Site fees, meter readings and invoices

The money side of a holiday home is a site fee at a fixed interval, plus electricity, plus the odd one-off. Campiamo raises the invoices for you, emails them with a payment link, chases the late ones and keeps the owner's statement straight. You decide the amounts once, on the home.

What each home charges

On the home's record:

• Site fee amount and frequency: weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. This is the regular charge.
• Utility charge type:
  • Metered: you read the electricity meter and the owner pays for the units used, at the rate per kWh you set on the home.
  • Flat rate: a fixed utility flat rate is added to every site fee invoice.
  • None: utilities are included in the site fee, or billed some other way.

Water and maintenance have no setting of their own; they go on invoices as line items when they arise.

Meter readings

For a metered home, open the home and use the Meter readings tab. Each reading needs a date and the figure on the meter, and takes a note. Campiamo looks up the previous reading, works out the units used and prices them at the home's rate, so the tab shows a history of usage and cost without you doing the sums.

A reading sits there as uninvoiced until an invoice picks it up. Readings are never billed twice: once one is on an invoice it is marked as invoiced, and if you delete that invoice while it is still a draft, only that invoice's readings are released to be billed again.

Record the first reading when the home is sited. It has no previous figure to compare with, so it costs nothing, but every reading after it is priced from it.

Invoices that write themselves

Every morning Campiamo checks each active home that has a site fee amount and frequency. When the current period has run out (or the home has never been invoiced), it drafts the next invoice:

• the site fee for the next period, named by its dates;
• every uninvoiced meter reading, as an electricity line showing the date and units;
• the flat-rate utility charge, if the home has one.

The period runs on from the last invoice, the due date is fourteen days after the period ends, and the invoice is left as a draft. Nothing is sent until you look at it. The idea is that the morning's drafts are ready for you to check and send, not that money is demanded without anyone having seen the figures.

Raising an invoice yourself

For anything outside the cycle, open the home and click Create invoice. You set the period (optional), the due date and the line items, each with a description, a quantity, a unit price and a type: site fee, electricity, water, maintenance, rental credit or other. The page offers the home's uninvoiced meter readings and, for homes let to guests, any rentals not yet credited, so they can be added with a click.

Only a rental credit may be a negative amount. Everything else must be a charge.

An invoice can be edited while it is a draft. The invoice page has a print view for owners who want paper.

Sending and paying

Send emails the owner an invoice numbered in sequence, with the total, the due date, a summary of the lines and a View & Pay button. The button opens a page showing the invoice in full, with a pay-by-card button if you take payments online. The money goes through the same Stripe or PayPal connection as your guest bookings — see Connecting Stripe — straight to your account, and the invoice is marked paid the moment the payment clears. The same link is checked again whenever the owner opens it, so a payment that completed after they closed the tab is still picked up.

For owners who pay by bank transfer, cash or cheque, open the invoice and Record payment, choosing the method and adding a reference if you have one. It records the full amount due and marks the invoice paid. Either way the payment lands on the owner's statement.

Overdue invoices

An invoice that has been sent and is still unpaid the day after its due date is marked overdue, and the owner is emailed a reminder. If it stays unpaid, a further reminder goes every seven days until it is paid. The total overdue across all owners sits at the top of the Holiday Homes page.

Keeping the records straight

• Invoice statuses are Draft, Sent, Paid and Overdue.
• Only a draft can be edited or deleted. Once an invoice has been sent it stays on the record, so check the figures before sending.
• The owner's page carries the statement: charges and payments in order with a running balance, and the outstanding total.
• Invoices are per home and per owner. If a home changes hands, invoices already raised stay with the previous owner's statement; new ones go to the new owner.