Consolidate Resident Expenses with Convergent Billing: 3 Benefits

Did you know your utility billing system is not limited to utilities? With convergent billing, you can also consolidate other resident expenses into a single monthly bill. Here’s what you need to know.

Convergent billing is when a utility billing service includes all applicable resident charges – like metered utilities, trash collection, cable, internet and more – on one single bill. By definition, it sounds convenient and effective, but it’s not taken advantage as often as you’d expect. In fact, a lot of landlords, property owners and HOAs are either unaware or surprised when they hear about this service.

However, it’s a widely available billing service that’s easy to do, and it makes a landlord or property manager’s life much easier.

In this article, we cover the expenses you can add to your resident bills with convergent billing and three reasons why you should consider using it.

What Expenses Can You Add Using Convergent Billing?

The short answer to this question – almost any resident expense. If you bill it to your residents, odds are there is a way to add it to a convergent bill.

Non-Metered Utilities

Non-metered utilities like cable, internet and trash collection can all be added to any monthly resident bill. It’s as easy as adding on another line item to the bill.

Resident Amenity Fees

On top of that, you can also add on any resident amenity fee such as a fitness center or basement storage. These add-ons can also be configurable and billed to specific residents.

If we continue with the basement storage example, let’s say your building has a small and a large storage unit option. Your utility billing service can configure bills for each resident to make sure you’re charging the right people for the storage option they choose.

Resident Charges

With convergent billing, you can also configure resident charges like penalties or recurring charges billed at a quarterly or bi-monthly cadence. Again, it’s as simple as adding on another line item to the bill.

When you work with a utility billing expert, they can advise you on the configuration of these charges and ensure that they get billed properly to your residents.

3 Benefits of Convergent Billing

Convergent billing can help your multifamily property in a lot of different ways. Here are a few of the benefits you can expect from convergent billing.

#1. Consolidated Resident Expenses

The first benefit of convergent billing is that it helps you get resident charges all in one place. When your tenant expenses are consolidated into one place, it makes billing that much easier.

On top of that, convergent billing makes flexible and customized reporting easy. A utility billing service that offers convergent billing can also use those convergent bills to pull custom reports and analytics for each resident.

This allows you to quickly identify trends and spot any spikes in usage expenses that could indicate leaks and other problems. Being able to spot and solve a problem quickly can save you a lot of money in the long run. When utilities and other charges are disparate, it’s more difficult to get the data together and identify trends or problems.

#2. Improved Cost Recovery

Convergent billing can also improve cost recovery. Proper utility billing is determined by a mix of logistical and psychological factors. One factor that can determine your cost recovery is how easy you make it for residents to pay their bills.

With convergent billing, they get one bill each month will all of their expenses. Making your billing cycles as predictable as possible will make sure that your residents are always ready to pay their bills on time.

Improving cost recovery is one of the best ways to increase net operating income (NOI) and increase your property’s overall value and profitability.

#3. Increased Cashflow

Because convergent billing can lead to increased cost recovery, it can also lead to an increase in reliable cashflow month to month.

Even if you’re already billing back utilities to your residents, convergent billing will open new lines of cashflow each month because you’ll be recovering more cost more reliably. Should unexpected expenses arise, you will now have even more flexibility to cover them.

Conclusion – Streamline Your Resident Billing Process

The bottom line is convergent billing is a great way to get the most out of your utility billing system. Adding on resident charges beyond metered utilities is convenient for you and your residents. Plus, it helps your property’s overall billing strategy become more effective and efficient, helping you recover costs and improve profitability.

Looking to combine all your bills? Synergy can help you set up a utility billing system with convergent billing. Contact us.