Best way too collect rent ?

[Jason Allen]

I recently started renting my previous primary residence. I had heard of several ways to collect rent the one that seen the easiest  to me was, too have them deposit the rent directly into a savings account. 

So I opened up a savings account just for this purpose and they deposit in there on or before the first of each month.

So I opened up a savings account just for this purpose and the deposit in there on or before the first of each month.

 So far it is working fine they make a deposit and I move the money out of that account into another one. Does anyone have any ideas on what risks I have with this  method ?

 And does anybody have a better way to collect rent easily?

[Jennifer L.]

I don't recommend that you allow your tenant to do the deposit directly into your savings account. Problems may arise if the tenant is unable to make the monthly rent.  So instead of paying the full amount, they could deposit less, but since you "accepted" the payment, you could run into problems if you needed to initiate an eviction.

There are many low friction solutions for rental payments.  I use Cozy.co: it is a free ACH transaction and the tenant cannot deposit less than the full month's rent.  It does take about 5 business days for the funds to deposit, but I've never had an issue in the 18 months since I started using it.  You can elect to pay $3 a month and get the funds expedited into your account if you so choose.

eRentpayment is another service.  They charge about $3 per month and I believe this can be paid by you, the tenant or split.  Deposits happen within a couple of days, from what I understand.  eRentpayment gives you the option of reporting the payments to a credit agency.  This may be an attractive to your tenants.

If you search automated rental payments here, you will find threads which mention these and other services available.  Good luck!