Tutorials

Share a security and cleaning invoice across tenants

Set up two attributes — one on buildings, one on tenants — and let Flowtly divide a supplier invoice between them instead of typing the shares by hand.

FinanceIntermediate12 minutes

Before you start

One supplier invoice often covers a whole site — a security contract across every building, a cleaning contract across every tenant of one building. Entering each share by hand is slow and goes out of date the moment a tenant moves.

Flowtly can work the shares out from attributes: numbers you record once on assets and on projects. This walkthrough uses a security percentage on each building and a floor area on each tenant, and ends with a saved invoice whose positions add up to the invoice total.

You need an organisation with buildings recorded as assets, one project per tenant with an active booking, and a supplier invoice to split. Attribute definitions are managed by an administrator.

Step-by-step

Complete the flow

  1. 1

    Create the two attribute definitions

    Open Attributes. Create one definition for the building level — name it Security, type number, unit %. Create a second for the tenant level — name it Area, type number, unit m2. An attribute belongs either to assets or to projects, and this pair is deliberately one of each: the building attribute decides how much of the cost each building carries, and the tenant attribute divides that building's portion between the tenants sitting on it.

    Tips

    • Nothing stops two definitions sharing a name, one for assets and one for projects. Only one of them is the one your split uses, so check which level you are editing before typing any value.
    • Use the number type. The unit is only shown next to the value; it does not affect the arithmetic.
  2. 2

    Record the security share on each building

    Open Assets, pick a building, and use its Attributes tab to enter the Security value. Do this for every building the invoice covers — for example Building A 23.98, Building B 23.42, Building C 34.60. Recording the value is the whole configuration; there is no separate mapping screen.

    Tips

    • The values do not have to add up to 100. Each building takes its own value divided by the total of all of them, so a set adding to 200 splits identically — the total only affects how the numbers read.
    • A building with no value simply does not take part in the split. That is the mechanism for excluding one, not a mistake.
  3. 3

    Record the floor area on each tenant project

    Open Projects, pick the project you invoice a tenant through, and use its Attributes tab to enter the Area value in m2. Repeat for every tenant — Tenant A, Tenant B, Tenant C. These numbers divide a building's portion between the tenants booked on it.

    Tips

    • If none of the tenants booked on a building have an Area value, that building's portion is divided equally between them rather than dropped. An equal split where you expected a proportional one means the values are missing.
    • Unlet space is outside the calculation, so the occupied units absorb the whole cost. If vacancy should carry its own share, it has to exist as a project with an attribute value like any other.
  4. 4

    Fill the split on the invoice

    Open the supplier invoice and expand Categorisation. Above the positions you will find Fill by <name> for a flat split on one project attribute, and Fill by cascade of <name> for the two-stage split this tutorial uses. Press the cascade button. Flowtly proposes the positions with their amounts.

    Tips

    • Nothing is saved until you save the invoice. You can press a different button, or use Clear all and start again, without consequence.
    • Fill by meter consumption is a different mechanism entirely — it splits on meter readings rather than attributes.
  5. 5

    Check the split before saving

    Check three things. First, that the projects listed are the ones you expect. Second, that the Weight column shows shares you recognise. Third, that Project allocation total reads 100% and the invoice's net amount. Then save.

    Tips

    • A missing tenant almost always means one of two things: no attribute value on that project, or no booking active on the invoice's receipt date.
    • The receipt date decides who takes part. A tenant who moved out before the invoice arrived is not in the split, and one who moved in afterwards is not either.
    • Amounts are rounded so the positions total the invoice's net amount exactly, rather than falling a grosz short.
  6. 6

    Confirm it landed on the projects

    Open one of the tenant projects and look under Project finance, Related costs. Each row shows both the full invoice amount and the share assigned to that project — the quickest confirmation that a tenant was charged what you intended.

    Tips

    • A tenant renting several units in one building is counted once, under a single building, not once per unit. Its share is not multiplied by the number of units it rents.
    • If a split ignores values you are sure you entered, open Attributes and confirm you edited the definition belonging to the right level — assets or projects.

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