Collect estate service charge without the AGM shouting match

In most Lagos estates, service charge is collected the hard way. A treasurer with a notebook. A WhatsApp group full of "I have paid o" and blurry transfer screenshots. Then one tense AGM a year where nobody can agree what came in, what went out, or why the gate generator is still not fixed. The problem was never the money. It is that no two people are looking at the same numbers.

What stays exactly the same

Your estate account stays your estate account. Paystack drops each payment straight into it. Jarakey never holds your money. The chairman and treasurer still authorise every withdrawal, the way they always have. We do not change who controls the funds. We put the receipts on a screen instead of in a paper file and a group chat.

The setup

• Add your units and residents once. Set the service charge amount and the cycle, whether monthly or per year.
• Turn on reminders. Day before due, day of, and a nudge after, so the committee stops being the bad guy.
• Every resident gets a Pay button that opens Paystack. Card or bank transfer, no app login needed to pay.
• Walk into the next AGM with the numbers already agreed.

What the resident sees

Their own balance, what the charge covers, and a receipt in their phone the second the bank alert lands. No more arguing whether the July payment counted. The resident who pays on time stops resenting being lumped into the same reminder as the flat that has owed since the rains started.

What the committee sees

• Who has paid and who has not, updating in real time. Paid units go green.
• A running total for the year that matches the bank statement, because it is the same money.
• A clean PDF for the AGM, so transparency stops being a promise and becomes a document.

Do the maths on your own estate

Count the units behind on service charge today and multiply by the charge. That number is what the notebook is costing you every cycle. Jarakey is 10,000 naira a month and includes three properties. For most estates it pays for itself the first time a single unit catches up because the balance was staring back at them in the app.