Society maintenance billing and accounting is the part of a society management app that bills each flat its monthly maintenance charge, collects the payment and keeps the society's accounts. The maintenance charge pays for the society's guards, housekeeping, lift and pump maintenance, the electricity used in common areas, and repairs.
How is the charge worked out? Most societies charge by area, such as ₹3 per square foot of each flat every month. Many add a fixed amount for a sinking fund, which is money saved for large repairs in future, such as repainting the building or replacing a lift. The committee proposes these rates, and the members usually approve them at the society's annual general meeting.
Consider a society of 180 flats in Indore. Its rate is ₹3 per square foot a month, plus ₹300 for the sinking fund. On the 1st of the month, the app generates every flat's bill. A 1,200 sq ft flat gets a bill of ₹3,600 plus ₹300, which is ₹3,900. The resident receives a notification, opens the bill and pays through UPI. The app records the payment against that flat at once, so the treasurer does not have to match each bank credit to a flat by hand. By the due date, the 10th, 168 of the 180 flats have paid. The app sends reminders to the other 12, and adds the late fee set by the committee to their next bill.
The accounting side works like small business accounting software, with the society as the business. The treasurer enters each expense, such as ₹2.1 lakh a month to the security agency, and uploads the bills. The software keeps the books, and produces the income and expenditure statement and the balance sheet. A chartered accountant audits them every year, and the members see them at the annual general meeting. Residents can see in the app how much is owed in total and what each expense was, so the accounts are easier to question than a paper register.
Some rules apply. A society may have to charge GST on the maintenance charge. It applies when a flat's monthly charge is above ₹7,500 and the society's total yearly collection is above ₹20 lakh. The software adds the tax to the bills when these limits are crossed. Residents can also pay with a card or net banking instead of a UPI payment app. In this way the app does the same job for a society that a bill payment platform does for an electricity company: it shows the bill, takes the payment and sends a receipt.