Save Time by Using Property Management Software to Automate Rent Collection
As a landlord or property manager, rent collection naturally plays a pivotal role in your rental business's success. Unfortunately for many property managers and landlords, the rent collection process has historically been ignored or pushed to the backburner compared to other moving parts when it comes to managing an investment property.
Many self-managing landlords or long-time property managers still utilize old-school and cumbersome methods of rent collection, studies show that it costs them. Using property management software to automate your rent collection can ensure that your bookkeeping process is more efficient, your financial reports are streamlined, and your tenants are paying rent on time every time.
Why You Need to Automate Rent Collection for Your Rental
We all have heard the phrase “time is money,” and there’s no doubt that a lack of efficiency can have a negative impact on your ROI. Streamlining your daily management tasks for all the rental properties in your portfolio leaves you with time to focus on the things that are most important to you.
Whether you decide to spend your extra time expanding your business, finding the next great real estate deal, honing new skills, or enjoying experiences with friends and family, there are a lot of ways you could be spending your time.
Every landlord and property manager should automate their rent collection, simply because automation is the smartest way to generate passive income by eliminating time-consuming rent collection tasks.
The Benefits of Offering Online Rent Payments to Your Tenants:
Most landlords and property managers don’t realize the money they are leaving on the table by failing to offer online or automatic rent payments. It can come as unexpected surprise when they make the switch and find that their tenants are paying on time, requiring fewer reminders and late fees. An analysis of rent payment data reveals that providing your tenants with the ability to pay rent online and use automatic payment options each month directly coincides with fewer late fees.
The Best Rent Collection Software:
Landlords may find themselves self-managing their rentals and begin searching for the best rent collection
software for their needs, understanding that online rent payments are an essential convenience to tenants
and landlords alike.
While many options are available for rent collection, property management software is the best rent collection
software option since, you can keep financials, tenant and property information, and tenant or owner
communications all in one place.
It is also far more reliable than options like Zelle, Venmo, CashApp – which can cause legal and tax
reporting issues for landlords, have the option for tenant chargebacks, and can slow cashflow through
transaction and transfer limits. Online rent payments with Rentec Direct save you time and money when
rent is due. Your renters can securely pay rent online from their checking account, credit card, or
debit card.
How to Use Property Management Software to Automate Rent Collection
With options to set up automatic rent payments or one-time payments from a smartphone or computer,
paying rent is a breeze for your tenants, and the funds are available in your account with no additional
work on your end. Plus, you won't have to worry about manually entering any rent payments into your
accounts, which makes bookkeeping more manageable than ever before.
Every step of the process is designed to automate rent collection and the additional tasks surrounding
traditional rent collection, which can add up to a savings of hours each month if you have multiple tenants.
Instead of meeting with a tenant to collect an in-person cash payment, or running to the bank to deposit
checks that (hopefully) came in the mail, your tenants can pay rent from the comfort of their homes. You
eliminate the steps to deposit, meet with tenants, and input the deposits into your bookkeeping ledgers.
Every step of the rent collection process is done automatically for you with the click of a few buttons. Talk about efficiency!
Tools that Rentec Direct Property Management Software Uses for Online Rent Payments
With Rentec Direct’s property management software, your renters can choose to securely pay rent online from their checking account, credit card, or debit card.
When your tenants pay rent online from their checking or savings account (ACH transfer), there are ZERO transaction fees for you or your tenants.
This makes automatic payments a win-win for tenants and landlords or property managers alike.
With Rentec Direct property management software and integrated merchant services, you can:
- Offer tenants the ability to schedule online payments through their tenant portal
- Offer tenants a Cash Payment Network option that allows them to find locations to pay electronically instead of by cash, check, or money order.
- Turn on/off those services on a per-tenant basis (especially useful in handling evictions)
- Pay owner disbursements
- Sit back and let the payments automatically populate your software ledgers and reports.
- Have peace of mind that those services will help with all the different compliance regulations regarding accepting rent payments.
Setup Once and Collect Rent Automatically:
The benefits are worth the investment in time setting up your software and enrolling in those options-- especially
because getting started with Rentec Direct is so easy.
Rentec Direct offers two versions of its popular cloud-based property management software: Rentec Pro (which is
designed for landlords) and Rentec PM (which is designed for property managers).
All Rentec Direct clients, regardless of your property count, get access to free account setup and training with a
dedicated account specialist. While many software solutions offer this exclusively to certain tiers of clients,
Rentec Direct believes that all of our clients deserve top-quality support.
When setting up your online payments, Rentec Direct property management software allows you to customize the types of
online transactions you allow. This gives you the flexibility to configure the default settings to your specific
business needs.
You can allow tenants to pay full or partial payments, accept credit card payments and enter the convenience fee you
wish to charge your tenants at the time of payment, and you can enable ACH payments.
What are ACH payments?
ACH payments are electronic bank-to-bank money transfers processed through the
Automated Clearing House, and is a seamless funds-transfer system that facilitates payments in the U.S. and
internationally. ACH payments are processed through the same system that utility companies and banks use to
automatically pay recurring bills. ACH transactions are typically faster to clear and far more reliable than
paper checks and this method of automatic rent collection means that landlords and property managers can ensure
tenants don’t have to actively pay rent each month.
When payments are happening automatically, they are less in front of the tenants' mind. The pain of writing their
largest monthly check each month disappears, thereby causing a tenant to be happier with their home and have less
chance of moving. Most landlords collecting rent via ACH have far fewer vacancies and deal with far fewer fees due
to late or unpaid rent.
Final Thoughts on Using Property Management Software to Automate Rent Collection
Using property management software is crucial for landlords and property managers who want to save time and money. There is no easier and more efficient way collect rent each month than using electronic rent payments, and most tenants are exceptionally happy with not needing to run to the bank and your office on a monthly basis. Collecting payments automatically with online rent payments simply makes your and your tenants days easier--which is a win for everyone involved.