Archives: December 25, 2015

Announcing Water Monitor by ApnaComplex – Track Water Tanker Trips and Consumption in your Apartment Complex

We are proud to announce the launch of “Water Monitor” – an Android App to easily keep track of the Water delivered by Tankers to your society.
Water Monitor by ApnaComplex
Getting Water Supply from private tankers in an inconvenient truth in most housing societies in urban areas. Keeping track of the trips made by tankers is always a tedious and susceptible to manipulation. In addition, at the time of payments to vendors, calculations need to be done manually on the payment to be released. Care needs to be taken to avoid double payments for the same trips. There is no easy way to understand the consumption trends as well.

Water Monitor solves all these and does more.

What is Water Monitor?

Water Monitor is a new-age android app offered by ApnaComplex which is used by the security staff at the entrance gate of large apartment complexes and allows them to record water tankers coming in and the volume of water being supplied with pictures. Committee members can monitor and analyse the number of water tankers coming in and the volume of water being supplied from the ApnaComplex portal directly. The application can be installed on any Android smartphone or a tablet. Just click a photo of the water tanker coming-in, enter details and upload all the details on your complex portal in less than 15 seconds.

Who Needs the Water Monitor App and Why?

Any large apartment complex need this app for easy monitoring of the water supplied by the water tanker agencies. Usually any large apartment complex require a minimum of 300-500 water tankers to address the water needs of the residents every month. This huge volume of water is usually supplied by multiple water supplying vendors. Since there are multiple supplier and multiple tankers coming in multiple times, keeping a track of the water tankers and the volume of water supplied becomes a tedious job. Too many entries and log books leads to confusion, in many cases treasurer ends up paying more money to the vendors.

How does the Water Monitor App Work?

As soon as a water tanker approaches the apartment complex gate. The security guard will open the ‘Water Monitor’ application and enter the 4 digit password to login. The security guard will select details like vendor name, volume of water being supplied – in case of shortage security can update the actual volume, click and upload photos of the water tanker as a proof. The most important aspect of Water Monitor is its ability to run stand alone without internet connection and sync up with master database of ApnaComplex portal as and when internet connection is made available. Once the details are uploaded, an SMS with all the details are automatically sent to the committee member or manager who is responsible for monitoring water supply in the society.

How to View Details and Analyse Data?

The designated committee members can log into the complex portal and view the details like—
• Vendor and the volume of water supplied
• Number of tankers have entered the complex of a specific or all vendors
• Billed/unbilled trips of specific/all vendor
• Amount of money spend of specific/all vendors
• Select the period and view the total amount of money spent on water with specific/all vendors etc.
The above details can be viewed for different interval period by providing the dates for analysis.

Water Monitor will certainly make a big difference in the way your Society is monitoring the delivery by tankers and the subsequent billing associated with this.

Water Monitor is exciting. How do I get one for my society?

All our Accounting Edition and Ultimate Edition customers can see a new menu item for Water Monitor under “Expenditure” to do the configuration of Water Tanker Vendors and Water Tanker Trips. Next, download and install Water Monitor App and you are ready to roll!

Yet another instance of true innovation from ApnaComplex.com – be it Gatekeeper App for visitor tracking, or bringing real-time balance sheet, or having bio-metric devices for staff attendance, or making society software accessible on mobile phones – we continue to raise the bar higher and higher in Apartment Management space!


ApnaComplex covered in Times of India

ApnaComplex is featured on Times of India today under the apps that are making a positive impact to urban living in cities like Bangalore. We are happy to see the recognition we have got. Click on the image below to read the entire story.

ApnaComplex in Times of India

ApnaComplex in Times of India

Link to the ToI article – http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/Heres-how-to-make-modern-living-easy-and-appy-for-busy-Bengalureans/articleshow/50005484.cms


ApnaComplex now on iOS!

We are excited to announce the availability of ApnaComplex App on iOS from today.

Apple_iOS-new
Users should be able to log and track complaints, check out members and staff directory, get useful contacts, send SMSs to entire community and more.

ApnaComplex is a pioneer who leapfrogged Society Management to the Smart Phone generation with the launch of ApnaComplex Android App way back in May 2012. We have lots of exciting enhancements on the iOS App as well along with Android in coming days! Stay tuned for more!


Product Enhancement: Pay Society Dues on Mobile

It can’t get easier than this for Apartment Owners and Tenants to pay their society dues.

Owners/Tenants on ApnaComplex can now pay all their society dues using Credit Card / Debit Card / Net Banking from the latest version of our Android App. You can download the latest version of app from Google Play Store.

In case your society is not yet utilizing the Payment Gateway feature and want to start using the same, please reach out to us to enable the same for your society. The payment gateway setup charges are completely waived off for a limited time.


Product Enhancement: ApnaComplex now supports Printing on Cheques

Tired of writing cheques for your society expenses? We now support printing directly from the portal onto cheques.

This helps to ensure there are no data entry errors or cheque writing mistakes. Saves time for you.

You can find the “Print Cheque” icon on Expenditure->Expenses and on Expenditure->Bills->View/Record Payments screen beside the payments entered.


New Dashboard for “Request Approver” Role

We are happy to announce the availability of a new “consolidated” dashboard view for “Request Approver” role.

As you know “Request Approver” role in ApnaComplex can approve several types of requests – including Request Box Requests, Purchase Requests and more recently Expenditure Bills. You had to go to each of individual menu items to be able to see the requests pending for your approval. It was confusing for most users to navigate to different menu items to be able to go to each type of approval.

We have now consolidated screen for all requests pending approval for the “Request Approver” role. As soon as you switch to the role you can now notice a view with 3 tabs that lists requests pending for approval under Purchase Requests, Bills and Request Box Requests. Makes approving/rejecting requests super easy.

Request Approval Dashboard in ApnaComplex

Request Approval Dashboard in ApnaComplex


In case you navigate away from the dashboard doing other activities in this role, all you need to do to click on Home->Dashboard to be able get back the consolidated view. Do note that this view is only visible for Request Approver roles.


Introducing a New Brand Identity for your favorite Housing Society Portal!

All of us at ApnaComplex welcome this Diwali with new Brand Identity.

ApnaComplex

Spare a thought for our earlier identity who is retiring after 5+ years of service. You have done your job, Buddy! You have helped us reach so far.

While our identity has changed, our values haven’t and our focus to help managing committees of Housing Societies across the country will never change!


Swachh Bharat Cess – Service Tax Changes for Housing Societies and Apartment Owners Associations

As per the recent service tax notifications (Notification No. 21/2015-Service Tax and Notification No. 22/2015-Service Tax), all organizations that offer services covered under the ambit of Service Tax, should charge an “Swachh Bharat Cess” at 0.5% of the service value from November 15th 2015.

Housing Societies need to collect and pay service tax at the rate of 14% for all members where the monthly collection is more than Rs. 5,000/- (Refer Jan 2014 Circular on Service Tax on Apartment Associations for more details). Other key aspects of interest are listed below.

Swachh Bharat Cess needs to be on a separate line item on invoice

From Nov 15th, the invoices need to have another line item called “Swachh Bharat Cess” charged at the rate of 0.5% value of the taxable amount. Based on our understanding, Swachh Bharat Cess needs to be charged separately on the invoice, needs to be accounted separately in the books of account and needs to be paid separately under separate accounting code which should be notified separately.

Swachh Bharat Cess paid for services availed cannot be claimed as Input Credit

Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004 determine if a tax / cess can be claimed as input credit. Howver, there is no amendment in the Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004 regarding Swachh Bharat Cess. In the absence of the same, Swachh Bharat Cess levied by the Housing Society vendors and paid by the Housing society cannot be claimed as input credit. So, at this point in time, this would be extra cash outflow on the society due to Swachh Bharat Cess.

What should you do in ApnaComplex to take care of this additional cess on the invoices you raise?

If your society is levying Service Tax, identify the best scenario that fits you among the below to know the steps.

Scenario 1: If you are using recurring invoice with automatic service tax calculations, you need not do anything. ApnaComplex is enhanced to charge this as a separate line item on the invoices raised after Nov 15th.

Scenario 2: If you are using recurring invoice with service tax as a calculated line item, you need add a new charge type with name “Swachh Bharat Cess” and move the same to Taxes accounting head in Chart of Accounts. Post that update your recurring invoice setup to add one more line item with net value equivalent to 0.5% under SB Cess head.

Scenario 3: If you are using manual mode, you need add a new charge type with name “Swachh Bharat Cess” and move the same to Taxes accounting head in Chart of Accounts. Now, go to Income->Add charges (or upload charges) with net value equivalent to 0.5% under SB Cess head.

In all scenarios, we would always recommend you to check with your accounting firm or auditor to ensure they are on board with your understanding.


Launching India’s first Collection Gateway for Housing Societies to automate NEFT Collections

We know how critical Maintenance Due collection is to your Housing Society.
And we also know how much more troublesome it is to reconcile NEFT payments made by members!

Usual troubles include – Members transferring funds and do not update the records, you have to wait for bank statement to be able to issue receipts, bank statements does not have name or flat numbers, suspense entries etc. – the issues are endless resulting in delay in book-keeping, calculating penalty, issuing receipts, publishing defaulters.

Its far too common in almost every society to send a list of “Suspense” NEFT transactions to the entire community asking members to identify their payment.

We are launching India’s first “Collection Gateway” for Housing Societies – where receipts are auto-issued by ApnaComplex when the member does NEFT transfer! A member need not even login into the portal or send mails to society office indicating the payment – ApnaComplex magically knows when the NEFT is done, makes accounting entries and issues the receipt to the member! A comprehensive end-to-end integrated solution.

Zero work for treasurer in issuing/reconciling NEFT receipts.  Zero Suspense Entries.  100% Automation.

For those members who prefer to pay using Credit Cards / Debit Cards we already have Payment Gateway.

With help of both Collection Gateway and Payment Gateway – members have more choices to pay and treasurers have more time to play!

Its high time your managing committee spends their week ends with Family than struggling with NEFT reconciliations and issuing receipts.

Contact us and get rid of your maintenance due collection worries!