This page briefly explains what each field being configured at property and lease level for late fees represents.
Property setup
Under the general tab of the property setup, we have a Last Late Charge date. This is the date that is updated each time the late fees process is run, with the date of the day on which the late fees were generated. This is also used as a lower limit when processing the fees. It can be entered manually by the user when creating the property.
The first step in configuring late fees is setting up under the charge controls tab which of the item IDs that are configured for a property will be subject to late fees.
In practice, there might be items for which the property manager doesn’t want to charge a fee if they are paid late. This gives the flexibility to the user of choosing which of the charges that will later be generated by the regular scheduled charges process or other processes will be subject to late fees.
The second part is the late charge fees tab. Because this is a property setup, this tab acts merely as a template; meaning that when a lease is created for this property, the lease will be copied the same values for all these fields from the property (although they can be modified at the moment of setting up the lease).
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Minimum lease balance: the dollar value below which no charges will be generated. If in a given period a lease/tenant owes $10,000 but this does not exceed the minimum lease balance, then late fees will not be processed. This compares the total owed before any calculation is done on this value.
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Suppress charge under: the dollar value that the calculated fee has to exceed in order to be charged. If the owed amount is greater than the minimum lease balance, then late fees are calculated, and compared against this field
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Process by: tells the system whether it should consider for late fees, when an invoice is not totally paid, it’s the entire amount or the amount minus the payments made within the calculation period. It can have two possible values:
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Remaining balance: the system will subtract from the amount of each line item the payments made to that line item within the calculation period
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Total charge: the system will consider the entire amount of each line item within a delinquent invoice, regardless of any payment made to it
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When configuring late fees at a property and lease level, each configuration can have several steps. Each step is independent of the other; they are used generally by users who want to establish different penalties depending on how long an invoice has been outstanding.
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Late charge type: for now the only possible value is Fee.
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Frequency: the frequency that the system will consider when processing late fees. Option Every opens an additional input that amounts for days, giving us Every amount of X days
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Repeat factor: tells the system whether it should consider more than once an invoice that has already been included in a previous late fees process
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Any delinquency: this step will consider any invoice before the cut-off date entered
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Once delinquent payment: this step will consider only invoices between the last late charge of the property and the cut-off date entered
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Calculation type: the user can input whether he wants to charge a flat fee when delinquent invoices are found, or a percentage of the delinquent charges
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Flat fee: a dollar value that is used as the final charge amount
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Percentage: a percentage value that is used over the delinquent charges
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Greater of flat or percentage: both flat fee and percentage are calculated, and whichever is greatest is used as the charge amount for the late fee invoice
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Lesser of flat or percentage: same as above, takes whichever is lowest
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Grace days: tells the system by how many days it should “extend” an invoice’s due date in order to consider it delinquent. If an invoice has a due date of 05-25 and the grace day is 3, then payments made up to 05-28 are not considered delinquent.
Lease setup
When a lease is created, the fields configured above on the Late Charge Fees tab at a property level are copied for convenience. The user then has the chance to modify them in any way. The fields that are configured at the lease level are the ones used in the late fees calculation; the property fields merely act as a template.
The General section includes the following setups:
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Minimum lease balance: the dollar value below which no charges will be generated. If in a given period a lease/tenant owes $10,000 but this does not exceed the minimum lease balance, then late fees will not be processed. This compares the total owed before any calculation is done on this value.
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Suppress charge under: the dollar value that the calculated fee has to exceed in order to be charged. If the owed amount is greater than the minimum lease balance, then late fees are calculated, and compared against this field
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Process by: tells the system whether it should consider for late fees, when an invoice is not totally paid, it’s the entire amount or the amount minus the payments made within the calculation period. It can have two possible values:
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Remaining balance: the system will subtract from the amount of each line item the payments made to that line item within the calculation period
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Total charge: the system will consider the entire amount of each line item within a delinquent invoice, regardless of any payment made to it
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And the Steps section includes the following setups:
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Late charge type: for now the only possible value is Fee.
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Frequency: the frequency that the system will consider when processing late fees. Option Every opens an additional input that amounts for days, giving us Every amount of X days
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Repeat factor: tells the system whether it should consider more than once an invoice that has already been included in a previous late fees process
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Any delinquency: this step will consider any invoice before the cut-off date entered
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Once delinquent payment: this step will consider only invoices between the last late charge of the property and the cut-off date entered
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Calculation type: the user can input whether he wants to charge a flat fee when delinquent invoices are found, or a percentage of the delinquent charges
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Flat fee: a dollar value that is used as the final charge amount
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Percentage: a percentage value that is used over the delinquent charges
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Greater of flat or percentage: both flat fee and percentage are calculated, and whichever is greatest is used as the charge amount for the late fee invoice
-
Lesser of flat or percentage: same as above, takes whichever is lowest
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Grace days: tells the system by how many days it should “extend” an invoice’s due date in order to consider it delinquent. If an invoice has a due date of 05-25 and the grace day is 3, then payments made up to 05-28 are not considered delinquent.