Recently Kamal Co-operative Housing Society, Mumbai went live on ApnaComplex. The society has moved all thier accounts into ApnaComplex and for the first time issued digital invoices and receipts to its members. Mr. Hemang Thakker, Hon. Treasurer of the society was very pleased with the many positive comments from their members and has the following to say on ApnaComplex –

“We were on the lookout for an accounting software for our society for quite some time. We zeroed in on Apnacomplex as the site is well designed and featured all the things one looks for in a good software AND offered a no-obligation one month free trial.

The best part is that ApnaComplex delivers what it promises. I am very happy to say that all the doubts, queries and issues raised by us were addressed promptly and in a very positive manner. And as new features are being added the whole experience becomes richer.

We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship and would recommend the program whole heartedly.”

Thank you Mr. Thakker for your kind words!

ApnaComplex now supports the most flexible automation of  recurring invoices. Any invoice that is raised periodically can now be automated.

ApnaComplex, in the recurring invoice module, till now had the ability to automate generation of invoices for a given set of charges for all flats. The charges could be based on a flat rate or per square feet basis. However, Treasurers who use complex formulae for maintenance charges (such as Rs. 1000/- for 2BHKs, Rs. 3000/- for 3 BHK or Rs. 2/- pfst of built up area + Rs. 1/- of terrace) or have additional charges to be posted for few flats (such as parking lot rentals for few members) were not able to benefit from the recurring invoice module.

Bringing a smile on the lips of these treasurers, ApnaComplex now supports raising of invoices periodically based on charges uploaded via spread sheet. Create the charges to be invoiced periodically in a spreadsheet and set up the invoicing schedule! Invoices will automatically get posted based on the schedule. With this treasurers can automate the posting of different amounts against different units and also different charges against different units.

Go to Member Income dashboard and click “Setup Recurring Invoices” to see this in action!

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Get your Society on ApnaComplex – Today!

ApnaComplex is India’s most comprehensive web based housing society accounting, management and communication software. It is designed to make the life of residents and owners a lot better by bringing in more transparency and accountability in managing a housing society. Check out the features of ApnaComplex and sign up your society today to get the benefits! We offer a free 30-day trial as well so that you can try before you buy!

Its been almost one year since we showcased ApnaComplex in the NASSCOM Product Launchpad as one of the top 10 start ups in 2010. How time just flew!

NASSCOM Product Conclave 2011 is a few days away, we thought its a good time to reflect back on our journey since the last Product Conclave. Our biggest achievement since then – we firmly established ourselves in the market as a very comprehensive and value-for-money software for every gated community.

In the past one year, we had many “firsts” to our name and have consistently raised the bar for Apartment Management and Accounting Software with features like:

• Capability to generate fully adjusted Balance Sheets online for Housing Socities,
• Multi-tiered rate structures for Facility Booking,
• Ability to enforce acceptance of bye-laws by members,
• Online Society Registers to meet regulatory needs,
• Highly configurable Penalty Rules Engine,
• Meeting Management – Innovative Meeting Calendar for Society Meetings/Events

For those who are statistically inclined, following are few metrics for us in last 1 year:

• We have made 45 releases – thats almost one release every week – we are always hungry to add new capabilities
• We have done at least 12 major upgrades – all made available at no extra cost to our customers!
• We have doubled our server infrastructure 4 times
• Got covered in YourStory.in, BizExchange, RealEstate Times, Aaj ka Anand, Accommodation Times, Sakal

We also had loads of fun when we distributed Holi Posters, conducted the Drawing Contest for Children of ApnaComplex customers, sponsored and participated in the flagship ApnaComplex – TPL Cricket Tournament along with Treamis World School for gated communities in Bangalore.

All of this ofcourse was not possible with out support from our customers – all of them supported us superbly by constantly giving feedback, shaping up requirements for new features, helping us with beta testing, providing references – what not – they have been with us in every step we took.

Some of them gave us fantastic moments that made us extremely happy and proud like – “Going ‘live’ with their portal with all accounting data in less than a week after they signed up for the 30-day trial”, “Attaching expense voucher generated by the software along with the payment to us!! We take a moment to THANK each one of our customers and users. A few of our customers truly deserve very special mention – for they not only made us sit on the edge and pushed us to deliver, but also backed us to hilt:

• Mr. Ravichandran and Mr. Ram Bhagawat of Citilights Liberty,
• Mr. R V Ashok of Appaswamy Orchards,
• Mr. Balasubramaniam and Mr. Kannan Viswanathan of Sobha Azalea and Althea,
• Mr. P V R Prasad of Aparna Sarovar,
• Mr. Ganesh Raja of Ittina Abby,
• Mr. Amish Shah of SJR Spencer,
• Mr. Praveen of Ferns Habitat,
• Mr. Vivek Baliga of Purva Panorama,
• Mr. Pradeep Parmar of Lotus CHS,
• Mr. Sivaram of Dream Meadows,
• Mr. Hafiz Abraham of Abad Aquarius

We are truly fortunate to have such customers! We also thank various partners – Citizen Matters, Chennai Online and others who were there with us through out.

As we experience the next wave of growth – we make a promise to ourselves that we will continue to build new features and support our customers that will make community living a pleasure!

We have released an enhancement to Accounting in ApnaComplex. Most societies have a need to ensure that accounts are not “modified” unintentionally (or intentionally) once the accounts are audited and approved by the general body.

To meet this need, your favorite software now supports “freezing” (or closing) of accounts for a given accounting period. Go to Accounting->Accounting Periods and click the “Close Accounting Period” which will lock all transactions of that period. No one (even community admins) will be able to make any changes to the transactions once the accounting period is closed. You have to make a special request to Support team to “unfreeze” an accounting period.

This provides an inherent safety net ensuring no changes to the accounts once they are approved in AGM by the general body.

ApnaComplex now provides a view into the audit logs that are maintained in the software automatically. Administrators can now see the list of expenses and non-member income entries that were deleted along with the time stamp of deletion and details of the user who deleted them. Makes it easy to investigate any “missing” transactions. Go to Expense Statements and Non-Member Income Statements to see this in action.

Never face an issue of “I remember entering that expense last time, wonder who deleted it now” – which happens in most desktop based accounting software.

In yet another first and setting the standards for web based society accounting, ApnaComplex announces the availability of a new Penalty Rules Engine to all the customers. While ApnaComplex all along had the ability to calculate interst rate based on a percentage rate of the reducing outstanding balance, we now enhanced the penalty calculation engine to be able to calculate penalty for a wide variety of cases such as one time late penalty, per day penalty, %age on invoice value, %age of the outstanding value, slab based penalties etc. All the treasurer needs to do is to set choices for various criteria and get the penalties at the click of a button.

Listed below are some of the cases which ApnaComplex Penalty Rules Engine supports. Do note these are just a small list of possibilities. The engine supports nearly innumerable penalty schemes. Treasurers now can calculate penalty for one or more charge types (not just maintenance charge – but any charge type and any number of types) and you can get a fair idea of the powerful engine with the examples below:

Examples of Penalty Calculations supported by ApnaComplex

1. Calculate penalty at a flat rate of Rs. 25/- per every day of delay.
2. Calculate penalty for at a rate of Rs. 500/- for 1st week of delay and Rs. 1000/- there after
3. Calculate penalty at a compounded rate of interest on the invoice amount.
4. Calculate penalty at 10% per annum on the maintenance charge for a delay of a week and 20% of the maintenance charge if the payment is delayed by more than week
5. Calculate penalty at 2% per month on reducing balance as per the payments received against an invoice.
6. Apply penalty charges only if the outstanding amount is greater than a minimum amount
and many more..

Now, don’t you call this a true Diwali Gift for the treasurers!?

ApnaComplex now has the ability to store documents related to a flat/unit. All along documents can be stored in the central repository for consumption of all members or committee members. Administrators can now attach documents such as a floor plan, sale deed etc to specific unit which would be only visible to the administrators and the flat/unit owners. Check it out at Complex->Residential Units and clicking the ‘Manage Documents’ icon against a unit.

Do note while the owners of the unit can see and download the documents, they cannot upload or delete documents. Only Administrators has the necesary authorization.

Time for another cool feature in your favorite software! Apna Treasurers can now automate the invoice posting to members. Treasurers can now setup charges to be raised on members at a frequency once and provide a date range. The system will automatically raise the invoice based on the frequency. No need for treasurers to remember and raise invoices manually. Just set up the Recurring Invoices and let the system take over. Saves even more time for treasurers. Go to Income->Member Income->Setup Recurring Invoices and get peace of mind!

Who ever said treasurers are overloaded? Refer them ApnaComplex!

An important update regarding the new National Customer Preference Registry (NCPR) changes from TRAI and what this means for ApnaComplex users.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a new regulation on the SMS industry in India.  These regulations will be into effect on September 27, 2011. These regulations are designed to restrict the sending of unsolicited commercial messages. The restriction is done through a National Customer Preference Registry (NCPR) (earlier called as of the National Do Not Call list).  You can read more about this at http://nccptrai.gov.in/nccpregistry/

What does this mean for ApnaComplex Users?

Here are the implications of this new regulation for ApnaComplex Users:

1. Till today, Members/Staff of your society (even if they were part of earlier DND registery) were able to get the SMS messages from ApnaComplex. With the new guidelines coming into force, members who are registered in NCPR will not be able to receive SMS sent through ApnaComplex. To continue receiving the SMS from ApnaComplex, users would need to de-register from NCPR. To de-register from NCPR and start receiving SMSs from ApnaComplex send SMS ‘STOP 0’ to 1909.

2. Members will not receive any SMS from 9 pm to 9 am, even if their number is not in NCPR registry. Any SMS scheduled/sent between 9PM to 9 AM would automatically get queued and sent around 9 AM.

3. The sender id will no longer be ‘apnacplx’ and will be in form of XY-RZZZZZ as per new TRAI regulations.

4. This is applicable for ALL SMS generated by ApnaComplex – SMS that are explicitly sent by administrators  OR system generated SMSs such as complaint escalations / invoice notifications / SMS reminders.

Have more questions on this? Please contact us here