4.2.7 STEP 6 - Service Charge Collections

4.2.7 STEP 6 - Service Charge Collections

Access via the menu option: Finance -> Set-Up -> Service Charge Collections
To watch a video on how to carry out this process, please click on this video:  Step 6 - Service Charge Collections
This screen has several sections which contain key information relating to the setup of a block:

Frequency of Collection

The first section allows the user to set the frequency of collection (how often the demands can be produced for the financial year), which can be set as:
  1. annually
  2. biannually
  3. quarterly
When you click on Edit and alter the collection dates, you will be prompted with a pop up window:

This window is what determines your fee collection schedule dates when you need to produce your demands. Once you select these dates, the system will create these dates in the Fee Collection screen found under Finance. 

It also allows you to set whether funds are to be collected in advance or arrears. 
NOTE: IF you produce demands and then edit these dates, the system will create the collections based on what you pick and save.
Even if you produce the 2021 demands and you re-save the dates for 2021, it will still give you the flexibility but we recommend you check the dates before producing the demands. 

Demand Production
The second section allows the user to set up few additional details relating to the production process of the demands:



1) When you produce the scheduled demands, you can tick the first option here to include a warning message and also edit the message underneath. Message could be something like, include budget certificate etc.


2) You can decide whether the user will have the ability to include the budget certificate or the unit certificate as default when producing demands. This option will then be auto-ticked in the Fee Collection Summary screen:

You can choose to disable this if you want to just before producing the demands as well. 

3) Ticking the standing order option allows the user to include a standing order form when producing demands. 
You can edit this just before producing the demands like the certificate:


Block Schedules
In the context of the Blocks Online System, a schedule is a grouping of cost items under a header (i.e. schedule name) towards which one or multiple units make a contribution.
The contribution of a unit towards a schedule is the same for all of the cost items that come under that schedule.
For example, assume you have a block with 2 physical buildings, say Block A and Block B, where the owners of units in Blocks A pay the Block A costs and the owners of units in Blocks B pay the Block B costs.
Assume there are also estate costs which all units contribute towards.
In this case you would set-up 3 block schedules – Block A charges, Block B charges and Estate charges.


You can add in a description of these schedules for more clarity as well if required. 

If there are more than 1 block schedule in a block, it allows you to set up allocation rules for these as well. 
This allows you to track your expenditure items more efficiently. The allocation rules can be set up in the Block Services screen. More info on this KB article: 4.2.6 STEP 7 - Block Services

Service Charge / Reserve Fund Allocation
This section allows the user to enter the unit percentage contribution towards the block schedules and the budget which is used to calculate their demand amounts. 

Once you click on the Edit button, a pop up window is displayed:


This pop up allows you to enter the percentages:
  1. manually by just clicking on the fields and adding in the figures
  2. clicking on Equal Allocation if all units contribute an equal amount
  3. copy the data from Excel and doing a paste in this - for this simply highlight the data in Excel and then paste it into this table

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