The renewal letters, again
Every year the council sets allotment rents at a meeting. Then the clerk sits down with the plot holder spreadsheet and a mail merge. Plot 3 is a half plot. Plot 7 has a concession because the holder is over a certain age, if your policy offers one. Plot 12 pays a water charge and plot 13 does not because it has no trough nearby. Plot 22 changed hands in June, so the new holder pays a part year.
The letters go out. Payments come back as cheques through the office door, bank transfers with references like 'ALLOT' or just a surname, and a few cash payments handed to the site rep. Some holders pay twice. Some pay last year's rate. By February the clerk still has a handful of unpaid plots and cannot be sure whether they are genuinely unpaid or just unmatched.
Where the time actually goes
Writing the letters is the visible part. The real time goes into reconciling: working out which transfer belongs to which plot and whether it is the right amount. A tenancy spreadsheet is a list of people, not a ledger, so it cannot tell the clerk what is owed, what was paid and what is outstanding in one view.
| Task | How it is done now | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Calculating each rent | Formulas copied down a spreadsheet | Concessions and water charges missed |
| Sending renewals | Mail merge and envelopes | Addresses out of date |
| Matching payments | Reading the bank statement line by line | Vague references, part payments |
| Chasing | Second letter by hand | Sent to people who have paid |
| Recording in the accounts | Rekeyed into the accounts package | Totals do not agree |
What it costs to do it by hand
The obvious cost is the clerk's hours, which for a small council are a large share of the working week in renewal season. The less obvious costs are the awkward ones: a reminder letter sent to someone who paid, which makes the council look disorganised, and rents that are never collected because a plot holder slipped off the spreadsheet when their plot changed. The councillors signing off the accounts also want the allotment income figure to agree with what was invoiced, and that is hard to show from a mail merge.
The renewal run we build
We build this alongside your tenancy records, whether those live in a spreadsheet you keep or a small system we set up for your allotments.
- Your tariff is held as rules: rent per plot size, water charge where it applies, any concessions your policy sets, and part-year calculation for new tenancies.
- Once the council has agreed the rates, the clerk starts the renewal run and checks a preview of every invoice before anything is sent.
- Invoices go by email with a card payment link through a provider such as Stripe or GoCardless, and by post for holders who prefer paper, with your bank details and a unique reference.
- Bank transfers are matched on that reference using the bank feed or a statement upload. Anything that does not match cleanly goes to a short list for the clerk to assign.
- Cheques and cash are recorded by the clerk against the plot in a couple of clicks.
- Reminders go only to plots still unpaid after the date you choose, worded from your template.
- A summary of invoiced, received and outstanding is exported in the format your accounts package takes.
Anything about what happens to an unpaid tenancy is for your policy and your council to decide. The system just gives you an accurate list to decide on.
After it is set up
In renewal season the clerk checks the preview, presses send and deals with a small exceptions list instead of a whole bank statement. Plot holders get a clear invoice with a reference and can pay by card from their phone. When a councillor asks how many plots are unpaid, the answer is a list with names, not an estimate.
Mid-year tenancies are handled the same way, so a new plot holder gets their part-year invoice as soon as they accept the offer.
Signs your rent collection needs this
- Renewals are a mail merge from a tenancy spreadsheet.
- Bank transfers arrive with references you cannot match.
- Reminders have gone to people who already paid.
- Water charges or concessions are worked out by hand each year.
- Allotment income is rekeyed into your accounts package.