Charging owners

A collection debits an owner’s balance. Use collections to charge landlords for your services, to recover expenses such as maintenance or insurance, and to collect service charges or ground rent from leaseholders. The money you collect is credited to a destination owner: your platform account by default, or a supplier you choose. Some collections are created for you. Yorlet automatically collects the unit’s management fee when rent is transferred, tenant find and renewal fees when an application completes, and non-resident tax when a payout is approved. Everything below applies to those collections too. You can view all collections on the Collections page, or on the owner’s Balance section under Collections payable (collections charged to this owner) and Collections receivable (collections this owner receives as a destination).

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Collection types

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Create a collection

To create a collection, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the owner you want to charge.
2. Use the Actions menu and select Create collection, or click the overflow menu (•••) on the Balance section and select Create collection.
3. Choose the Type, and the Expense type or Fee type where relevant.
4. Enter the Amount and a Description. The description is shown to the owner on their receipts and statements.
5. Enter the Tax percent, or click Use tax rate to pick one of your tax rates, and set the Tax behavior to Exclusive (tax is added to the amount) or Inclusive (tax is part of the amount).
6. Choose the Unit the charge relates to. This is required when the owner is paid out per unit.
7. Optionally choose a Destination owner to receive the funds. If you leave it empty, the funds are credited to your platform account.
8. If you chose a destination, optionally set a Platform fee percentage to keep part of the collection on your platform account.
9. Optionally set a Period to show the owner the service period the charge covers.
10. Check the Preview, which shows the amount, tax, total, and how much goes to the destination and to your platform.
11. Click Create.

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Options

• Add to draft payout: if the owner has a draft payout, include this collection in it straight away so it is deducted from that payout.
• Recurring collection: repeat the collection on a schedule. See Recurring collections.
• Under More options:
  • Approve now: on by default. The collection is applied to the owner’s balance immediately, whether or not the owner has funds to cover it. Turn it off to leave the collection pending until you approve it.
  • Available on: delay when the collection takes effect on the balance.
  • Invoice document, Invoice number and Purchase order number: attach the supplier’s invoice to the collection for your records.

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Routing collections to a supplier

Choosing a Destination turns a collection into a transfer between owners. When the collection is paid, Yorlet creates an owner payment on the destination owner for the collected amount, so the supplier can be paid out like any other owner. For example, to pass a £300 maintenance bill on to a contractor:

1. Create an Expense collection of £300 with the expense type Maintenance against the landlord.
2. Set the Destination to the contractor’s supplier account.
3. Optionally set a Platform fee of 10% to keep £30 as commission.

The landlord sees a £300 charge. The contractor’s balance is credited with £270 and your platform account with £30. If you want every collection to have an explicit destination, turn on Set destination as mandatory on account collections in your routing settings.

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Collection lifecycle

A collection is only credited to its destination once the owner’s payout that deducted it has been paid. Until then the amount is shown on the destination owner’s Collections receivable tab but not in their balance.

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Approve a collection

If you created a collection with Approve now turned off, it stays Pending until you approve it. To approve a collection, open it and click Approve, or press a. Once approved, the collection is applied to the owner’s balance.

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Edit a collection

To change the Description, Unit or Period on a collection, open it, click the overflow menu (•••) and select Edit. The amount and type cannot be changed after the collection is created; cancel it and create a new one instead.

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Cancel a collection

Cancelling a collection removes its debit from the owner’s balance. To cancel a collection, open it and click Cancel, or press c. You can cancel a collection while it is Pending or Applied. Once it has been Paid, refund it instead.

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Refund a collection

You can refund a collection in full or in part once it is Applied or Paid. To refund a collection, open it and click Refund, or press r. If you have already refunded part of it, the button reads Refund more. Enter the Amount and a Description, then confirm. Refunding a collection credits the owner’s balance. If the collection had a destination owner and had been paid, the owner payment that credited the destination is refunded too, along with any platform fee you kept.

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Download a tax invoice

To download a tax invoice for a collection, open it and click Tax PDF. The invoice shows the amount, tax and period, and is addressed to the owner who was charged.

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Recurring collections

For charges you collect on a schedule, such as a fixed monthly management fee or a quarterly service charge, create a recurring collection. Yorlet creates a new collection on each billing date, and each one behaves like a collection you created by hand. To create a recurring collection, follow these steps:

1. Start a collection as described in Create a collection.
2. Turn on Recurring collection.
3. Choose the Start date for the first collection. If it is today or in the past, the first collection is created immediately.
4. Choose the Billing interval: Weekly, Every 4 weeks, Monthly, Every 3 months, Every 6 months or Yearly.
5. Enter the number of Billing cycles, or leave it as 0 to repeat until you cancel.
6. Click Create.

You can view and manage recurring collections on the Subscriptions page in the Owners area, organised into Active, Scheduled, Complete and Cancelled tabs. Each one shows its owner, amount, frequency, remaining billing cycles and the date of the next collection, along with the collections it has created so far.

• To change the Amount or Description used for future collections, open the recurring collection and click Edit.
• To stop it creating any further collections, click the overflow menu (•••) and select Cancel subscription. Collections already created are unaffected.

If a scheduled collection could not be created, the recurring collection shows a Last collection failed alert so you can investigate.

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Automatic collections

Yorlet creates these collections without you doing anything:

• Management fee: when rent is transferred to an owner, or when you send funds with Apply unit fees turned on. The fee is taken from the unit fees on the unit, including any temporary discount.
• Tenant find fee, Renewal fee and Rent review fee: when an application for a new tenancy, a renewal or a rent increase completes, if the unit has these fees set.
• Non-resident tax: when a payout is approved for a landlord whose tax residency makes them liable. The tax is routed to the owner set in your routing settings, or to your platform account. See Tax reporting.

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Hold funds for a future charge

If you know a charge is coming but cannot create the collection yet, for example a contractor’s invoice you are waiting for, you can reserve funds on the owner’s balance so they are not paid out in the meantime.