Pre-Bill Audit Reports are generated by the utility billing company – SW Utility Billing – around the middle of each month. The property manager should review the report each month paying particular attention to any units/tenants flagged with a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. Then you have 48 hours to make the necessary changes in ResMan.
Note that for most of these it is up to you to make the changes in ResMan. In other words, do not reply to the email with the changes. The billing company only has permission to read the data from ResMan and, as such cannot make changes in ResMan.
- Check the occupancy.
For any units flagged with a 1, that means they failed the “Occupancy Check”. This is usually because of too few people in a large unit. For example, 1 person living in a 2/2. In this case check the lease file. If anyone else – even minors – is on the lease or application but not entered into ResMan you need to enter them and move them in as usual. - Check the account balance for that unit.
Any flagged with a “2” (Large Previous Balance), you probably already know about. But still this is a reminder to try to collect their outstanding balance ASAP or look at moving them out. - Check the account balance for that unit.
Any flagged with a “3” (Large Negative Previous Balance), might mean that they’ve pre-paid for next month. It might also mean that a deposit was accidentally entered as a payment or that someone else’s rent was accidentally applied to their unit – easy to do when entering multiple payments in a hurry. You should probably review their Ledger to make sure that it is correct. - Check the lease rent is correct.
Any flagged with a “4” (Rent out of range) are often recent move-outs – but please verify these records too. - When renewing this unit be sure to include utility billing.
We rarely see a “5”, though the office at The Village is flagged as that – because it doesn’t pay a pro-rated amount of the utilities. It already gets charged for all of the common area utilities anyway.
After reviewing this monthly report address any changes in ResMan as soon as possible (certainly within 24 hours of receipt of the email). Note that it is possible that after reviewing each of these records you have no changes. That is fine. This report is just a “quick check” (audit) of anything that looks a little out of the ordinary before the bills get printed and mailed out to everyone. We want the bills to be as accurate as possible when they are sent out rather than have irate residents come in and complain about an incorrect balance or something like that.