Recording meter readings

Stimafy bills each tenant for the kWh they actually used on their sub-meter, at the same per-kWh rate KPLC charged you on the main meter. No estimates, no flat fees, no extra margin — fair and easy to defend if a tenant asks.

The two readings we use

• KPLC main meter — the one in your bill SMS. We're not actually using this number; we're after the rate (KES/kWh) that month.
• Sub-meters — one per unit. The previous reading is last month's value (or the meter's starting value), the current reading is today's value. The difference is how many kWh that unit used.

Step 1 — Paste the KPLC SMS

After KPLC sends your monthly bill SMS, go to Readings → + Start a cycle and paste the entire SMS as-is. KPLC's format looks roughly like this:

AC:37123456789
BillDate:01/04/2026
CurRead:054821
Units:4182
Bill:KES 119,184
Pay:KES 119,184

What Stimafy extracts:

• BillDate → the cycle month (April 2026 in the example above).
• Units & Bill → the rate. Bill ÷ Units = KES/kWh. In the example: 119,184 ÷ 4,182 ≈ KES 28.50/kWh.
• CurRead & AC → stored for your reference but not used in billing math.

If parsing fails

Some networks reformat KPLC's SMS. If parsing fails, the error message will name the missing field. Two common fixes:

• Make sure you pasted the entire SMS, including the newlines. WhatsApp sometimes collapses multi-line SMSes into a single paragraph.
• If your SMS shows the rate explicitly (e.g. Rate: KES 28.50), great — we'll prefer that over the calculated one.

Step 2 — Enter sub-meter readings per unit

Open the cycle. Each row is a unit with two number fields: Prev kWh and New kWh. As you type, Stimafy shows you the kWh used and the resulting bill in real time — so you can sanity-check before saving.

• Prev kWh — last month's reading, or the meter's starting reading if this is the first cycle for this unit.
• New kWh — today's reading on the sub-meter.
• The kWh used column is New − Prev. If it goes negative (you typed them backwards), Stimafy won't let you save.

Tap Save. Stimafy creates a draft bill for that unit automatically. To send it, go to Invoices — see Sending bills via WhatsApp.

Common situations

A unit had no tenant that month

Still enter the readings — Stimafy will save the reading but won't create a bill. Useful to keep the meter history continuous even for vacant units.

You forgot a reading and the next month rolls around

Each cycle is independent. Just enter this month's previous and current readings on this month's cycle. Previous should be whatever the sub-meter showed at the start of this cycle — usually that's the previous cycle's New kWh.

You typed a reading wrong

Re-enter the corrected values and tap Update (the button changes from Save to Update once a reading exists). The bill amount updates automatically. If a bill was already sent, mark it paid first or talk to the tenant about the correction — Stimafy won't auto-resend.

Mid-cycle move-in or move-out

For now, assign the tenant who lived there at the end of the cycle. Pro-rating mid-cycle moves is a feature we're considering — let us know via Talk to us if you need it.