Mennekes automates billing for multiple user groups

Mennekes is expanding its Ativo billing service with the additional feature “MiLa – Employees and Tenants Billing”. Charge point operators can now automatically bill multiple user groups using this feature.

The MiLa function is now available through the Ativo app.

Image: Mennekes

This new feature is primarily aimed at companies and property managers who provide their charge points to various user groups, such as employees, tenants, guests, or external service providers. Previously, such charging transactions had to be manually separated depending on the pricing model.

With MiLa, it is now possible to define different pricing structures within the same charging infrastructure. For example, a company can offer discounted rates to its own employees, while guests or external users charge at regular rates. The assignment and billing are intended to be handled automatically.

Through this expansion, Mennekes targets locations where multiple user groups share the same charging stations, such as company parking lots, residential properties, or mixed-use commercial areas.

"Many companies and property managers now make charging points available to multiple user groups. This gives rise to varying requirements regarding prices, permissions, and billing," says Sebastian Braun, head of central technical services at Mennekes. As charging infrastructure expands, so does the effort required for administration and billing. Ativo is designed to centralize these processes. The MiLa function adds a more detailed separation of user groups and tariffs to the existing billing service.

This approach is particularly relevant in situations where charging stations are not assigned exclusively to a fixed group of users. Especially at semi-public or mixed-use locations, billing can quickly become complex when different permissions and price tiers need to be managed simultaneously. Mennekes already offers a function for business vehicle billing with its Wallbox Amtron 4You 500. With MiLa, the company is now extending this concept to jointly used charging infrastructure with multiple user groups.

Mennekes does not provide specific details on the prices for the MiLa additional function in its announcement. It also does not share further details regarding the authentication or backend interfaces used to assign user groups.