Online Rent Collection: A Practical Guide for Small Property Managers

Paper checks don't scale

At five units, collecting rent by check or a payment app is a nuisance. At fifty, it is a part-time job: matching payments to units, chasing the ones that didn't arrive and recording everything by hand. Checks get lost, payment apps don't tell you which unit a payment belongs to, and "I sent it Tuesday" is hard to verify.

Collecting rent through your property management software fixes the matching problem at the source, because every payment arrives attached to a lease. Here is what to look for, how to set it up and how to move your residents over.

What to look for

Bank and card payments

Residents should be able to pay from a bank account or with a card. Bank payments take a few business days to clear, so your software should treat a payment that is still clearing as on its way, not as missing. In PaxRent, a payment that is still processing counts as paid when the late-fee check runs, so nobody is charged a late fee for rent that is already in flight.

Autopay

This is the single most useful feature. A resident chooses the amount, the payment method and the schedule once, and rent goes out on its own after that. In PaxRent, residents set up autopay themselves from the portal, and the option is offered again right after a one-time payment.

Automatic late fees

Set the rule once and let the software apply it. In PaxRent you set a company default for the late fee and grace period, and you can override it on any lease: keep the default, set a custom flat or percentage fee, or turn late fees off for that lease. When the grace period passes and rent is still unpaid, PaxRent posts the fee and sends the late notice.

A portal residents actually use

Residents should be able to see their balance, pay, review their payment history and manage autopay without contacting you. In the PaxRent resident portal, the balance is the first thing on the screen and the payment button is always visible.

A way to catch up

When a resident falls behind, a structured payment plan beats a string of texts. PaxRent supports plans you create, and residents with a past-due balance can propose their own plan from the portal within rules you can rely on.

Setting it up in PaxRent

1. Connect payments. In Settings > Payments, complete the payment setup that connects the account rent is paid into. If a lease should accept only some payment methods, you can limit it.
2. Set your late-fee default. Pick the fee and the grace period that match your leases. Imported leases pick up the same default.
3. Invite residents. Each resident gets a one-click email invitation to the portal. If they don't accept it, PaxRent sends up to three reminder emails over the next two weeks, so you are not chasing invitations by hand.
4. Ask for autopay. Once a resident has saved a payment method, autopay takes a few steps: amount, payment method, schedule and a final review.

Moving residents over

Give notice. Tell residents what is changing, what they need to do and the date the old method stops. A month's notice is reasonable.

Run both methods for a month. Some residents need time to set up their account. Cutting off checks on day one guarantees a missed payment.

Follow up one by one. After two weeks, look at who hasn't accepted the portal invitation. The usual reason is an unopened email, not an objection to paying online.

Set a firm cutoff. After the transition month, stop accepting the old method. Anyone still paying by check needs a direct conversation, not another email.

Fees, shown up front

Card payments can carry a processing fee. In PaxRent, when one applies, the resident sees it before confirming the payment, so the total they approve is the total they pay. Whether a card fee applies depends on the payment method and the state the property is in.

Security

Card and bank details are entered into the payment processor's secure form and saved as tokens for reuse. PaxRent does not store full card numbers.

Get started

See how it works on the rent collection page, and find the price on the pricing page.