Charging for things other than rent

A charge is a line on the invoice that is not plot rent. Water levies, an association membership sub, a shared delivery of compost — anything you bill for alongside rent.

Find them under Billing → Charges.

Setting one up

A charge needs four decisions:

• What it is called. This is what members see on their invoice.
• How much.
• Who it applies to — every plot holder, or one member group. Groups are how you bill a subset: set up a group called "Water users", put the right people in it, and point the charge at it.
• How it counts — once per member, or once per plot. Somebody with two plots pays a per-plot charge twice and a per-member charge once.

There is also a repeats yearly switch. Turn it on for something like a water levy and it is applied automatically every time you open a new billing year. Leave it off for a one-off and it sits there quietly until you apply it by hand.

Applying one part-way through a year

Charges do not only work at year-open. Each charge on the list has an Apply to this year button that adds it to everybody it applies to, right now. It skips anybody who already has it, so pressing it twice is safe.

For a single member — somebody who joins the water rota in June — there is an Apply a charge to a member tool on the billing year page.

Changing the amount after you have applied it

This one catches people out. Editing a charge changes the definition, but invoices that already carry it keep the old figure, because a frozen invoice is not rewritten behind your back.

To bring this year's invoices into line with the new amount, use the amber Re-sync button. It only ever touches the year you are in — previous years stay as they were.

Taking one off again

• Remove from this year pulls the charge off everybody's current invoice but keeps the charge for future years.
• The small × next to a single line on an invoice removes just that one.
• Retire stops a charge being offered in future without deleting its history.

Deleting a charge outright asks whether you want to keep this year's lines or strip them too. If it has any history at all, retire it instead — the record of what you charged people is usually worth more than a tidy list.