Charge a customer for electricity (HomeWizard)

Introduction

If you rent out something with its own electricity meter — a holiday home, a chalet, or a camper on a pitch with a hook-up — RentVisie can read how much electricity the customer used and put it on their invoice. The meters are HomeWizard energy meters. RentVisie reads them through your HomeWizard bridge, links each meter to the thing it measures, and, when you ask it to, turns the kilowatt-hours used during a booking into an invoice line.

There are two screens. The setup screen is headed HomeWizard, with Back to integrations above it and a Connected or Not connected label beside it. On the left it has a Connection card and a Meters card listing every meter; on the right a How billing works card with the five setup steps. The day-to-day part is one button, Charge electricity, on the booking's Invoice summary. It opens a small window headed Charge electricity with a From and a To date.

You would use this when:

• a guest has left the chalet and the final invoice should include the electricity;
• a long-stay customer is invoiced part-way through and you want the electricity so far on the invoice;
• a new meter has been fitted and RentVisie needs to know which unit it measures;
• you want to check whether every meter is online before the weekend changeover.

Terms used on this screen

Skim this once; the names come back on both screens:

Use this page for metered electricity. For a car's fuel or charging level at return, see Set the price you charge for fuel instead.

How to use

Configuration

The setup has five steps, the same five the How billing works card lists. Do them in this order once; after that, only new meters need step 4.

1. Connect the bridge. From the main menu open Admin, then Settings, and click the Integrations tile. In the card headed Fleet & telematics, switch HomeWizard on. The change is saved at once and the HomeWizard screen opens. Later, use the Settings button that appears on the row once it is switched on.

In the Connection card:

Click Save connection. RentVisie switches the connection on, saves it and fetches your meters straight away. The label beside the heading changes to Connected. If either box is wrong you get Enter the bridge URL (starting with https://) and the API key.

2. Create the Electricity add-on. From the main menu open Admin, then Product design, and click the Optional options tile. Click New. Name it, for example Electricity, set Option special to Electricity, leave Period on Day and type what you charge per kWh in Period base price. Base price/ day (calculated) then shows the same amount, and that is the price per kWh; Price type makes no difference. If the booking's price list gives this add-on a price under Option pricing, that price is used per kWh instead. Click Save. The rest of the add-on screen is described in Offer an add-on and add it to a booking, and Option special in Set up a damage fee, young driver surcharge or other special add-on.

3. Link it to the class. Link the add-on to the vehicle class (the app calls it the "asset group") of every unit that has a meter, the same way as any add-on. To have it on every new booking of that class without anyone ticking it, link it with isSelected and isCharged ticked.

4. Link each meter to its unit. Back on the HomeWizard screen, the Meters card lists each meter with its name, an Online or Offline label, the time it was last seen, and Not linked if it has no unit yet. Open the Select asset list on the meter's row and pick the unit it measures. The change is saved the moment you pick it. The list only offers units whose class has the Electricity add-on from step 3; if it says No assets, do step 3 first. To unlink a meter, use the clear control in the same list. Click Sync meters whenever a meter has been added or renamed at the bridge. The Online / Offline labels and last seen times are only refreshed by Sync meters or Save connection, so click Sync meters before you check them.

5. Charge it on the booking — see the next section.

Before you start: the Integrations screen and the HomeWizard screen need a Company admin account. Charge electricity on a booking works for any full staff account. A minimal staff account does not see the button. If the button is missing on a booking, check the five conditions in the Q&A below before calling anyone.

Using Charge electricity

Open the booking's invoice screen: from the main menu open Bookings, click the booking's row, then click Invoice at the top of the booking. The Invoice summary opens.

1. Click Charge electricity. It sits in the row of buttons beside Override. A window headed Charge electricity opens.

2. Check From and To. The window says Choose the period to charge. The kWh used between these two moments is read from the meter and added to the invoice. They start filled in:

   Box	Starts as
   From	The pickup time
   To	The return time. While the unit is still out: the contract end if that has already passed, otherwise now

   Change them if you want to charge another period, for example only the first month of a long stay. To must be later than From, and neither may be empty: the window says Enter a start date., Enter an end date. or The end must be after the start. under the box to fix.

3. Click Charge electricity in the window. Cancel closes it without reading anything.

When it worked, the window closes and the app says Electricity usage updated. It is now on the invoice. The booking now has an invoice line named after the add-on with the kWh in brackets, and the booking total is recalculated. The line is ready for the next invoice; nothing has been invoiced yet. Create the invoice as usual with Create and send invoice or Create invoice — see Invoice a booking.

On the Booking details screen: open the Financial tab and click Invoice to reach the same Invoice summary. The add-on itself is added in the Accessories card on the Overview tab. See Find your way around the Booking details screen.

A worked example. Your Electricity add-on costs €0.35 per kWh with 21% VAT (value-added tax). A guest picks up chalet 7 on 1 October at 14:00 and returns it on 8 October at 10:00. You open the Invoice summary and click Charge electricity: From reads 1 October 14:00 and To 8 October 10:00. The meter read 1 204.10 kWh at the start and 1 284.10 kWh at the end, so 80.00 kWh were used. The booking gets the line Electricity (80.00 kWh): 80.00 × €0.35 = €28.00, or €33.88 including VAT.

Key details

The button only shows when everything is in place. Charge electricity appears only when all of these are true:

Two more things are checked when you click: a meter must be linked to the booking's unit, and the HomeWizard connection must be on. Each gives its own message (see Q&A).

No reading, no line. Before you click Charge electricity, the add-on on the booking costs nothing: the line only appears once a complete reading with more than 0 kWh has been fetched. If some readings inside the period are missing, the app says Some meter readings are missing for this booking period, so electricity was not added to the invoice. Add the charge by hand if needed. — nothing is charged, and the usage is not estimated.

Charging again replaces, it does not add. A booking has one electricity reading. Clicking Charge electricity again, with the same or another period, replaces the earlier reading and its line. If the earlier amount was already invoiced, the next invoice carries only the difference, like any other change on the booking.

How the amount is worked out. kWh used (rounded to two decimals) × the add-on's price × the add-on's Quantity on the booking. Leave Quantity at 1, or the electricity is charged that many times over. VAT is the add-on's VAT.

One meter per unit. A unit can only be linked to one meter. A meter that the bridge no longer reports is marked Offline at the next sync; it is not removed.

Switching HomeWizard off under Integrations stops all charging: Charge electricity then says HomeWizard is not connected. Lines already on bookings stay.

What to do next. Once the line is on the booking, invoice it — see Invoice a booking. If the reading was incomplete, add the electricity by hand with an override — see Adjust the price on a booking.

Q&A

Why is there no Charge electricity button on the Invoice summary? One of the conditions in the table under Key details is not met. Most often the booking does not have the Electricity add-on: add it under the booking's add-ons (see Offer an add-on and add it to a booking), or the booking is not yet picked up — put it through pickup first.

The app says "No electricity meter is linked to this booking's asset". No meter is linked to the unit on this booking, or the booking has a different unit than you expected. Ask your Company admin to open the HomeWizard screen and pick the unit in the meter's Select asset list.

The app says "HomeWizard is not connected". The connection is switched off. Ask your Company admin to switch HomeWizard on under Admin, Settings, Integrations, and to click Save connection on the HomeWizard screen.

The app says "No meter readings were found for this booking period". The meter sent nothing for that period, usually because it was offline. Check the meter's Online / Offline label on the HomeWizard screen, and check that From and To cover the stay. If the meter really was offline, add the electricity by hand (see Adjust the price on a booking).

The app says "Could not reach the electricity meter" or "The electricity meter sent an unexpected answer". The bridge did not answer, or answered with something RentVisie could not read. Wait a few minutes and click Charge electricity again. If it keeps happening, contact support.

Sync meters says "Could not connect to the HomeWizard bridge". The Bridge URL or API key (read) is wrong, or the bridge is offline. Check both in the Connection card, click Save connection, and try again. If it says Save the bridge URL and API key first, and make sure HomeWizard is switched on under Integrations., the connection was never saved.

Why is the Sync meters button missing? It only shows while the connection is Connected. Fill in the Connection card and click Save connection.

Picking a unit for a meter says "This asset is already linked to meter …". Each unit can have only one meter, and that unit already has the meter named in the message. Clear the unit on that meter's row first, then pick it on the new one.

The unit I want is not in the Select asset list. The list only shows units whose class has the Electricity add-on. Link the add-on to that class first (Configuration, step 3), then come back.

The electricity was charged twice as high as it should be. The Electricity add-on on the booking has a Quantity above 1. Set it back to 1 under the booking's add-ons, then click Charge electricity again.

I charged the wrong period. How do I fix it? Click Charge electricity again with the right From and To. The new reading replaces the old one.

Related pages:

• Invoice a booking — creating the invoice once the electricity is on the booking.
• Offer an add-on and add it to a booking — creating the add-on and putting it on bookings.
• Set up a damage fee, young driver surcharge or other special add-on — the Option special box.
• Turn an integration on or off — the Integrations screen.