It used to be all tenants paid their rent with a check or money order and there really just weren’t a lot of options. However, that was before online banking. Now with the ease of smart phones and the Internet, it’s very easy to request, send and receive money electronically. There are so many services out there these days. As landlords, we take them all. Our philosophy is that we want to make it as easy as possible for our tenants to pay their rent on time. So long as the service doesn’t cost us any extra fees, we’re happy to oblige our tenants and set up accounts with whatever works for our tenants. On our leases now, I include the addresses of all the services we use most often. You could even market this as an amenity to your new tenants.

At the moment, the two most popular online money services among our 10 properties are Venmo and Zelle. However, I also have accounts set up with Cash App and Paypal. I know some landlords are old school and still insist on a mailed check every month. But I personally love these services as they save me a trip to the bank as once the tenant sends me their rent, I can immediately transfer it to my bank (I say immediately, but it usually is about three days unless I want to pay a fee to access it immediately). It is currently free to send small amounts of cash through these services although there are rumors that the providers may change this. I also like that I can electronically track these payments on the go.

Another service I like to use is Apartments.com. I started using this back when it was Cozy.co. Although I find Apartments.com much clunkier and difficult to navigate than Cozy, the basic functions stay the same in that I can list all my properties in the system and set up a way for my tenants to pay electronically through their website. Tenants receive a bill each month for their rent and pay it online just like any other invoice. They can even schedule it to ensure no missed payments and subsequent late fees.

What I like about Apartments.com is that I can upload all the lease documents into one place in the cloud and invite my tenant to view them their as well (although I’m not sure one has done it just yet, the function is available). The tenant is then invited to make their payments online through the site similar to Zelle or Venmo. Once the tenant pays, I can then transfer the funds to my bank. The program then provides basic accounting for me of all the rent I have received. Since I allow my tenants to pay online through other means or still through a check, it also allows me to come in later and record an “offline payment.” At the end of the year, I can just export the data to share with my accountant.

Apartments.com has more features than what I’m using it for such as advertising available properties, requesting service on a property, and invoicing for incidental fees or services, but for now it works for my purposes. It has some additional features like built in late fees for late payments that could potential be useful, too. However, I’ve found that it often does the math wonky so I’m better off just manually adding a charge and reconciling it myself. Still, for a free service, I find it fantastic to use for my small business purposes.