Getting all the bills organized can be a major undertaking when you own rental properties. If you hire Blue Sky Real Estate and Management, we take care of all your bills. Our system can take care of both recurring and non-recurring bills. Schedule Homeowners Association fees, mortgages, property taxes, and insurance payments. The utility and gardening bills are in one place and scheduled to be paid on time. This makes it easy for you, other owners, and Blue Sky to have access to the same documents in case there is ever any confusion.
Bills are stored in the cloud, so they can be accessed anywhere, any time. There’s no need for a wall full of ugly metal filing cabinets. Our online system is more secure, too. You won’t have to worry about identity theft and all the problems that go with it. At tax time, you can share a folder with the relevant documents with your tax professional. Tenants pay their rent and utilities online, too. Our ratio bill pay system makes the utility bill a breeze, too. We set up the allocation and enter the bill each month. Tenants are billed for their fair share of the total right on their monthly rent statement. In the Internet Age, there’s no reason rental property owners have to struggle with sorting papers and complicated calculations. It’s all taken care of for you with just a few clicks.
Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS)
Blue Sky Real Estate and Management uses ratio billing (also called ratio utility billing system or RUBS). This is a great method for landlords to use, especially when submetering is not an option because of prohibitive costs or space constraints. RUBS is a method of calculating each unit’s share of the the utility bill. The formula is based on occupancy, square footage, and number of bedrooms.
We enter the utility bills each month. The system automatically calculates residents’ shares. Ratio billing of utilities is integrated with the other monthly charges, including rent, and applied to the rental statement each month. Tenants receive only one clear bill. The system is convenient to use. Just make sure the feature is turned on.
Ratio billing is also a great way to decrease the use of resources overall. This is especially important when it comes to water usage. In a multi-resident building, utilities conservation is incentivized for everyone. The EPA and the National Apartment Association have conducted studies that show ratio billing encourages conservation. Utilities use decreases between 5 to 40% when ratio billing is introduced.
