Prepaid Meters Made Easy ... Call 087 5500 870

Self Management of Prepaid Meters enables landlords to access their meters on www.prepaidmeters.net where they can perform the following management tasks on their meters:

• Add credit to a meter
• Generate reports on a meter

As apposed to Outscourced Management of Prepaid Meters , Self Management is for the landlord or property manager who does not mind being hands-on and available to service tenant requests.

Self Management carries a monthly service fee per meter, per month but allows the landlord unlimited access to perform these tasks via the Internet from anywhere at any time (24/7/365). The monthly service fee is charged by direct debit in advance. Landlords can choose to make their debit orders quarterly, bi-annual or annual.

Our monthly service fee is R15.00 per meter per month. This fee covers access to our website meter service, SMS return vending and support. 

The self-managed process is a simple two-step-process:

2. User Generates Token (for the required utility)

In this option, landlords load credit and tenants generate tokens by sending token requests by SMS at anytime or place (24/7/365).

If a meter is Self Managed, then tenants pay funds for utilities direct to the landlords nominated bank account. In the process there are therefore tasks which must be performed by the tenant and by the landlord.

The detailed description of the process is illustrated below:

Tenant Tasks

• Using Internet Banking, tenant performs an Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) to pay funds to the landlords stipulated account. Tenant can also pay by any other specified means by the landlord. Use of Internet Banking is recomended as it is the most cost-effective, safest and tracable method for both the landlord and the tenant to transfer funds. For the landlord it also means that no cash in handled, there are no cash handling fees and the landlord is not required to generate a receipt for the amount.
• Usually the tenant uses the Internet Banking Facility to email a conformation of payment to the landlords email address. Most  Internet Banking facilities provide the ability to send a payment confirmation to the person receiving payment. The payment confirmation is usually send in Adobe PDF format. This method is recomended because EFT payments can take up to 4-working days to reflect. Confirmation of the payment, direct from the banking system, ensures that the landlord can add credit to the prepaid meter more immediately as apposed to waiting for the deposit to reflect.

Landlord Tasks

• The landlord should monitor email daily to check for payment confirmations that may arrive from tenants. When a confirmed payment is received it needs to be credited to the relevant prepaid meter account.
• The landlord can "Add New Credit" by connecting to the Internet and, using a Web Browser, log into the Prepaid Utility Management System located at www.prepaidmeters.net where the relevant Prepaid Meter can be recalled and New Credit added.
• The landlord can also perform this functionality via cell phone using SMS or WAP.
• Once new credit is added to a meter it becomes immediately available for use by the tenant. The landlord can then notify the tenant that the New Credit is available and tokens can be generated using SMS.

Tenant Tasks

• The tenant generates a prepaid utility token by sending an SMS to our prepaid meter vending system. The token can be for whole or part of the credit value  available. For example: If the tenant paid R500 to the landlord, the tenant has R500 credit. The tenant can send a token request for the full R500 or part thereof, say R450. It is always recomended that the tenant leaves a small amount in reserve, just incase of emergencies.

Landlord Tasks

• When the landlord recieves their municipal or body corporate utility bill, the money for the utilities has already been paid by the tenant and so there is no need to request funds from the tenant. Payment can therefore be made promptly.
• When the landlord sending tenants their statement the amount the tenant has paid for utility can be easily discovered by generating a report on the prepaid utility management system for the meter in question. This means that landlords can supply statements to tenants with greater accuracy, less confusing of arrears and more quickly.