Our Solutions for Estates & Complexes

Elec Software offers a variety of solutions for small complexes and large residential estates, to cater for your specific situation and unique needs.

1. Private Meter Management

We can take over already-installed private utility meters or install new hardware, depending on what the development prefers. Normal or smart prepaid meters can be provided. We work with premium hardware partners, with guarantees provided for all meters installed.

Elec Software charges a monthly management fee. This fee will be a percentage of the estate/complex’ total electricity purchases and varies based on the specifications of the requested service (refer to pricing later in this document).

Residents will enjoy access to client support from 7 am – 11 pm, 365 days a year. We also have different service level agreement options, to ensure that a technician gets on site to rectify any hardware issues as quickly as possible.

It is important to note that this solution cannot be implemented in developments who have municipal meters installed.

2. Private Meter Management + Revenue Collection

Same as in Point 1 above, with Elec Software also facilitating the payment of utilities, levies and other monthly accounts (through Prepaid24) and using prepaid electricity as a mechanism to ensure the payment of these accounts.

Owners will make a monthly payment or multiple payments to Prepaid24, and funds will be allocated as per the HOA or estate management’s specifications to settle certain accounts first before any electricity units are issued to the resident.

With this specific system, residents can only buy electricity through Prepaid24, meaning that the estate’s revenue collection system cannot be bypassed. Prepaid24 offers payments through all of South Africa’s major banks.

This solution will drastically improve any estate’s revenue collection rate. As referred to earlier in this document, this system is currently employed in Steve Tshwete Local Municipality (with Prepaid24’s software) where they boast a monthly collection rate of 95+% on municipal accounts, rates and taxes.

Prepaid24 facilitates payments through all the major South Africa banks, with payments usually processed within 5 minutes. Residents are also always provided with detailed slips of how their funds were allocated, to ensure trust and transparency.

3. Municipal Meter Revenue Collection

If a development does not manage its own electricity meters and homes have municipal-owned hardware, that does not have to stop them from collecting other revenue effectively.

By installing an additional smart electricity meter in series with the municipal meter (at an estimated cost of between R1,700 and R3,500, depending on international exchange rates and whether single- or three-phase meters are required), Elec Software can still empower the HOA or developer to use electricity supply as a mechanism to ensure residents’ payment of levies and other monthly accounts.

Payments are still made to Prepaid24 as in Point 2 above, and once all payable accounts have been settled, an electricity token is issued for the remaining amount (via the municipality).
Should a resident not settle their accounts on time, they will not be able to purchase electricity again, unless they have paid their accounts or made an arrangement with the development.

Municipal meters will not have to be removed, and electricity tokens will still be issued by the municipality. Payments will just be routed through Prepaid24 to ensure that the estate’s revenue collection protocols are enforced.

Elec Software’s normal Revenue Collection fees apply to this solution, with an additional R30 Data & Connection fee also charged to maintain live meter communication and infrastructure uptime (refer to pricing later in this document).

4. Rent Collection

Should homeowners, or perhaps the estate itself, be renting out units, these rental amounts can also be handled with the same mechanism as mentioned in Point 2 above. In such cases, property owners will have separate accounts through which to pay monthly levies, with tenants being required to pay rent before they are issued with electricity tokens.

5. Account Settlement Prioritisation

Our revenue collection system caters for customised prioritisation of accounts. In other words, the HOA can specify the order in which their respective accounts must be collected (e.g. levies first, followed by fibre and then water).

We also offer a customised percentage collection setting, which enables the HOA or homeowners (when it comes to rent) to set a percentage for each account that needs to be paid before electricity can be provided. Although most estates usually set this percentage to 100%, some developments prefer to give their residents a set percentage of electricity (e.g. 20%), even if they haven’t covered the full amount that they owe. For this example, it would mean that 80% of the resident’s payment will be allocated to payable accounts (in the order specified by the estate), with 20% of their payment being issued as an electricity token.

6. Arrears Payment Arrangements

We realise that revenue collection is not always just a set of rigid rules. There are exceptions and parties often agree to a variety of repayment arrangements.

Our system caters for current in-arrear amounts, and repayment arrangements made directly between homeowners and the estate can be loaded onto the system. These arrangements then form part of the development’s revenue collection “waterfall”, with our system ensuring that all arrangements are honoured. In other words, residents who do not keep to their arrangements, will not receive electricity.

7. Meter Audits

As part of Elec Software’s Private Meter Management service, we will monitor the purchase and consumption patterns of all private meters in the estate. In this way, we’ll help to make sure that meters are not tampered with and that long-term revenue losses for the development are prevented.

Monthly consumption and buying pattern reports will be sent to the HOA/estate management.