Utility Billing Import and Export

Rentec Direct automates interactions with utility billing service providers, including Ista (now part of Aurea Energy Solutions). This two-step process can be handled by your property management staff or by the billing service company directly, provided you grant them a user login to your software.

Important Note: To ensure the Tenants' "Resident ID" auto fills into the form, navigate to Settings, then Program Defaults. Scroll to the very bottom and Edit Advanced Settings. Under "Advanced General Preferences," locate "Show renter account number in breadcrumbs?" and select "Yes" then Save Changes. More information can be found in the article: Program Default Settings | Preferences

Step 1 - Export utility charges from Rentec Direct

The following steps guide you through downloading a utility billing data file.

In your Rentec Direct account: 

1. Click on Settings
2. Under Tools, click on Utilities
3. Click the Download Utility Billing Data button

4. Configure your export with the following three options:

   
   

   Output Format:  The software will default to Ista, if you have an alternate vendor, please let us know, and we would be happy to work with them as well.

   
   

   Properties to include:  Use the default "All Properties" or use the dropdown to select specific properties that the billing service vendor will be billing on your behalf.

   
   

   Days after move-out to bill:  All tenants (except deleted tenants) will show on the report.  To prevent the billing service vendor from billing expired tenants, you can specify a number of days here. For example, if the default of 30 days is left unchanged, tenants who moved out more than 30 days ago would not be billed.

   
   
5. When finished, click the Download Report button and save the report to a location on your computer and review data.
6. Provide the saved report to your billing service vendor.

Step 2 - Import new utility billing charges into the system

The following steps guide you through importing the billing charges you receive back from your service provider into the software.

In your Rentec Direct account:

1. Click on Settings
2. Under Tools, click on Utilities
3. Click on Import Tenant Charges
4. Click on Choose File to select your saved CSV file
5. Click on Upload File
6. Review the summary of charges to be placed within the system, to include:
   1. Column number, tenant name, description, amount of the charge
   2. Rows with x errors will not be imported
   3. Warnings should be reviewed, but will not prevent a row from being imported

7. Once you have reviewed the data, click Go Back to choose a new file or Import Charges to proceed.

   Note: Once you choose Import Charges, all charges will be automatically applied to the tenants within the system as of the dates specified within the import file.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q) How do I edit the import file? 

The file provided by Ista or another billing service provider will be in a CSV (Comma-Separated Value) file.

• Open the file using MS Excel or any text editor.  We recommend only viewing the contents in Excel and not editing, as Excel will often modify the data unintentionally, such as reformatting dates and amounts. 
• The best way to edit the data if it needs to be changed before import is to use Notepad or another text editor.  Save the file, and re-try the import.

Q) How do I provide my billing vendor with a login so they can complete the process on our behalf? 

To grant a vendor login access to your account, you must add them as a user. You can find detailed instructions for this process in the article: Add Subusers, Managers, and Additional Users to Your Account.

The following Utility Access permissions will need to be allowed:

• Allow access to Utilities
• Download Utility Billing Data
• Allow access to Utilities: Import Tenant Charges

Tip: You can limit users' access to specific properties in their Properties Permissions.

Q) Can I do a sample import to get used to the process? 

We don't have a way to do a sample import; however, you can do a limited import so it is easy to back out if there is a problem.

• Follow step 1 as you usually would, and in step 2, edit the import file with a text editor such as Notepad and delete all but perhaps the top two or three lines.
• Proceed with the import, and you can then review the charges for accuracy. 
• If there is any problem, just void out the transactions you imported using the instructions found in this article: Edit, Correct, or Delete Transactions.

Tip: Before any charges are applied to the system, a summary screen will always appear, allowing you to review all items to be imported or charged and helping to prevent errors.

Q) Can I automatically import charges from my own meters into Rentec using this method?

You can easily import charges from your own meters using the following steps:

• Download this Utilities.csv
• Remove the sample data
• Populate it with your charges
• Save the file as a CSV (Comma-Separated Values) file, and import using the same method described above