Running a mobile home park, month to month, in plain words

New to park owning? You’re the normal case here

Most mobile home parks in this country belong to people who own one park and run it without office staff. Orbit Lots was built for exactly that owner — including the one who is still learning the job. So the guidance is built into the program itself, in plain words, at the moment you need it:

1. Getting started walks you through setup, in order

   Your park first, then your lots, your payment link, your residents, and your meters — each step opens the very screen it describes.

2. Every screen carries a short “What is this?” note

   A billing run, a ledger, a grace period — each one is explained in a sentence or two, right where you’re standing.

3. This guide lays out the month

   The rhythm below is the same one the program follows — read the meters, run billing, collect, remind, follow up, and close the month.

4. Your first billing run starts as a rehearsal

   Before anything is charged, you see exactly what every resident will be billed and confirm it. Only then does the run post.

The monthly rhythm

1. Read the meters

   Near the end of the month, if your park meters utilities: Billing → Meters & park utility bills. If the park itself gets one big utility bill, enter it there too and choose how to split it.

2. Run billing

   For the new month: Billing → Run billing & who owes. Use “Preview the bills first” until it feels routine — the preview charges nothing.

3. Collect

   Residents pay through your payment link, or however you take money — record each payment as it lands so the ledgers stay true. Home → Record a payment is the fast way.

4. Remind

   A short, kind reminder before the due date prevents most late payments. If you turned on billing emails in Park settings, the reminders are written for you and lined up under Billing → Resident emails.

5. Follow up on late bills

   After the grace period, check Billing → Past due. A late fee can be added there, a written late notice is one tap (it saves itself to the resident’s record), and if someone needs time, write down a payment plan so you both have it.

6. Close the month

   Glance at Books: money in, money out, and how much of the park’s utility bills the residents’ charges covered.

Your first week

• ✓Add every lot, with the rent you charge for it (Lots → Add lot). A list from your old system works too — Park settings → Your data → Bring in lots, residents, or balances.
• ✓Put your payment link and billing rules in Park settings — that is what turns this from a notebook into a billing system.
• ✓Move your residents in, one lease each (Residents → Add a resident). Include any deposit you are holding — it prints on their move-out settlement later.
• ✓If some residents already owe money from before Orbit Lots, add it as an opening balance (Park settings → Your data → Import → Opening balances), so their first statement here is honest.
• ✓Run the preview, check the numbers against your old records, then run your first real billing.

Records that keep themselves

Most of a park’s record keeping builds itself while you work — you don’t keep these twice:

• Every resident’s ledger — every bill and payment, kept per resident, forever.
• The notices log — every notice and letter, saved on the resident’s record with its date (letters you print save themselves).
• Work history — finished work orders keep who did the work and when.
• Meter history — every reading stays on the lot’s record, month by month.
• The Books — the park’s money in and out, with a monthly profit & loss and downloads for your tax preparer.
• Duty completions — under Work & duties, each finished duty keeps who did it and when.

What the program can’t know is your paper calendar — license renewals, insurance, filings. Add those as Record keeping duties (Work & duties → Duties) with their real dates, and the duty itself becomes the reminder and the record.

Words we use, in plain language

Lot rent (pad rent)

What a resident pays each month for the ground their home sits on. Each lot’s rent is set by you.

Home rent

Extra rent when the park owns the home on the lot, not just the ground. It bills as its own line so the two never blur.

Pass-through

A park cost passed to residents as a charge — most often utilities. The resident pays their share; the share is printed right on their bill.

RUBS

Ratio Utility Billing System — a way to split the park’s one big utility bill across the lots: equally, by lot size, or by how many people live on the lot. You enter the park’s bill under Billing → Meters; the billing run does the splitting.

Ledger

One resident’s full bill-and-payment record: every charge, every payment, and what is still owed. If a number is ever questioned, the ledger is the answer.

Billing run

The action that creates a month’s bills for everyone at once. It is careful: a bill line that already exists is never created twice.

Grace period

The days after the due date before a late fee applies. You set it in Park settings.

Past due

Money billed and not yet paid after its due date. The Past due tab ages it: not yet due, then 30, 60, 90 and more days.

Deposit & settlement

The deposit you hold for a resident, and the final statement when they move out: last charges and payments, how the deposit was applied, and the refund or balance that ends the account.

Acknowledgment

When a resident confirms on their own page that they saw a notice, Orbit Lots keeps the date and time. It is a record of seeing — not a signature, and it is never called one.

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