Something I've noticed since opening up my Buildium account to allow tenants to pay online: 20% of them are paid up early. This is even better than my old ACH/auto-debit. Here's how it works:

When tenants sign the lease they authorize us to auto-debit their rent on whatever day it's due from their checking account. They give us the routing and account number; we set up the payment on the due date. However, they can pay early if they wish too, and more of them are starting to follow that pattern consistently each month.

I think back to the old days when I let tenants mail the rent in using a personal check. There were always "the rent's in the mail" excuses when it was 3 - 5 days late. Then the personal check would bounce half the time. Those days are gone now, with direct checking account drafts that post within a couple of days, and all of which I see being drafted on time.

If you haven't considered trying it yet, I can only recommend it. I use Buildium Property Management software, but you can try Mr. LL's "Clear Now" service sponsored on this site, which is similar. I don't think it allows early payments, unfortunately, but it's definitely a step in the direction of how people handle their bills in modern times. Get paid faster and more reliably!

There are some draw backs to Clear Now, but the single best feature I absolutely love about it is knowing in real time when a check is either bad or if the tenant changed the manner they are paying. That tip off allows you to send them a text three minutes after they change the account in which rent is paid out of.

This tips me off about the illegal BF or GF that just moved in.

Ray, that's definitely a plus for Clear Now. Can you confirm my understanding: if the tenant is set up for auto-debit in Clear Now but there are insufficient funds, you will know immediately? The bad part about Buildium is it takes 3-4 days for the transaction to "settle", so I don't always get immediate feedback.

Lucy, you can do a manual payment in Buildium on any day, but there's nothing to set up. Just a button that say, "Pay Now" and you try it again. So while it's a manual process, it's really easy. I had the same issue with my bank's ACH auto debit that you had, plus I had to define specific days when I could initiate batches, so if a charge from Friday bounced on the following Tuesday, I either had to wait until the next Friday to reattempt or call in to my bank to request an off schedule batch for a single transaction.

Say Ken and Barbee are living in your rentals and use Clear Now. Money comes out of Kens account on the first from PNC for 123 Main St.

If Ken doesn't have the money in the account, you will know it as soon as the transaction is attempted and fails or if the tenant declines the transaction. So I send out a text to Ken and ask him if there is an issue. He says that he will not have the money on the first in his account - so he declined the transaction on the 28th. He says he will have it on the 4th. I let him know that there is a $10/day late fee ($30), a $20 fee for not using Clear Now and a $20 bad transfer (NSF) fee. I let him know that he will have to pay that on the 4th. I also let him know that they will get the 5 day pay to stay notice. Clear Now forces the wallet training

Say in the middle of the month at 123 Main Street, the account is changed from PNC to Wells Fargo and the owner of the account is now George Jones. You send Barbee a text and ask her if she has a new roommate - where she tells you that Ken has been kicked to the curb. You are able to tell her to have George fill out an app and you let Ken know that he is still on the hook for the rent.

Clear Now is a great trip wire system for Landlords.

Thank you Sid.

When I tried to set up an ACH draft, my bank would not allow me to do it because I am not a business entity. Therefore, it is left up to my tenants to set it up on their end. So far, that has not worked out as they can't seem to get their bank to set it up, and I don't know how to help them. At this point, I have set up a bank account and they go to the bank and deposit the money. They have tried other electronic payment methods, but none will work as there is a limit on the amounts that can be sent and at various times.

6 x 6, you don't even have to set up an LLC. All you need to do is set up a business checking account as a sole proprietor. Call your business whatever you want, but on the checking account is will be (your name) DBA (business name) "DBA" short for "doing business as."

As far as I know, only business entities are allowed to set up ACH where you "pull" from your side. I think you only have 1 or maybe a few units. At the stage you're at, I think just using Clear Now would probably be easier. ACH has it's own learning curve and twists, but it's worth all that if you have bunch of units because once it's all set up it works like clock work and you save time having to take repetitious steps. For fewer than 5 units, I think it's easier to use Clear Now because it is a simple, readily available tool.

Thanks for that reminder, Ken. I need to set up a DBA for the few properties that are in our Family Trust's name directly so that I can set up a new biz account for Buildium. I have the accounts already for the LLC properties but not for these two, and Buildium wants a biz account for us to use EPay.

Thank you Ken and Sid.

So is the DBA that Ken is referring to the same as what Sid is referring to?

Thanks for telling us about this, Sid.

I知 starting to consider something like Buildum, because I realize I知 basically doing it all piecemeal. DocuSign, QuickBooks, Clearnow, My domain via Google, Google Business suite, etc.

Of course, change is hard, and I like the tools I have. :)

Meanwhile, I知 waiting for WMH痴 report on how the Buildum adoption goes, and I知 looking at what I値l need in a few years.