Managing a shared apartment building is a great responsibility for all residents: it involves a number of duties, including paying bills on time. We will share practical tips on how to make sure your apartment association’s obligations are met on time, and how you too can make paying bills at your apartment association more convenient.
Specify the payment deadlines and rules
Both new and existing apartment associations need to agree on a payment deadline for collecting money from residents for the previous period. It is generally a good idea to schedule the due date of the invoice to the beginning of the month, to match people’s paydays. Such agreements can be made, for example, at a general meeting of the association. Since it is often the case that not everyone can attend the meeting, it is worth sending the minutes thereof to the members of the association later, for example by e-mail. To make sure that all the participants are aware of the changes and agreements, the minutes of the meeting can also be printed out and posted to the members’ mailboxes.
Introduce a friendly reminder system
Sometimes people can simply forget the payment deadline: this is one of the main reasons for delays in paying bills – so it is worth considering an automatic reminder system.
Different systems exist, and most modern apartment association management software can be set up to send out reminders when payments are late. However, it is important to make sure that the programme is interfaced with a banking service.
Offer a convenient option for paying bills
To ensure that people pay their bills on time, it is important to make it as convenient as possible. LHV, in cooperation with Korto, a platform for apartment association management, has developed a solution that allows association members to pay their bills with a pre-filled payment link – the payer can choose which bank to pay the bill from.
For members of the association, payment in the regular way involves manually copying the invoice number, account number, amount and sometimes the required reference number from the invoice to the bank’s payment order. With a payment link, one does not have to worry about this because the payment order is pre-filled.
Paying by payment link is advantageous for the association itself, but for members of the association, it is much easier than paying bills in the manual way. It is also more flexible and a cheaper alternative to e-invoices, for example, if you want to pay bills on different dates and from different banks. As an added value, it works just as conveniently on mobile and is also helpful for the quick payment of debts.
How to set up the opportunity to pay by payment link for your association
Adding a payment link to your association’s invoices is very easy. To start, a user with Korto administrator rights, usually either a Member of the Management Board or a representative of the building management company, must log in to the Korto Pro view.
In the Korto environment, select ‘Settlement’ and ‘LHV LinkPay’ and fill in the corresponding request form to activate the payment link.
Then, the applicant will be contacted by LHV Pank and a contract will be concluded with the association. After the contract is concluded, the payment link will be activated on invoices issued in the Korto environment and from the environment. It is also possible to conveniently deactivate the service at any time.
If a member of the association has incurred a debt
If a member is struggling to pay their bills, it is important to support them and offer solutions. The sooner a problem is identified and action is taken, the more likely it is that an appropriate and quick solution can be found.
Common solutions include, for example, adjusting the payment schedule or offering other additional payment options. If the number of debtors increases and the problem is not dealt with immediately, the association may, in turn, face difficulties in paying its own bills, which will affect all residents. This is why every member of the association can ask the Management Board or an administrator to activate a payment link to prevent debts and to offer residents a convenient and quick way to pay their bills.
In conclusion
The timely payment of invoices is essential for the successful functioning of an apartment association. Timely notification and modern payment solutions can significantly hold back the number of debtors.
Korto’s cooperation with LHV provides association members with a more convenient payment option, which increases the timely payment of bills and contributes to the smooth functioning of the apartment association.
If your apartment association does not yet use Korto to manage the association, find out more about its possibilities and submit an application to activate the payment link.
