Collecting rent is very likely to be your largest source of regular income as a landlord. Because of this, the importance of finding the best possible method for rent collection cannot be understated. 

There are a variety of ways you can go about collecting rent from your tenants. More traditional rent payment options like cash or a check have respective benefits, but they are critically outnumbered by the abundant benefits of having your tenants pay rent online with a credit card. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits and why, if you are still relying on traditional methods of rent collection as a landlord, now is the time to make the switch.

• More Flexibility

If a tenant pays rent with cash or a check, they either have to find the time to walk it over to you and drop it off or send it to you in the mail, which might take a while depending on all sorts of variables that are outside of their control. Online rent payments with a credit card can be submitted from anywhere and can go through to you in an instant, meaning that all of the buffers that cause friction between a tenant gathering the funds and actually getting them to you are eliminated. 

Your job of collecting rent also becomes much easier. In the same way that a tenant is able to submit a payment from anywhere with a reliable internet connection, landlords are able to view these submitted payments and collect them from anywhere. 

• Less Chance of Late Payments

Because of this new flexibility for tenants, there is less of a chance that any buffers or friction will lead to a tenant being late with their rent. A tenant who submits a rent payment with credit card is able to do so from anywhere, even on the bus ride to work, meaning that they are less likely to forget until the last minute.

Additionally, tenants are able to set up automatic payments through property management software that withdraws the proper amount directly from their bank account whenever rent is due. Since payments are completely automated, the chance of tenants simply forgetting to pay rent is eliminated. Neither you nor your tenants want to deal with late or missing payments, and online rent collection ensures that you don’t have to.

• Less Work for You

Perhaps the most significant benefit of online rent collection is that some of its features also make your job easier through automation. For instance, keeping accurate and detailed records of every transaction you make is essential, and this includes rent payments. Property management software automatically generates records for you whenever a payment is made, saving you a lot of time that would otherwise go into tedious manual bookkeeping. 

Furthermore, your tenants will also receive a copy of records in the form of a rent payment receipt right away, meaning that there is improved transparency between you and your tenants about their money going to the right place and being paid in the correct amount. This can alleviate the potential for any disputes that could cause trouble down the road. 

• Safer Than Cash

When your tenants pay rent online with credit card and banking information, you may be worried about this sensitive data being vulnerable to cyber-attacks or hackers. Is paying with a credit card less safe than simply handing off cash? However, property management software makes use of robust encryption technology that keeps your tenants’ information safe as the funds pass from their bank accounts to yours. 

When you take into consideration the many ways that cash payments might be vulnerable to theft or general mishandling while they sits in your office waiting to be accounted for, credit cards are a much safer option with technological infrastructure put in place to ensure security. 

Conclusion

This article should make it clear why allowing your tenants to pay online with a credit card eliminates a lot of the difficulties of collecting rent. It should calm any worries that you may have had about the safety or practicality of online software and should convince you that you should take advantage of the ability to make one of the most important parts of your job easier, more flexible, and more effective.