Long-Stay Billing and Settlements

Transient bookings (1–7 nights) and long stays (months or seasons) need different billing treatments. A weekend camper pays in full at booking. A monthly slip tenant pays on the same date every month, with utilities metered separately, and they expect proration if they arrive mid-month or leave early.

Settlements handle this. They run automatically on a schedule (typically nightly), look at each long-stay reservation, and produce invoices on the cadence you've set for that reservation — once a month, once a week, whatever you've configured. Once a settlement has run, the invoice it produced is part of the customer's permanent record, so it's worth understanding the flow before you turn it on for live customers.

When you'd use this

Settlements are for any reservation that:

Spans more than ~30 days (or however your asset type defines "long stay").
Has a billing cadence other than "pay in full at booking" — typically monthly, but sometimes weekly or seasonal.
Has utility metering, late fees, or other charges accruing during the stay that need to be invoiced periodically.

Short transient bookings don't need settlements; they're billed once and done.

The reservations grid showing both transient and long-stay bookings; long stays are what settlements bill

The mental model

A long-stay reservation has a billing schedule attached to it. The schedule says, for example: "every month on the 1st, generate an invoice covering the upcoming month plus any utility usage from the prior month."

The nightly settlement run looks at every reservation, checks whether anything is due, and if so:

Calculates the period charges — base rate for the upcoming period, prorated if the period is partial.
Adds anything that's accrued since the last bill — metered utilities, late fees if applicable, add-ons used during the stay.
Generates an invoice for the customer.
Optionally emails it to them.

The customer's running statement (often called the folio) and the invoice that comes out of it should always agree. If they ever don't, the underlying record on the reservation is what's true.

Proration — the math behind partial periods

Most tenants don't arrive on the 1st of the month or leave on the last day. Proration handles partial periods.

For a $500/month slip tenant who arrives on the 15th of a 30-day month:

Days remaining in arrival month: 30 − 15 + 1 = 16 days.
Daily rate: $500 / 30 = $16.67.
Prorated first invoice: 16 × $16.67 = $266.67.

The next invoice (covering the full following month) is the standard $500.

Different operators want different proration methods. The most common:

Daily proration (above) — most fair, most common.
Half-month proration — arrival before the 15th = full month, after the 15th = half month. Easier mental math.
Calendar-month-only — first invoice is always the full month regardless of arrival date. Common for storage; uncommon for marina/RV.

Daily proration is the default. If you want a different method, set it at the asset-type or reservation level — but pick one method per asset type and stick to it. Mixed methods inside one type produce invoices customers will fight over.

The settlement run — what to expect

Settlement runs automatically (typically overnight). On a typical night you might see:

3–5 monthly tenants billed for the upcoming month.
1–2 reservations with prorated final invoices because they're checking out.
Utility charges from the prior month appearing on the new invoices.
A handful of late-fee applications if anyone's overdue.

Glance at the settlements report at least once a week. A settlement run that didn't go means missed invoices, which means cash you didn't ask for and won't be paid.

Folio behavior — what the customer sees

Long-stay tenants usually don't want a fresh invoice every month with a different number; they want a running statement (folio) showing all charges and payments over their tenancy.

You'll have both:

A separate invoice for each billing period, for accounting and customer payment.
A running folio view the customer can pull up showing the cumulative picture — opening balance, charges this period, payments this period, closing balance.

Show customers the folio in regular communications and keep the separate invoices on file for reconciliation. Don't try to email each monthly invoice as its own document — long-stay customers will lose track.

What settlements touch

A few other things flow into a settlement run:

Meter readings need to land before settlement runs so usage is picked up correctly. (See Setting up utility meters.)
Late fees are applied against past-due charges during the same nightly window. (See Late fees configuration.)
Deposits sit in their own bucket; settlement doesn't touch deposit holds. (See Handling deposits.)
Expiring documents can flag a reservation as out of compliance, but they don't block a settlement on their own — that's a policy choice you make.
QuickBooks sync picks up the invoices a settlement creates like any other invoice.

Recommended defaults

Run settlements monthly on a fixed cadence (the 1st is most common). Don't try to run "whenever the customer's anniversary is" — staff lose track.
Use daily proration unless you have a strong reason for half-month or calendar-month-only.
Generate invoices 3–5 days before the due date, not on the due date itself. Customers need lead time to pay.
Run one full cycle on a single test reservation before turning settlements on for everyone. Once an invoice has gone out, undoing it is manual.
Reconcile monthly — pull a settlement report, match it against your bank deposits, and fix any discrepancy in the same month it shows up.

Common mistakes

Booking a long stay as if it were a transient. A 90-day reservation booked through the transient flow generates one giant invoice for the whole stay, which the customer can't pay all at once. Use the long-stay path with a billing schedule.
Editing settlement entries by hand. Those entries are driven by an automated process that will overwrite or duplicate your edits. If a settlement looks wrong, fix it through the reservation — issue a credit, edit a meter reading, or adjust the rate — and let the next run reconcile.
Letting a failed settlement go unnoticed. A nightly run that hasn't fired for a week means a week of missing invoices. Glance at the settlement report weekly so you catch this within a day or two.
Mixing proration methods inside one asset type. "Daily for marina, half-month for storage" is fine. "Daily for some marina tenants, half-month for others" is chaos.
Forgetting meter readings have to come in before settlement runs. If meters report at 4 AM and settlements run at 2 AM, every invoice will be a cycle behind. Get the order right.
Treating folio and invoice as the same thing. They're related but distinct: invoices are accounting documents (one per period), the folio is the customer's running summary.
Not explaining proration in the confirmation email. "Why did I only pay $266 my first month and now $500?" is a question you'll answer many times if you don't put it in the confirmation.