This guide is for companies who are setting up their Operator account in Monta. It shows how to fill out all the relevant information and how to set up your first charge points, invite a client, create charge pricing and administrate access.
This is a suitable read if you have an Operator Trial account, to see how easy it is to set up your own charge points or to introduce your clients to Monta.
1. Fill out your company information
Begin by finding your Operator account page and filling out your company information. This information will be used in invoices Monta issues to you, as well as the receipts for services you provide to your clients. For more details, see here.
2. Create a Team
Whether you are setting up your own charge points or the charge points for a client, you will need to create a Team. This represent the company in Monta. In a Team, you:
- Add and connect the charge points of the site
- Manage the pricing and access for EV drivers, related and external to the company
- Manage a virtual Team Wallet, where all payments and transactions go
- Invite and grant access to an Admin, who can manage the pricing and troubleshoot of charge points
There are 3 types of Teams you can create:
| Type of Team | For | Example |
| Professional | Company (client) | You have a Housing association as a client, so you set up a Professional Team for them. There, they can add and connect their charge points, invite residents, set specific charging prices, etc. |
| Operator | Your own charge points | This Team is for the charging sites you own. All income from Operator Teams is automatically transferred to your Operator Wallet. If you have a charge point site, you can use the income from charging to cover part of your Operator expenses. |
| Private | Private users | You want to offer your Operator services to private EV drivers with a charge point. You can create a Private Team for them and apply a service subscription (see step 6). |
3. Invite your client to Monta
Now that you have set up the Team, it is time to invite your client, in order to grant them access. If the Team is just for you to use, as an Operator, then you can invite Members to your Team.
When you invite your client, this will give them access to pricing, exports, withdrawing money, and the charge points of the Team. You can invite them with a phone number or an email. If they do not have a Monta account yet, they will be invited to create one. You can assign different Team user roles to the Members you invite, which will grant them specific permission access.
When you create a Team, you are automatically assigned as the Team Owner, which makes you the point of contact. We strongly recommend identifying the responsible person from your client’s side, for example the site owner, and transferring the Team ownership to them. This is not a must and it depends on the type of Team you are trying to set up. Please note that you can only transfer the ownership of a Team to an existing Member, who has accepted the Team invitation.
We encourage you to at least give your client administrative rights for the Team, so they can manage every day things like changing charge pricing, inviting and accepting new Team Members, setting up charge points, depositing and withdrawing money from the Team Wallet, exporting reports, etc. This will make the client more self-sufficient and reduce the admin work for you.
4. Add charge points to the Team
When a charge point is connected to Monta, this gives access to EV drivers with or without a Monta account to charge on it. Furthermore, the payment for the charge will be collected in that Team’s Wallet. The process to connect a charge point to Monta consists of 3 steps: Physical installation, Integration with Monta and Pairing to the Team.
In this section, we are focusing on the third step, where you connect the charge point to a Team. During the connection process, make sure to select the Team you have just created.
In this process, you will need to decide the Charge point access, which determines who can use the charge point. This depends on the use case you are setting up. For charging sites, such as Hotel and Retail location, we recommend to set the charge points to Public, so all EV drivers can access and charge on them. For Workplaces, Fleet depots, and similar, we recommend to set the access to Private, as the charge points will be primarily used by employees, who have access to the Team.
Another important thing to decide is whether you want to set a charge point to Active. Activating a charge point means that you will get the full functionality, including paid charges, etc. Please note that you will pay Monta for every Active charge point under your Operator. You can see how much you are paying in the Billing & Support section of your Operator account.
If you have to add many charge points at once, you can use a bulk option. When the charge point shows as Active, it is time to move to the next step.
5. Set charge pricing
Now it’s time to set the price that EV drivers are going to pay for charging. The type of pricing very much depends on the type of site and set up you are creating.
Here’s a few things to consider, when setting up pricing:
- If the charge points are Public, then you need to create a Public Price Group.
- If you want EV drivers to be able to find them when using other platforms, then you need to enable Roaming and create a Roaming Price Group.
- If the EV drivers using the charge points are part of the Team, you need a Member Price Group
- If you want to set up Sponsoring of the electricity cost for EV drivers who charge the company vehicle at their personal charge point, you need to create a Sponsored Price Group.
- If you just want to track the electricity cost of operating the charge points, then you need to create a Cost Group.
Pricing can be set by kWh, based on spot price or per minute of charging. You can set up different additional charging fees, for starting a charge, per minute of charging or after you are done charging. Here is an in-depth guide on pricing for EV drivers.
6. Bill your clients through Monta
You can set up your clients to pay you for Operating their charge points, directly through Monta! This is done by creating a Custom Subscription Plan and applying it to the Team.
Custom Subscriptions allow you to charge the Teams under your Operator on a monthly basis, per charge point. That means you can pass your monthly charge point cost to Monta, directly to your clients.
You can set the plan to apply per charge point or per Team. If you select per charge point, that means you need to apply it on every charge point individually. If it is per Team, the system will automatically count and bill the Team for all their charge points, at once. If you have clients with many charge points, we recommend to set up the Plan to apply per Team.
You can also decide if you need to manually approve new subscriptions, or they are automatically approved and activated. If you want to activate the subscription on a specific date or under specific conditions (ex. client needs to sign a contract first), then you should should select Yes in the field requires approval. If you want to apply and immediately charge the client, then select No.
Once your Custom Plan is created and approved by the Monta Success Team, you are ready to apply it.
7. Money flow in Monta
Monta uses it’s own Wallet system. Everybody who has a Monta account has a virtual Wallet. Your company is represented by an Operator account, which has a Operator Wallet. Your clients, who have a Team under your Operator account have their Team Wallets and EV drivers who use your charge points have Personal Monta Wallets.
When you have an Operator account, you are invoiced by Monta every month. In this invoice, you will find all of the transactions that have happened between you, Monta, your clients (Teams under your Operator), EV drivers, and others.
Bellow you can see a few examples of transactions you can see in your Operator Wallet. In order to be profitable, you need to strive to gain more revenue from charge points and Custom Subscriptions, than your monthly operational costs to Monta (1 < 2+3+4).
| From Wallet: | To Wallet: | Transactions: | |
| 1 | Operator | Monta | – Monthly payment per charge point – Transaction fees for paid charges – Commission for subscription purchases |
| 2 | Monta | Operator | Revenue from additional custom fees (See Custom subscription) |
| 3 | Client Team | Operator | Subscription purchase |
| 4 | Operator Team | Operator | Revenue from Charge sessions |
8.Next steps
Give access to your Operator Admins
You need to invite the users who are going to administrate your Operator account and grant them access. This is done from the Members & Access section of your Operator homepage. In order to invite someone to become an Operator user, they need to have a Monta account. You can use their phone number or email address to invite them.
You can select among 4 different types of users: Administrator, Manager, Bookkeeper and Supporter. Each role has a different set of permissions, which you can see here.
Onboard your clients
Your clients will also need to learn how to use Monta, in order to perform administrative and troubleshooting tasks for their accounts. We have created number of customized Get started guides for different types of clients, which you can send them directly, so they can get familiar with Monta.
We currently cover: Housing Association, Workplace, Hotel, Retail location, Parking space, Fleet on the go and Fleet depot. For EV drivers we have EV driver charging at home and EV driver charging on the go.
Mass import Teams
If you have a project, where a client needs to create multiple Teams at once, you can use the function to mass import them to Monta. In the import, you can already add the charge points and company information, so they are ready to go.
Operator Team Settings
If you have Teams, which need to have specific permissions, you can create and apply settings on the Team, as their Operator. You can control actions, such as depositing and withdrawing money from the Team Wallet, editing of Price Groups or charge points, and more.