Collecting rent is one of the most important parts of your job, and relying on the numerous benefits of online platforms is by far the best way to do it. No matter what your rental business looks like, there are ways in which property management software makes your job easier.
If you are just being introduced to the world of online rent payments, however, this article will walk you through some of the things you should know about how you can take advantage of property management software’s plentiful benefits.
Accessible Software
Let’s start with a huge positive for beginners. An online rent collection service that deals with transactions and accounting might seem like it involves a steep learning curve and a thorough knowledge of the industry, but the opposite is true. The business model of these platforms is such that property management software is designed around being accessible even to beginners who are new to the rental industry or with online platforms.
The best property management software will be easily navigable and won’t take you long to figure out. Even complicated financial reports are simplified in a format that is easy to understand.
Another way in which these programs are very accessible is that they will generally come at very little or no cost to use, keeping them available even to landlords of smaller rental businesses.
Automatic Rent Payments
The option to pay online is already more flexible for a tenant. Rather than needing to drop the money off to you or send it through the mail, which can take several days, a tenant can pay rent instantly from practically anywhere. However, by setting up what are called ACH payments, money is automatically withdrawn directly from a tenant’s bank account every month to go toward their rent payment. This means that your tenants don’t have to do anything to pay rent.
This is also beneficial because it dramatically decreases the chances that your tenants will be late with rent. You certainly don’t want to deal with late or missing payments, and if you enforce late fees, neither will your tenants. Making the process as easy as possible for them is a smart way to keep them and yourself happy.
Mobile App Benefits
Something to look out for when you’re looking at property management software is whether the particular platform you’re looking at has a mobile app version. There are multiple reasons to consider this factor.
First, it can be a good indicator of the professional standard of a software company. In order to maintain a mobile app, a company needs proper funds and resources to update it regularly, meaning that they are likely a more established or successful platform. Considering that rent payment and collection deal with sensitive banking information, you should make sure that the platform you use is as reputable as possible.
mobile platforms also offer several other benefits to landlords. For instance, property management software makes it easy to keep up with your business from anywhere with a reliable internet connection, meaning that you can fit all the resources of your office into your computer. However, with a mobile app, all of these resources fit into your smartphone, which you very likely take with you wherever you go.
Automated Records
One of the biggest benefits of property management software is that the necessary accounting work that you have to do whenever a payment goes through becomes completely automated. Not only does this save you the time and effort of doing manual bookkeeping, but it also eliminates the possibility of human error.
Your tenants also receive a copy of these records in the form of a rent payment receipt and can also view their payment history in the rent payment portal of the software. This increases transparency and can potentially minimize future disputes.
Conclusion
All these reasons and more point to why paying rent online is undoubtedly the best option for rent collection, no matter how big or small your rental business is. Monthly rent collection is the biggest source of regular income that comes out of your business, so you should take steps to ensure you’re using the easiest and most effective method. Hopefully this article has shown you what to look for as you make the switch to online rent collection.
