Commercial tenant
sub-metering
A connected sub-meter on every tenant circuit and the period kWh delivered to your billing or monitoring system. Readings arrive on time, with an audit trail behind every figure.
THE PROBLEM
Most tenant disputes start with a meter reading
In a multi-tenant commercial building the landlord pays the utility and recovers the cost from tenants. When that recovery depends on someone walking the risers with a clipboard, readings arrive late, get transposed and miss the end of the period. Tenants notice, and the conversation turns to whether the number can be trusted at all.
Older buildings add their own problems. Tenant circuits have been extended and split over years of fit-outs, some meters were never connected, and common-area loads are tangled with tenant loads in the same board.
What a property manager needs is simple to describe: a reading per tenant per period, collected automatically, traceable back to the meter, and ready to drop into the billing run.
HOW WE SET IT UP
From tenant circuit to billing run
A meter on each tenant supply
We map tenant circuits against the lease plan with your electrician and fit a suitable sub-meter on each one. Shared and common-area loads get their own meters so they can be allocated separately.
Read the meters you already have
Where tenant meters with Modbus are already installed, our gateway reads them over RS485 and sends the registers to the cloud. That saves replacing working meters during an occupied tenancy.
Period readings, delivered
RIOD Live closes each billing period with start and end readings per tenant, and exports them to PDF and Excel or passes them to your billing system through an API.
Tariffs and approvals agreed up front
Legal billing uses metering approved for that purpose and a tariff structure agreed with tenants. We plan the meter selection around the approval your jurisdiction applies and carry out certification to your target standard as part of the project.
AT A GLANCE
Tenant sub-metering at a glance
- Measured
- kWh per tenant by billing period, with interval data for usage queries
- Hardware
- Smart energy sub-meters, designed to a Class 1 accuracy target; existing Modbus meters through our gateway
- Connectivity
- Wi-Fi or 4G from each meter; RS485 to the gateway for meter banks
- Data goes to
- RIOD Live cloud, or the platform deployed on your own server, and on to your billing system through an API
- Reports
- Period statements with audit trail, PDF and Excel export
- Billing note
- Legal billing uses approved metering and an agreed tariff; meter approval is planned into the project for your jurisdiction
FAQ
Questions buyers ask us
How do landlords bill tenants for electricity?
The landlord installs a sub-meter on each tenant supply, reads it at the start and end of each billing period and applies the agreed tariff. Rules on approved meters and permitted tariffs vary by country and state, so the metering choice should be checked against local regulation before billing begins.
Can existing tenant meters be read remotely?
Yes, if they have a Modbus or similar communication port. A gateway on the RS485 bus reads each meter and sends the values to the cloud. Meters without a port can be replaced with connected sub-meters at the next convenient opportunity.
How do sub-metering records help with tenant disputes?
Every period reading is stored with its timestamp and meter identity, and reports carry an audit trail. When a tenant queries a bill, you can show the interval history behind it, which usually settles the question faster than a re-read.
Can the readings go straight into our billing software?
Yes. Period readings can be exported to Excel or PDF, or passed to your billing or property management system through an API, so the billing run starts from the meter data directly.
Recovering energy costs from tenants?
Tell us how many tenants, how the building is fed and what meters are installed today. We will propose the metering and the reporting that fits your billing process.