Just want to share and maybe motivate someone.

I am raising the rent every year.

My tenants are paying through Buildium system.

In reality they are thinking it is some magic happening on the first day of the month, and rent money just disappear from the bank in exchange for “thank you” email. They never bother to login to the system, but gave me a permission. I set up the automatic payment myself.

The problem for me was how to change the security deposit adjustment.

Finally, after a couple of years I got the courage and sent a text to everyone and set up a payment through the system.

“Dear tenant.

This notice is to inform you that there is a balance of $XXX due to a security deposit adjustment.

The amount will be charged from your account in two equal installments. The first charge will occur on the 15th of this month, and the second on the 15th of the following month.

If you have any questions, please contact us.”

Only one contacted me.

My security deposit amount is matching rent first time in a years!

This is what I need to do.

Raising rents is a done deal and I got no pushback. Now to start the same with the deposits, even if it is just a little at a time.

Libi, good deal! I think I'm going to add to my lease that when rent automatically adjusts each year, so does the deposit. Removes the decision from my hands and we all agree to it up front. Not sure how to handle that yet with tenants who have a double security deposit? Probably don't need to adjust it since, if they've remained 12 months, the whole reason I was worried about them paying rent on time has resolved itself.

Zero, Buildium is similar to a lot of payment system where either I or the tenant can set up automatic payments. So yes, it can be an automatic pull. However, the tenant can also modify this at any time and choose to do payments manually instead....going into the site and saying "Pay X-amount", click the Okay button, and the transaction is manually submitted. I used to think it would be a problem, but I've only had a handful of times where a tenant turned off auto-pay and went to manual, and they seemed to do well with it. Whatever. Paid is paid.

80% of my tenants choose the automatic payment. The few who do choose to login each month to submit manual payments may not feel comfy with auto-pays. They tend to be the older folks. Younger ones see it as a way of life. They pay for everything else that way.

I prefer Buildium's method. The ACH I used to use at my bank I could only set to process on certain days that were set up at the beginning of each year called a "calendar" schedule, so if someone "missed" a day I had to contact my bank to approve an "off calendar" payment. Plus I had to review the batch every month and submit it by a certain time, and I couldn't submit it on weekends or bank holidays. What a PITA!

Now all that work falls on the tenant. They log in, set it up, and it's done. They can also set it up on any day they want and make one-off payments if desired. Bottom line: I've had far fewer problems with Buildium than with my old ACH system.

Zero, you can click on the tenant’s name and somewhere at the bottom right side will be login as a tenant or something similar (or just call Buildium and ask).

My problem was that I didn’t want to do it without permission from the tenant. On the other side - my tenant never scheduled a payment and paid by themselves.

Yours was trained to pay without you.

Maybe change the wording to say if money will be not paid by certain date, “The System” will do the transaction.

I was just using natural people laziness.

Great job, Libi.

Thanks for the insight into Buildium.

I do not use it. When I was researching programs it was just too expensive for the low number of doors I had.

But I keep finding out more about it that would possibly make life easier so once again maybe I should consider it.