Paying Rent Online

Not long ago when paying rent, tenants had just one option: write a check and get it to the property manager. But rapid technological advancements in recent years have changed things considerably. A property manager that wants to stay competitive with technological advances now may offer several ways for their tenants to pay their rent. The most common methods are paper check, electronic check (or e-check), money order, debit, and credit card. When discussing the differences between these methods of payment, the focus is typically on funding time and funding guarantee.

Getting Paid Faster

Funding time refers to the time it takes from when a payment is made to when a property manager actually receives those funds. For instance, if rent payment is made with a paper check, that check has to be deposited into a bank account and cleared before the money becomes available. This could take up to seven business days. The same is true with money orders. Someone has to take them to the bank and physically deposit them into an account. By contrast, electronic forms of payment are processed much quicker. An e-check begins processing immediately and the funds are generally available within two or three business days. Debit and credit cards are even faster with next day funding.

Guaranteed Funds

Funding guarantee refers to the likelihood that a payment will be fulfilled. There is a direct relation between funding time and funding guarantee. That is, the quicker the funding time, the more likely it is that the payment will be fulfilled. A paper check has to be cleared, which could take several days. There is always a chance that a check will not clear and bounce for insufficient funds. The same is true with an e-check. Although an e-check is processed faster than a paper check, it still could be returned for insufficient funds. Furthermore, it would take additional days before a property manager realized that a check or e-check had bounced. By contrast, when a debit or credit card is processed, the funding is guaranteed at the time it is approved. As soon as a payment is approved those funds have transferred.

Introducing rPay™

With the rPay™ rent payment suite, a management company has the ability to accept rent payments in many forms, thereby staying competitive with technological advances. Similarly, a tenant can decide what method works best for them when it comes to paying rent and can make payments at whatever time of day is most convenient for them. Maybe they want to earn miles on their credit card. Perhaps they enjoy the low cost of using a debit card. With rPay™, both tenants and management companies benefit significantly from the latest advances in technology harnessed by our rent payment suite.