24th May 2007

Electronic Payment Methods For Tenants

posted in Care and Feeding of Tenants |

So recently I’ve found myself saying this line to friends & family, “I must be the only personOnline payments who pays their bills on time. My tenants don’t pay on time. My clients don’t pay on time. So I must be the only one.”

Now, I know that to say this is an exaggeration but this is how it feels sometimes, what with my most favorite mortgage company constantly still pestering me every month even though I still have never made a late mortgage payment….but I digress.


I have the idea that if it was easier for tenants to pay the rent, maybe they would at least try to pay on time. At this point, most of my tenants do pay on time but I’m shooting for 100%.

I’m attempting to enable tenants to pay via our web site with a bank draft type mechanism. Amazingly, all of the tenants have broadband internet access now. While this will take away from my bottom-line, hopefully rent will come in faster.

There are currently 12 responses to “Electronic Payment Methods For Tenants”

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  1. 1 On May 24th, 2007, Bryce Beattie said:

    I think the more you can make things automatic, the better. If people could set up an automatic rent-pay, they wouldn’t ever forget…

  2. 2 On May 24th, 2007, Shaun said:

    Hello! Just started reading your blog today.. Welcome to my blogroll!

    I’ve heard from some landlords that set up automatic payment plans for their tenants that they vary the payment amounts by 1 cent so that each tenant pays a marginally different amount. That way, when they look at their bank statement, it’s easy to tell who has paid rent and who hasn’t (due to insufficient funds or something else that would cause the automatic payment to fail). You might also consider offering a slight discount on rent to people who pay this way.

  3. 3 On May 24th, 2007, Bruce said:

    Bryce,
    Good idea. I’ll have to look into that if and when this gets set up.

    Shaun,
    Welcome and thanks for the link. Yours are also good ideas. Thanks so much for the input.

  4. 4 On May 24th, 2007, Christopher Smith said:

    I send my tenants directly to the bank every month. With a one-year lease I hand them a book of coupons and instruct them to make a deposit directly to a bank account that I’ve established specifically for that purpose.

    I use Bank of America ’cause there’s one on every corner here in Houston. And I have the address and/or unit written on each slip. When I check online from the comfort of my home computer I can see the scanned slips w/ each deposit, I know who has paid and who hasn’t, and with a mouse click I move the funds into my “real” account….so that the account that the tenants have the number to remains at a zero balance.

    Easy peasy.

  5. 5 On May 24th, 2007, Bruce said:

    Chris,
    Also a great suggestion!
    Thanks so much for your comment.

  6. 6 On May 25th, 2007, Clifford said:

    Bruce!

    Please report back what you find out. I would love for my tenants to pay electronically. I did some preliminary research but found services that wanted to charge between 5 and 8%. That type of sacrifice is too much for me to handle.

  7. 7 On May 25th, 2007, Bruce said:

    Cliff,
    Will do. At this point, so many people have commented about this, I think that I will do a new post on it as soon as I get all the information.

  8. 8 On July 5th, 2007, Review of Buildium Property Management Solutions said:

    [...] I was introduced to Buildium while searching for a method to accept electronic rent payments from my tenants. I signed up for the 15-day free trial and here is my [...]

  9. 9 On October 25th, 2009, usalandlord said:

    I have 80 units and thought that the autopayment option would offer a convenient method of pmt for my tenants. So far a few of the more progressive ones are taking advantage of it but the majority are “old school” and are somewhat leery of internet security and privacy issues. I will keep trying.

  10. 10 On January 16th, 2010, CB said:

    I like the idea of giving tenants the actual deposit slips… think I will try it. Thanks!

  11. 11 On April 7th, 2010, NewLandlord said:

    Has anybody tried clearnow.com? They only charge $14.95 per month which seems pretty reasonable to me but I haven’t been able to find many reviews for them yet…

  12. 12 On April 11th, 2010, ZenDarb said:

    I have one account set up for each property (accounts are free after all). On the Bank’s website I give the account a ‘nickname’ that is the same as the property’s address (ex. “123 Anystreet”). The lease has the account number and the tenant has to deposit the rent into the account.

    Once the rent is paid, it automatically (through scheduled transfers) transfers to my Operating account.

    I wrote an article (Automate Your Rent Collection) about this technique:

    http://rentalsdoneright.com/2010/02/automate-your-rent-collection/

    I don’t have to give out deposit slips.
    I don’t have to worry about “checks in the mail”
    I know exactly when the rent is paid

    Works like magic!

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