VEWA - Billing

2. Activate VEWA and configure cost allocations.

Select the heating system:

• Combined heating, cooling and hot water

• Heat, hot water combined

• Separate systems

Whether combined or not depends on the heat generation. If, for example, a heat pump is used for heating, cooling and hot water preparation, combined billing is the best option, as the cost factor for all three energies is the same, namely electricity.

However, if the heating is provided by an oil heating system, but the hot water is produced purely electrically without the support of the oil heating system, non-combined billing is the choice.

Cost allocation

Cost allocation divides the total costs into fixed costs (basic costs) and variable costs (consumption-dependent costs).

Basic costs

The basic costs take into account any line losses, circulation losses, preferred location of an apartment with more sunshine, etc. and allocate a share of the costs to all tenants and their share of the total area of the property.

Variable costs

The variable costs are applied directly to the recorded quantities of energy consumed. They correspond to the individual consumption of each tenant.

Hot water preparation

The following standard formula is used to estimate the energy used for hot water preparation on the basis of m3 values:

Hot water energy in kWh = Total hot water consumption [m3] * 1.163 * Temperature difference [K] * 1.25

The temperature difference can be selected and refers to the temperature difference of the cold water when it enters the building (usually +10°C) until it has been heated to the average temperature of the boiler (usually +52°C).

According to this example, the difference is 

Temperature difference = target average temperature - inlet temperature = 52°C - 10°C = 42 K

3. Recording a billing period

The costs can be recorded as full costs for each energy type. For combined systems, the individual costs of the individual energy sources are added together.

4. Creating accounting periods and defining the content of the accounting period

Creating the billing period

1. Activate or deactivate content

2. If electricity and the heating and ancillary costs are billed at different intervals, several periods are recorded.

e.g:

• Electricity period Q1 2024 (electricity and others only)

• Electricity period Q2 2024 (electricity and others only)

• Electricity period Q3 2024 (electricity and others only)

• Electricity period Q4 2024 (electricity and others only)

• Heat / Water period 2024 (only heat, cooling, hot and cold water)

5. Enter and define electricity tariffs (virtual tariffs)

In the virtual tariffs, the electricity tariffs can be entered with validities. If VEWA is activated, only the virtual tariffs are supported.

• Standard tariff from the grid or double tariffs

• Solar tariffs

• Battery tariffs

More about this

7. Recording the costs of the settlement period

Note for export to real estate software with DTA-VHKA files:
If you want to use VEWA but export the data to another system in per thousand or consumption values, you do not need to enter any costs. The billing period needs to be created beforehand in the smart-me VEWA.

The costs that may be recorded are roughly divided into the following costs:

Energy costs

Costs for the purchased energy source e.g: 

• 1000 liters of oil for 2000 CHF

• 500kWh electricity for 200 CHF

• 10 m3 cold water for 50 CHF

Ancillary energy costs

• Costs for operation and maintenance

• Costs of periodic inspection of the heating system

• Costs for the meter reading service (e.g. amortization of smart-me license costs)

• Administrative work in connection with the heating system

• Chimney sweep costs

• Waste disposal if the heating system incurs such costs.

Note for hot water costs:

The cost of hot water only carry costs for heating the hot water. The cold water amount used for hot water preparation is automatically applied in the cold water section. 

• If a total cold water meter is shared among apartments the total cold water is driven by the shared meter.

• If cold water and hoit water meters are located in the appartments and applied with 100% of consumption, the total for coldwater is the sum of all hot and cold water meters.

These can be entered per energy type and are added up.

8. Enter a tariff that is always valid for each energy source

• This tariff is entered without a price (0) and is valid indefinitely (2099).

• Each energy source with a valid tariff is shown on the bill.

9. Enter apartment areas

The apartment areas must be known for the VEWA calculation and allocation of the basic costs. These can be defined in the respective settlement unit. They are then added up to the relevant total area.

Note:
In order to report the relevant total area correctly, all premises must be recorded as a billing unit, even if they do not have meters attached and are handled externally on a flat-rate basis.
Only whole numbers are possible.

10. Record tenant list

For VEWA accounting, all tenant contracts and vacancies must be entered in smart-me without any gaps.

Note for export to real estate software with DTA-VHKA files:
If you want to use the VEWA but export the data to another system, you do not need to enter a tenant list, this is created via the import file. make sure that all tenant relationships and vacancies are recorded.