Timely and reliable rent collection is the financial backbone of any rental business. Even if landlords collect payments from their tenants for additional amenities, rent payments are necessary to sustain a successful business. Therefore, it is important to find a method for rent collection that fits your needs and minimizes late or missing payments.
Because of this, many landlords are making the decision to leave paper checks and cash behind and collect rent online. You might be wondering if making the change to online platforms might be helpful to the way you do business. Here are four benefits that demonstrate ways in which one of your most important operations as a landlord can become easier and more reliable with the help of the internet.
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The Technology is Easy to Learn
One of your concerns with making the switch to online rent collection might be that either you or your existing tenants will have to go through a learning curve with convoluted accounting software. However, property management software is designed around being clear and easy to use for both landlords and tenants. Navigating these platforms is often intuitive and does not involve any high-level technological skill.
Business and commerce have made tremendous shifts to online spaces recently, and this probably includes other day-to-day aspects of a tenant’s life. They are likely to be familiar with the steps of making payments on the internet, meaning the jump will not be severe by any means.
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Automatic Rent Payments for Tenants
 As a landlord, you know that it is best to take any necessary steps to avoid missing or late rent payments. Having to deal with late fees and potentially the eviction process is something that both you and your tenants don’t want to deal with. Fortunately, many online rent collection platforms allow tenants to arrange for regular payments to automatically be withdrawn for rent every month.
By making what is called an ACH rent payment that connects directly to your tenants’ bank accounts, automatic payments can help guarantee that you don’t have to worry about a tenant simply forgetting to pay on time. The process becomes entirely hands-off, and you can rest a little easier knowing that the rent payments you rely on are almost guaranteed.
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Collect Rent from Anywhere
When a tenant submits a rent payment online—especially if that payment is made automatically through their bank—it can be done from anywhere. In contrast with needing to deliver a check, this process is quick and flexible.Â
This flexibility goes both ways. On the landlord’s end of things, you can see that a rent payment has been submitted from practically anywhere. All you need is a reliable internet connection to see a payment as soon as it comes in, meaning that the process becomes faster as well as more flexible.
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Automatically-Generated Records
Keeping records of your business transactions as a landlord is essential, and this includes monthly rent payments. Property management software automatically produces records with a variety of types of information every time a transaction is made on the service, meaning that strenuous manual bookkeeping is kept to a minimum and there is less chance of human error.
This also means that there is increased transparency and responsiveness for your tenants. After a payment goes through, they receive a receipt that they can refer to as a record of their spending. If they are relying on ACH payments through their bank account, these records demonstrate that the feature is working and that their money is going to the right place.
Conclusion
Not only do online platforms streamline the rent collection process, but they often do not charge any fees for taking advantage of this feature of the software. It is often an additional feature in property management that can also be used for things like signing leases and listing properties, making the way that you collect rent online free.
With all of this in mind, the trend toward online rent collection makes sense. Landlords are taking advantage benefits that are impossible with traditional methods, and consequently making life a little easier for their tenants as well. Now is as good a time as ever to make the switch yourself and leave paper checks and cash collection in the past.
