Introduction to the tenant module

The Tenants module is part of out growing range of functionality that makes it possible to tailor you use of Mestro Portal. Contact your Customer Success Manager to talk about how the module can work for your particular organization!

The module's functionality is useful for several roles within your organization. For example, it's useful for technical managers to follow up and debug per tenant. Or when Finance want's to review the settlement report at the end of the month. Sustainability reporting becomes more clear when the tenant's and your usage of resources are separated in a logical way. Tenants also benefit from the functionality through access to their data and specially designed tenant reports!

Content

• Why a tenants module?

• The module in brief

• Technical conditions

Why a tenants module?

Most of our customers lease parts of their real estate portfolio to different businesses. It's common that more than 10 different business are renting space in shopping malls and office buildings, for example. Use of energy and water costs money, plus that the usage thereof accounts for a major portion of operational environmental impact. Costs that you as a real estate owner rightfully want to re-invoice to the tenants. And the environmental impact should be categorized in order for you to effectively direct your efforts. After all, it is the tenants, not you, that use the resources!

Your challenge

So, where do you start when you want to work with accrued expenses? It's easy when tenants sign their own utility contracts - they receive and pay the invoices. When the real estate owner is registered on the subscriptions, the situation is often one of the following. Either, the energy and other media are "included" in the rent. Or, tenants are invoiced in advance or after you receive the bill based on some form of standardized fraction that may or may not be adjusted retroactively. In both cases there is a margin of error that can affect both tenants and real estate owner. Plus, invoicing takes a long time to administer.

As for the environmental impact? Within several frameworks for climate and sustainability reporting there are large advantages to separating your own usage from that of tenants. Sometimes it's necessary, for example within the Greenhouse Gas Protocol framework. It's very time consuming to find reliable key figures if metering isn't correct from the start. If the tenants own the utility contracts, your time needs to be spent asking them for secondhand data that you need to trust. Feels familiar?

Our solution

The Tenant module adds a layer of functionality on top of the base energy monitoring system. It makes it possible to create tenants with contracts and "move in" the tenants in virtual buildings and components where you connect physical sub meters or virtual meters. Using this structure (that we can help you configure), the system will tally costs, distribution of usage and categorize environmental impact automatically. Get the material you need with a simple click!

TIP: The settlement report and other tools become much better if you also establishe real cost and environmental agreements in the portal. Otherwise, the system will apply Mestro's standard factors based on Nils Holgersson index for costs and Nordisk Residualmix (obs, external link to Energimarknadsinspektionen) for greenhouse gas emissions.

It's also possible to connect your existing tenant management system to the module in order to automatically populate tenant contracts and export settlement data. Flexible, right?

The module in brief

Part 1 - Virtual components

The module consists of several parts. The first is about creating virtual building components in you properties. These allow for a structured distribution of the property's usage data between different spaces and tenants. When you want to work with tenants in the portal you begin by creating a building component! How many components you choose to create depends on your needs. There is no right or wrong quantity.

Part 2 - Tenants and section contracts

Creating section contracts and administering tenants is the second part. Once you are in a building component you are able to create a section contract where you specify the name of the section, contract number, leased area and which meters (or part of) that serve the space rented by the tenants. When the section contract is created you either choose to "move in" a tenant or create a new one. Take a look at the picture below to see an example of a completed configuration.

Part 3 - Sub metering

Part 3 is about distribution of measuring points. All properties have at least two main metering points; one for electricity och one for water. What you choose to measure in the portal is up to you. When you want to allocate metering points to contracts, you can either do it by installing a sub metering system for different spaces or create virtual meters to attribute portions of the use of the main metering points. More on that subject in the next chapter!

Part 4 - Tenant billing report

When the module is configured (tenants, section contracts and meters are connected and in place) you can find the new report in the menu Reports.

The tab Active tenants is the meeting point for all the tenants. Here you'll find a list of all the tenants and information about data coverage and costs. Click Details in order to see information about tenants, section contracts and connected meters. Here you also see the cost agreements that form the basis for the settlement repport.

If you prefer to administer invoicing from excel or other programs you can easily download the information. There is a button in both the overview and the specification that is named Excel or CSV where you can choose between excel och .csv-format. Simple, right?

Pro tip: We have established integrations with Unit4 and FastAPI (Vitec Hyra) through which we update tenant information automatically, and we continuously add more! Just contact us and we will help you. Here is an article that tells you how you prepare yourself before an integration project with us.

Are you ready to take tenant billing to the next level in your organization? Book a meeting with us!

Technical requirements

We recommend that you have a sub metering system installed in properties with tenants to achieve the best results. Begin by contacting your Customer Success Manager or support@mestro.com to get the module activated for manual or automatic handling. We will then help you with your specific case.

• Best case: Sub meters exists for each tenant - "exact" consumption is measured and works as a basis for the settlement report.

• Next best case: The distribution for energy use according to a stencil (with help from virtual meters). Others base this on proportion of the building's area leased by the tenant.

• You can also combine different meters for billing, e.g. sub-meters for electricity, a percentage for district heating and water.

N.B: Use the cost and environmental agreements module to ensure that costs are calculated correctly. Alternatively, order our invoice scanning service to load the invoiced cost in the portal! If neither own agreements are established nor invoiced costs are loaded, Mestro's standard factor will be used to calculate costs for re-invoicing. The same goes for greenhouse gas emissions!

Finally...

We are a developing company and appreciate your feedback! If anything is unclear or you wish to share your ideas, don't hesitate to contact your Customer Success Manager or send an email to support@mestro.com.

Modules - which do you offer and why should we use them? Read here