Charges in the Transaction Center

Charges now live alongside invoices, bonds and payment plans in the Transaction Center, and they have a profile of their own. You can start one before you know all the details, ask the person being billed to either decide or simply confirm, and print a one-page notice to hand over or post.

Who can do this: Any staff member, property manager or board member with the accounting_manage_charges permission for the property. People with read-only accounting access can open a charge and read it, but not change it.

Park a charge before it is finished

Not every charge is ready the moment you start it. Pick the unit, press Save as draft, and that is enough: a draft holds only what you actually typed. If you have not entered an amount, a quantity or a due date yet, it stays empty rather than guessing on your behalf.

A draft is invisible to the person being billed. It does not appear in their portal or their app, it is not counted in what they owe, it never reaches a statement, an aging report or a reminder, and it cannot be pulled onto an invoice. Nothing leaves the building until you release it.

Drafts appear in the Charges tab and in the unit's charge list, marked Draft. A draft with no amount yet says so rather than showing zero dollars.

See what is needed before sending

1. Open Add Charge from the unit's Leasing > Billing area and enter the charge details.
2. Select Send. If the charge is not ready, URBI does not send it and opens a panel listing every outstanding condition in plain language.
3. Complete each item in the panel, then select Send again.

The panel lists all outstanding conditions together.

For a monthly charge, the schedule controls the due date. The due date field is locked and explains that the monthly schedule sets it. Change the schedule when the due date needs to change.

Finish and release it

Open the draft, fill in the rest, and press Release. Releasing does not create a second charge: the same charge you parked becomes the live one, so the history stays in one place.

At release you must say how the person is being asked to respond. There are two choices and no default, because picking one for them is not ours to do:

• Ask them to decide. They can accept or decline. Declining stops the charge.
• Ask them to confirm. They confirm they have seen it. There is nothing to decline: the charge is going ahead, and this is the record that they were told.

If you choose confirm, you can also set a deadline. With a deadline, the charge bills itself once the date passes. Without one it waits for a confirmation for as long as it takes, and those charges gather in their own group so nobody has to hunt for them.

Charges that are waiting on a confirmation

The Charges tab has a group for charges asked as a confirmation with no deadline. From there you can send a reminder, or bill it anyway without waiting. Billing it anyway records who did it and when.

The charge profile

Clicking any charge opens its profile. What you can change depends on where the charge is:

• A draft is fully editable.
• A charge out for an answer can still be edited. If you change it, the same request updates in place and the person is told it changed, along with what changed and when. They are not asked a second question.
• Once they have answered, the charge is fixed.

If they decline, their reason (or "No reason given") shows right on the profile, and you get two ways to move forward: void the charge, or create a replacement that copies the same unit, amount, description, category and tax treatment so all you need to set is a new due date.

The profile also holds the response, the invoice it landed on if it has been billed, and a full history of everything that has happened to it. If your role does not cover audit records, the history tab does not appear at all rather than showing you an empty one.

Print a charge notice

From a released charge, Print Charge Notice produces a one-page document with the property letterhead, who it is addressed to, the unit, the description, quantity and rate, tax, total and due date. It normally fits one page, and a long description flows onto a second rather than being cut off.

A charge that is already paid, written off or voided prints with a stamp saying so, so a settled charge can never be mistaken for a demand for payment. A draft cannot be printed at all: the option is there but disabled, and it tells you to release the charge first.

If your browser blocks the print window, the message that appears stays until you dismiss it and offers to try again.

Recurring charges

A charge can repeat. Set it up when you create the charge, or turn on Repeat this charge in the profile of a charge that has already gone out. A draft cannot repeat: release it first.

Only the very first charge a schedule raises asks the person anything. Every one after that goes out quietly. If they decline that first one, the whole schedule stops, and you would set up a fresh one to start again.