Property billing is a critical task in property management, yet it often comes with significant challenges. As businesses grow and manage multiple properties, tracking leases, utilities, maintenance services, and payments becomes increasingly complex.
Errors in billing, missed deadlines, and slow payments can all lead to poor cash flow and strained tenant relationships.
NetSuite property billing is designed to address these challenges by providing a unified, cloud-based solution that automates and streamlines the entire billing process.
This blog will explore how NetSuite simplifies property billing, the key features it offers, and how you can use it to optimize your billing process. Keep reading.
TL;DR
Before diving into the solution, it’s important to understand the common challenges property managers face with property billing.
Property billing in the real estate industry often involves a series of complexities, especially when dealing with a large portfolio of tenants, varied lease terms, and multiple services.
These challenges can create inefficiencies and lead to inaccuracies in the billing process. Here are some key challenges property managers face:
Different types of charges (rent, utilities, maintenance) require distinct handling, making manual management prone to errors.
Commercial and residential properties may have unique billing structures, adding difficulty to tracking and managing.
Managing multiple invoices and tracking payments manually is time-consuming, with frequent updates needed for accuracy.
NetSuite’s automation and customization help simplify and streamline these processes, reducing errors and improving billing efficiency.
NetSuite Property Billing is an advanced, automated solution built to simplify the complexities of invoicing within the property management industry.
As part of NetSuite’s robust ERP system, it provides property managers with the tools necessary to streamline billing operations, from lease payments to utility billing and maintenance fees.
At its core, NetSuite Property Billing integrates with various aspects of property management, including:
Key features of NetSuite Property Billing include:
With these capabilities, NetSuite Property Billing provides a comprehensive solution that simplifies tenant invoicing, improves cash flow, and reduces the need for manual intervention.
To understand how to optimize your billing operations, let’s look at NetSuite’s Advanced Billing feature, which simplifies billing for recurring services and long-term contracts.
NetSuite’s Advanced Billing feature is designed to simplify and automate the billing process for property managers, especially those dealing with recurring charges and long-term contracts.
Here’s an in-depth look at how Advanced Billing can transform property billing.
Advanced Billing allows property managers to create billing schedules for sales orders, services, or memberships that span over a period of time.
Instead of generating a single invoice for the entire sale, Advanced Billing enables multiple invoices to be generated based on predefined intervals, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually.
This is particularly useful for property managers handling leases, subscriptions, or maintenance contracts, where payments need to be split across the lease or contract duration.
NetSuite uses billing schedules to track when and how much to bill customers. These schedules allow for flexible billing arrangements, ensuring tenants or clients are billed appropriately according to the terms of their leases or service agreements.
For example, a property manager can set up a billing schedule for a one-year lease, with monthly payments of $500. The system will automatically create and send invoices each month for the next 12 months, without requiring manual intervention.
Here’s a brief example of how billing schedules work in practice:
Example:
NetSuite offers additional features that allow property managers to invoice in advance of fulfillment.
This option is especially useful for managing service contracts, memberships, or long-term projects, where payments need to be collected before services are rendered or leases are fulfilled.
For example:
If a property manager is handling a service contract that spans over a year, they can invoice the entire amount in advance, allowing for smooth cash flow management throughout the year.
Maximize billing efficiency with NetSuite's Advanced Billing. Automate your billing schedules for long-term leases and maintenance contracts. Pair it with RIOO's real-time financial insights and automated rent collection to further simplify your property management.
Once you understand the benefits and features of Advanced Billing, it’s time to see how you can set up and customize billing schedules in NetSuite to fit your property management needs.
Also Read: How Property Management Companies Can Streamline Maintenance with SmartTools
Creating and managing billing schedules in NetSuite is a straightforward process that can be customized to meet the specific needs of property managers.
Here are the steps involved in setting up and applying Advanced Billing Schedules to sales orders or property leases, ensuring an efficient and automated billing process.
To take full advantage of NetSuite’s Advanced Billing features, property managers first need to create a billing schedule. Here’s how to do that:
Go to Lists > Accounting > Billing Schedules > New to create a new billing schedule.
Once you have configured the billing schedule to meet your needs, click Save. The schedule is now ready to be applied to sales orders or leases.
Once the billing schedule is created, it can be applied to individual transactions (sales orders or lease agreements). Here’s how:
Navigate to Transactions > Sales > Enter Sales Orders to create or edit a sales order.
On the Billing subtab, locate the Billing Schedule field and select the appropriate schedule. You can either apply the default schedule or choose a specific one for individual line items or the entire order.
In the Start Date field, enter the date when the first invoice should be generated. If left blank, the default start date will be the date the sales order is created.
Once you’ve assigned the billing schedule and other details (such as the customer and items), click Save. The billing schedule is now attached to the sales order, and future invoices will be generated automatically based on the schedule.
For more granular control, property managers can apply billing schedules to individual line items within a sales order. This is particularly useful when different items within the same order have different billing frequencies.
Go to Customization > Forms > Transaction Forms, and modify the form to show the Billing Schedule field for individual line items.
When creating or editing a sales order, on the Items subtab, select the line item and assign a specific billing schedule from the Billing Schedule field. This allows for different billing terms for each item, such as different lease terms for various units or charges for services and utilities.
For certain transactions where you need to apply the same billing schedule to the subtotal rather than individual items, NetSuite allows you to create billing schedules for the entire subtotal.
For a sales order that includes multiple items, select Custom as the Recurrence Frequency and check the Apply to Subtotal box.
In the Recurrence Payment Terms field, select the terms that will apply to all subsequent invoices.
Click Save to finalize the order with the customized billing schedule applied to the subtotal.
Let’s assume a tenant signs a one-year lease agreement for a property worth $12,000. The billing schedule is set to monthly with a recurrence count of 12.
NetSuite will automatically generate invoices each month for the tenant, with the first invoice issued for $1,000 on the start date, followed by monthly invoices of $250 for the remainder of the year.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of NetSuite’s billing capabilities, integrating it with RIOO can further enhance your billing and property management processes.
Also read: 5 Mistakes That Cost Industrial Property Managers Time and Money
One of the significant benefits of integrating NetSuite with RIOO is the streamlined management of property billing, vendor management, and procurement cycles.
By combining the financial capabilities of NetSuite with the property management tools of RIOO, property managers can optimize the entire property management process.
RIOO is a property management platform designed to simplify managing residential and commercial properties. It brings together essential functions like lease management, maintenance tracking, and accounting into a single, easy-to-use platform.
By combining NetSuite's financial management features with RIOO’s property-specific capabilities, property managers can centralize their entire property management process, making it easier to manage vendor contracts, process payments, and track expenses in real-time.
NetSuite property billing offers a powerful solution to streamline the invoicing process, enhance financial management, and improve operational efficiency for property managers.
With its automated billing capabilities, flexible billing schedules, and seamless integration with other financial systems, NetSuite provides property managers with the tools they need to simplify complex billing scenarios.
Integrating these capabilities with RIOO further optimizes the process, reducing manual effort and improving cash flow management.
Take your property billing to the next level. Combine NetSuite’s automated invoicing with RIOO’s comprehensive property management features, and managing leases, maintenance, and payments has never been easier.
Book your personalized RIOO demo now →
Also Read: The Hidden Costs of Skipping the Details in Property Setup