable as PDF for tax/audit purposes.
  • Auto-pay — opt in to auto-charge a saved card or auto-debit MoMo on the due date.

What facility admins do

Generate invoices

Two patterns:

  1. Recurring (monthly / quarterly) — the system auto-generates invoices from your fee schedule on the configured cycle date.
  2. One-off — Billing → New Invoice → pick the unit → add line items → save. Useful for special charges (assessment, late fee, refund).

Fee schedules

Settings → Billing → Fee Setup holds your standard charges:

  • Per-unit-type service charge (Studio: GHS X, 1 BR: GHS Y, etc.)
  • Parking permit fees
  • Amenity booking fees
  • Utility pass-through rates
  • Late-payment penalty (rate + grace period)

When you change a fee, future invoices use the new rate. Invoices already generated keep their original amounts.

Reconcile payments

Three categories of payment:

  1. Auto-reconciled — MoMo and card payments come back through the gateway webhook with the invoice reference, so they post directly against the matching invoice. No human action.
  2. Manual reconciliation — bank transfers don't always include the invoice reference. The Reconciliation tab shows unmatched bank payments next to open invoices, and you click to match them.
  3. Receipt upload — a resident has paid you cash or via offline transfer and uploaded a photo of the receipt. You verify the photo and click Approve to post it.

Payment gateways

Settings → Payment Gateways shows what's configured:

  • Paystack (card + MoMo + bank) — the gateway most facilities use for cross-channel coverage.
  • Hubtel (MoMo + iframe checkout) — Ghana-native, lower fees on MoMo. Two flavours: direct USSD prompt (customer phone receives a push), and embedded iframe (customer picks payment method on a Hubtel-hosted page inside CautaReside).
  • Bank transfer — manual reconciliation.
  • Invoice / pay later — for negotiated billing arrangements.

Each gateway has its own settlement timing — most clear within 24-48 hours but bank transfers can take 3-5 working days.

Late fees

Settings → Billing → Late-payment rules:

  • Grace days — how many days past due before late fees start (default 14 days).
  • Penalty rate — percentage applied to the overdue amount (default 5%).
  • Compounding — flat one-time vs monthly compounding.

Penalties are calculated nightly and added as separate line items on the next invoice cycle.

Reports

Billing → Reports has: - Aging report (current, 30, 60, 90, 90+) - Collection rate (% of invoiced collected within the cycle) - Per-unit balance summary - Payment method breakdown (what % via MoMo / card / bank) - Year-over-year revenue comparison

For HOA committees: Public Finances can be enabled (Settings → Billing → "Show financial summary to HOA committee"). When on, your elected committee members see the same reports without requiring a manager-level login.

Multi-currency

CautaReside is multi-currency-aware. Invoices are denominated in your facility's primary currency (typically GHS for Ghana), but the platform shows USD equivalents when relevant — useful for foreign tenants or international landlords.

The forex rate is set platform-wide by your CautaReside operator; ask them about your current rate if you need to know.

QuickBooks Online sync

If your facility uses QuickBooks Online for bookkeeping, you can connect it in Settings → Integrations → QuickBooks Online. Once connected:

  • Every invoice in CautaReside also creates a QBO invoice
  • Payments sync as bank deposits
  • Refunds sync as credit memos

The sync is bidirectional but conservative — CautaReside is the source of truth for resident-facing data.

Tax handling (Ghana)

For Ghana facilities, invoices automatically include the statutory tax breakdown (NHIL + GETFL + VAT). Tax-exempt facilities (registered charities, religious organizations) can flip the exempt flag in Settings → Billing — exempt invoices show a small green badge instead of the tax line.

Tips

  • Auto-pay saves a lot of dunning effort. Encourage residents to enable it on the dashboard.
  • WhatsApp receipts reach residents fastest — they don't have to open the app to confirm a payment landed.
  • Reconcile weekly, not monthly — manual reconciliation accumulates errors. A weekly pass catches misallocations while they're still fresh.
  • Statement PDFs are accepted by most landlords for end-of-tenancy deposits — encourage residents to download theirs at lease-end.