Service charge reminders
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”- You run a residential estate, a gated community, a block of flats or a residents' association, and residents pay a service charge or levy.
- Your estate office keeps a register in Google Sheets or Excel with each unit's due date and whether it has paid.
- You chase payments by phone and WhatsApp one at a time, and the same few people end up doing it.
- The executive wants a monthly picture of who has paid, without publishing anyone's name.
Where the data comes from
Section titled “Where the data comes from”| How | What |
|---|---|
| A Google Sheet or Excel file, synced | Your residents register, synced every hour as People: phone, email, first name, unit, the service charge due date and its status (paid or due). |
| A CSV upload | Or a one-off CSV of the same columns to start with. |
What it sets up
Section titled “What it sets up”| Kind | Name | What it does | Lands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Facility manager | Calls residents whose service charge is still unpaid after the grace period. | Empty |
| Team | Estate executive | Gets the monthly report. | Empty |
| Segment | Service charge due soon | Service charge due within the reminder window and not paid. | Ready |
| Segment | Service charge due today | Service charge due today (the date started in the last day) and not paid. | Ready |
| Segment | Service charge overdue | Overdue by more than the grace period, within the follow-up window, and not paid. | Ready |
| Segment | Service charge paid | Residents marked as paid. | Ready |
| Template | Service charge due soon (SMS) | SMS before the service charge is due. | Ready |
| Template | Service charge due today (SMS) | SMS on the due day. | Ready |
| Template | Service charge overdue (SMS) | SMS once the charge is overdue. Factual, with an offer to talk. | Ready |
| Template | Service charge due soon (WhatsApp) | WhatsApp reminder before the charge is due (needs Meta approval). | Ready |
| Template | Service charge due today (WhatsApp) | WhatsApp reminder on the due day (needs Meta approval). | Ready |
| Template | Service charge overdue (WhatsApp) | WhatsApp message once the charge is overdue (needs Meta approval). | Ready |
| Report | Monthly: service charge | Each month, how many residents are due, paid and overdue, to the estate executive. | Off |
| Follow-up | Service charge 1: due soon | Daily run over "service charge due soon": one reminder per period. | Off |
| Follow-up | Service charge 2: due today | Daily run over "service charge due today": one reminder. | Off |
| Follow-up | Service charge 3: overdue | Daily run over "service charge overdue": a factual message, then a call task for the facility manager if still unpaid. | Off |
The questions it asks
Section titled “The questions it asks”| # | Question | Default | Fills in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What should messages call your estate or residents' association? | none, must answer | org_name |
| 2 | How do residents pay? (a few words, without account numbers) Say it the way you would say it out loud. Messages never carry bank details or amounts. | none, must answer | pay_info |
| 3 | Which team calls residents whose service charge is overdue? (the facility manager, one person is fine) | Facility manager | manager_team |
| 4 | Who gets the monthly report? (for example the estate executive) | Estate executive | executive_team |
| 5 | Should the reminders go by WhatsApp instead of SMS? Needs a connected WhatsApp Business number and Meta-approved templates. | No | use_whatsapp |
Other settings
Section titled “Other settings”These have defaults. Change any that don’t fit.
| Setting | Default | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Number residents can call with questions | ‹workspace phone› | office_phone |
| Trait with the service charge due date | service_charge_due_date | due_date_trait |
| Trait that says if the current charge is paid (paid or due) | service_charge_status | status_trait |
| First reminder before the due date | 14d | remind_before |
| Grace period after the due date before the first overdue message | 7d | grace_period |
| How long after the due date to keep following up | 60d | overdue_window |
| Hours the facility manager has to make the call | 72 | call_due_hours |
| Daily send time | 09:00 | send_time |
| Monthly report (first day of the month) | 0 8 1 * * | report_cron |
| Time zone for the daily run and the report | ‹workspace timezone› | timezone |
| Greeting when a first name is missing | resident | greeting_fallback |
Timings
Section titled “Timings”- Runs every day at 09:00 in ‹workspace timezone›.
- A reminder when the service charge is due within 14d, another on the due day, and a factual message once it is more than 7d overdue, for up to 60d. Residents marked paid get none of them.
- Two days after the overdue message, if the charge is still unpaid, Facility manager gets a call task due in 72 hours. A resident is chased at most once every three weeks.
- Monthly report to Estate executive: cron 0 8 1 * * in ‹workspace timezone›.
Channels
Section titled “Channels”| Channel | Needed for | Before it can send |
|---|---|---|
| sms | The reminders and the overdue message (or WhatsApp, if you switch it on) | An SMS provider, or Origamy managed SMS after business verification (KYC). |
| The same messages, if you answer yes to WhatsApp | A connected WhatsApp Business number, and each of the three templates approved by Meta. | |
| The monthly report to the executive | Nothing extra. Reports go to your team members by email. |
What you need to do
Section titled “What you need to do”- Keep these columns in your residents register: phone, email, first_name, unit, service_charge_due_date (a date like 2026-12-01) and service_charge_status (exactly paid or due, never blank). Set the status to paid when the charge is received. When the next period starts, move the due date forward and set the status back to due.
- Add your facility manager to the Facility manager team and your executive to Estate executive (Settings → Collaborators → Teams). A task or report sent to an empty team reaches nobody.
- If you chose WhatsApp: connect your WhatsApp Business number and submit the three templates (service_charge_due_soon, service_charge_due_today and service_charge_overdue) for Meta approval before switching the follow-ups on.
- Connect an SMS provider or finish business verification. Tell residents at a meeting or in the estate group that reminders will come by SMS or WhatsApp and that they can reply STOP.
- Keep every message factual. Never link payment to gate access, utilities, visitors or any other service, and never name or list residents who haven't paid. Have the executive agree this wording at a meeting before you switch it on.
- Check the segment sizes against your register, then switch the follow-ups and the report on and test with your own phone and a fake unit.
- Why the messages never mention gate access, utilities or naming people: cutting services or shaming residents over a service charge can break local law or your own estate rules, it turns a late payment into a dispute, and it makes the reminders look like threats. If your estate rules allow a sanction, the executive should apply it by a deliberate decision and a letter, never by an automatic text.
- One row per unit works best. If several people live in a unit, put the person who pays the charge in the sheet. Use the unit column in your own words (for example “Block C, Flat 4”) so the facility manager knows who they are calling.
- Service charge may be monthly, quarterly or yearly, and many estates in Nigeria collect it yearly in advance. The wording says “the service charge” and a date, never “this month’s”, so it fits all of them. Change the reminder window and grace period to match.
- Payment is usually by bank transfer or POS at the estate office. Write that in “how to pay”, and ask the office to mark the unit paid the same day.
- Do not publish the sheet or the segments to residents. The monthly report shows counts only.
This playbook is synthesized: no customer has run it with us yet. If you build it, tell us what you changed, and we’ll replace it with the real version.
Copilot eval
Section titled “Copilot eval”The request used to test the copilot on this playbook (a live eval):
I manage a residential estate. Our residents sheet has phone, unit, service_charge_due_date and service_charge_status (paid or due). Text residents two weeks before the service charge is due, on the day, and again if it is a week overdue, and give our facility manager a task to call anyone still unpaid. Send the estate executive a monthly report of how many are paid, due and overdue. Keep the messages polite and factual, with no amounts.
It passes when every piece is a valid draft and everything lands off, with at least: segment, workflow, message_template, team, report. It must never use: disconnect, cut off, gate access, evict.