How to account for usage by renter

SUGGESTED

Hello,

I am setting up Sage for the first time and have a question about an invoice I send to a tenant.

We are a charity supporting a local building, which is split into two parts, the main part of the building is let to a tenant, the rest of the building is available to hire for anyone to hire out (sort of a village hall).  It is not possible (financially it's out of the question) for the tenant to be invoiced directly for the services they use.

The charity receives  four invoices a month - gas, electricity, water and refuse.  For the first three the tenant is invoiced on a pro-rata basis, the refuse charge is 90% of the total invoice, this may change if the  rental of the village hall area increases.  

The trust pays the invoices received in full through Direct debit.  Once a month we invoice the tenant for their proportion of the usage.  Do I record the invoice payment as income or expenditure? Last month the cafe proportion of the total invoices was 94.5%.

Thank you

Sandie

  • 0
    SUGGESTED

    Hi Treasurer Iosch,

    Thanks for using Community Hub.

    You would need to speak to an accountant to ask which way would be more beneficial for your business.

    At Sage we would recommend that record it as it happens in real life, so if you are receiving money for providing accomodation then you would place that as money received.

    If this helps, please click Verify Answer.

    Regards,
    Stuart
    Sage UKI

  • 0 in reply to Stuart Avis

    Thank you, Stuart,

    We receive the individual invoices at various times during the month and the manual method with a spreadsheet works quite well.  I will need to continue with the spreadsheet but then will try setting up separate lines for each of the utilities.  The Ledger of accounts has been setup with the entries we require.

    I now have a question about the ledger of accounts, which I will ask separately - after searching for possible answer.

    Sandie