How Can Landlords Set Up Recurring Online Rent Payments?

It goes without saying that collecting rent payments is one of the most essential parts of operating a rental property. However, the rent collection process can lead to headaches for both landlords and tenants alike.

Between chasing down late rent payments, keeping tabs on who has and hasn’t paid rent, and dealing with paper checks or cash, rent collection can often feel more burdensome than it should be.

We have good news, though. Collecting rent online saves time, ensures more consistent payments, and enhances the professionalism of your rental property enterprise.

With all of these perks in mind, you might be wondering, How can landlords set up recurring online rent payments? TurboTenant makes it easy to automate the recurring rent collection process so you can get paid on time without stress and uncertainty. In this article, we’ll walk you through how and why to set up recurring online rent payments, with details on the exact steps to get you started with TurboTenant.

Why set up recurring online rent payments? 

Receiving recurring online rent payments can save both you and your tenants a world of hassle.

To start, this payment method reduces the frequency of late rent payments by putting rent payments on autopilot, eliminating any potential excuses as to why your tenants have yet to pay rent. Recurring online rent payments also make the rent collection process more efficient and professional compared to other rent collection methods.

Additionally, accepting rent payments online reduces the amount of administrative work you have to do. There’s no need to send awkward reminders to your tenants or juggle spreadsheets to keep up with payment information. During tax season, you can also benefit from the improved financial recordkeeping supported by a digital payment system.

Outside of the benefits for landlords, recurring online rent payments also offer significant benefits for tenants. Autopay options are a convenient way to save your tenants time and worry, since they won’t have to remember to mail a check or even send a digital payment by a specific date.

What You Need to Get Started

If you’re already dreading the prospect of setting up a new digital system, don’t worry—the process of receiving recurring online rent payments is ultra-simple and straightforward.

You’ll need a bank account to receive direct deposits, your tenant’s email address and contact information, and a digital lease agreement that contains clear rent terms. Your lease should include an explicitly stated start and end date, as well as the amount of rent due. Needless to say, the lease should already have this information.

Next, you need a property management platform like TurboTenant to facilitate the online rent payments. You may also want to have a communication plan in place for informing tenants about your payment system.

Although a communication plan isn’t a strict requirement, it will help ease your tenants into the process and serve as an essential record in the event a tenant fails to pay rent.

How to Set Up Recurring Rent Payments Using TurboTenant (Step-by-Step Guide) 

First, you’ll need to sign up for a free account with TurboTenant. Starting from the TurboTenant home page, click the “Landlord Sign Up” button in the upper right-hand corner. Next, select “Landlord” and go on to add personalized information about your status as a landlord, the number of properties you own or manage, and how long you’ve managed rental properties. After providing your name, account login details, and contact information, click “Sign up” to complete the process.

Once you’ve created your account, go to the Properties tab and click “Add New Property” to create a new lease profile. Here, you can include details about what kind of property you’re renting, the property address, and additional units or rooms for rent if needed.

After setting up your account and lease profile(s), you’ll need to invite your tenants to the TurboTenant portal. Starting at the landlord dashboard, click the button labeled “Tenants” (in the mobile app, which you can find under the “Renters” tab).

When the list of active tenants appears, click “Add New Tenant” at the top right. Then, provide your tenant’s name, lease, and contact information. Make sure to check the “Send invitation to tenant portal” box. After receiving the invitation by email or text, tenants can securely upload their bank account information, which they’ll need to do to pay rent online.

Now, it’s time to set up rent charges and lease terms. Either within a lease profile or at the top toolbar on the landlord dashboard, click “Payments” and “Get Started.” From there, you’ll click Add Charges, and a new window will prompt you to upload information about the rent amount, due date, and frequency of payment. You can also charge security deposits and other one-time fees here if needed.

After you connect the bank account that you want to use to receive rent payments, you’ll verify your identity. After doing so, you can customize any other rent collection options, such as automatically charging late rent fees or allowing for partial rent payments.

Next, landlords can enable tenants to pay rent using autopay, which will allow TurboTenant to automatically charge rent payments from a tenant’s bank account every month. Once a tenant opts in, their rent payments will be deposited into landlords’ bank accounts, typically within 1-2 business days of processing.

Before enabling autopay, check local landlord-tenant laws to ensure automatic rent charges are allowed. Some states and cities require landlords to let tenants pay rent via at least one alternative method, such as cash or check.

If you’re wondering whether or not a tenant has paid rent yet, you can also use TurboTenant’s rent collection software to track payments. From the landlord dashboard, you can view payment history and payment status to stay fully up to date on rent collection for all of your tenants. You can also opt in to receive alerts for failed or pending rent payments.

After setting up the automated recurring rent process, landlords can customize which reminders and notifications to send to tenants. TurboTenant can automatically send monthly rent payment reminders to renters, so you don’t have to have follow-up conversations with tenants to receive timely rent payments.

For Tenants

Enabling automatic rent payments is also easy for tenants. After setting up an account with TurboTenant and providing bank account, credit, or debit card information, your tenants can enroll in autopay from the Settings page. After clicking “Enroll in autopay,” renters can select which charges they want to put on autopay. After taking care of these steps, landlords shouldn’t need to manually request payment ever again.

Best Practices for Online Rent Collection

While switching to online rent collection is a straightforward process with TurboTenant, landlords should follow a few best practices to ensure satisfaction with the system.

If you’ve previously accepted rent via other payment methods and are planning to switch to online rent payments, you should communicate this change clearly to your tenants. You can encourage your tenants to use autopay, but you won’t be able to require this unless your lease explicitly says so.

Those who require tenants to make digital payments or use autopay must review and update lease agreements to reflect these terms. Even when accepting online rent payments, you should always keep rent due dates consistent from month to month to avoid confusion and late payments.

Last but not least, you should let software handle the bulk of the online rent collection work for you wherever possible. To make the most of TurboTenant’s rent collection tools, try out our other built-in features like automated rent receipts and late rent fees.

Alternatives to TurboTenant

As useful as TurboTenant is, we know that landlords have a few different choices to receive recurring online rent payments. The property management software RentRedi, for example, offers similar features to TurboTenant, like automatic late fee charges and rent reminders for tenants.

TenantCloud also provides rent collection software for landlords with relatively small portfolios of rental properties, and Buildium can address the rent collection needs of landlords with larger portfolios.

However, TurboTenant stands out among these options for its ease of use and its price. Unlike Buildium, TurboTenant’s rent collection tools are free for landlords to use, with certain operational costs passed along to tenants. Additionally, TurboTenant has been engineered to be as user-friendly as possible, allowing for a simple, quick setup to start collecting recurring online rent payments.

Conclusion

Receiving recurring online rent payments can be a major help for landlords with portfolios of all sizes. By doing so, you can save time and energy that you might have spent hunting down overdue rent payments, depositing checks, and handling bookkeeping.

If you still have questions about how to set up recurring online rent payments, you can visit our support center to learn more about the process. Our guides can address any other questions you might have about receiving online rent payments through our platform.

Automating rent payments ensures consistency, professionalism, better recordkeeping, and, perhaps most important of all, happier tenants. Now’s the time to stop chasing checks and let your software work for you.

FAQs: Recurring Online Rent Payments