The management of a property incurs costs for the owner. However, in the case of a rental, the owner does not have to bear these costs alone. The costs that arise on an ongoing basis from the use of an apartment or house can be passed on to the tenant. These are ancillary or operating costs.

Which costs are considered as such is stipulated by law, so water/sewage, electricity, electricity for staircases and common areas, waste disposal, heating, green areas and many others are included. The exact agreement is specified in the lease agreement. Accordingly, these are the costs that turn the cold rent into the warm rent.

Since service charges account for about one third of the total rent on average, it is advisable to deal with the issue in detail and to optimize processes relating to the settlement of service charges. For the landlord, such a settlement is often associated with a high level of effort, while the tenant side complains in particular about a lack of transparency. The digitization and automation of service charge billing thus proves to be advantageous for both sides, and conflicts can be preemptively avoided. For example, data can be entered online using software tools and apportionment keys can be specified, or the statement can be sent electronically.

Even more optimization potential is created in this area by smart home systems equipped with sensors, which generate valuable usable data. This in turn can reduce costs, optimize consumption and enhance the user experience.