RentManager is great and affordable. Scaling up does not cost anything. They use CashPay that does not cost me anything which automatically updates the software and “deposits” it. I am saving a lot of time in admin time for collecting, admin time for data entry, and eliminated lost MOs as well as teller errors. There were a small handful of complainers, but everyone is on board after 2 months.
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BITD before having an office, I’d have residents who would just put cash in an unsealed envelope and just drop it off at the Mailboxes Etc (prior to becoming the UPS Store) to be put in our box. Sometimes they wouldn’t even write their name on the envelope. Really dumb stuff. Zero tracking if it went missing.
Now we never taken cash, mainly because it’s a security issue for staff. Also a loss risk. They don’t keep any money on hand though, so the first thing we did when we took over the last property was mandate money orders.
At first it was anything, delivered to an onsite person. Then money orders, delivered to an onsite person. Then delivered to a drop box. Now we’re wanting to get out of the middle of collections all together and move everyone to “contactless.”
Fees for all of these seem to be increasing. How are you handling that with residents? AppFolio was free for online ACH and is now $3/mo. But we decided it was still worth it for streamlining operations.
The only thing we could come up with was to just start building the expectations into our leases and renewals. At least that gives us a runway on when we can be done with them. We’ll offer electronic payments through AppFolio (browser or app) as well as what they call Pay Near Me.
Pay Near Me allows people to take in cash and instead of getting a money order and delivering it to us, which we then have to deliver to the bank, they pay them and it goes through their network to us. For people who had to get multiple MOs due to amount, it works out about the same in fees.
Here are their locations. 7-Eleven, CVs, Walgreens, Walmart, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Ace Cash Express, etc…
It’s working out well so far. If it continues, by Thanksgiving we won’t need staff to touch payments at all.
Continuing to move more towards a remote management and just onsite maintenance model.
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Looks like a great option, too bad there isn’t a location near my property.
We use this service in conjunction with Manage America management software.
https://www.paylease.com/cashpay/search_locations
CashApp is another option that a lot of “cash” people seem to have. We’ve allowed that to continue for a few people. One resident recently prepaid her whole year of rent. I assume she got her tax refund and decided on something responsible. We’re not planning on keeping that long term though. It will be phased out with MOs.
My tenants deposit into my bank account.