Monthly rental payment collection

[Edwin Gutierrez]

I'm a landlord in New York City with 4 units and wanted to know how landlords in NYC collect monthly payments from their tenants other than by mailing a check?

[Thelonious Jones]

payyourrent.com

[Michaela G.]

I have them deposit into my Wells Fargo account. They get a receipt and you can see online when they deposited. 

[Mitzi Castiglione]

I'm not in NY, but I use quickbooks.  They get an auto generated invoice emailed to them 7 days before rent is due and they can pay by EFT or credit card.  I only accept EFT since it costs just fifty cents.  I think if you take credit cards, it 2-3%.

[Dana Dunford]

@Edwin Gutierrez - Here are ways to collect rent, as well as my opinion on each. I definitely recommend online rent collection:

Not my preferred methods: Cash prone to theft difficult to track Personal checks can bounce must manually track Direct deposit you have to give your account & routing # to tenants tenants choose how much and when to pay (difficult when late fees & evictions are involved) Paypal difficult to automate monthly clawback (Paypal takes tenants' side) irregular fees if tenant selects wrong option (pay via credit, not friends and family, etc.) My preferred methods: Money order not likely to bounce difficult to cancel (although many have limits) Online rent collection easy to track auto-pay to reduce late payments Direct ACH transfer into your bank account

[Deanna Bennett]

Online rent payment systems should work well for you regardless of where you are in the country. There might be restrictions if you were located internationally, but not if all of your properties are in the U.S. Another great thing about using online payment tools is that if you ever move or want to buy investment property in a different location, you can keep using the same system to track all of your payments. 

[Jeff B.]

popmoney.com

[Michaela G.]

But it also depends on the kind of properties you have. 

I invest in low-income properties and not everyone has access to computers or they use their phone or library. Or they may not even have a bank account. 

So, for me the deposit into a bank account (easy to add an account just for those deposits and not using the main account) is the easiest way to go.

[Edwin Gutierrez]

Thank you all for the great advice. I'm considering a direct ACH transfer with either PayyourRent or Simplifyem.

[Gita Faust]

check out billandpay.com - integrates with QuickBooks. 

[Ethan Bruland]

Originally posted by @Edwin Gutierrez:

I'm a landlord in New York City with 4 units and wanted to know how landlords in NYC collect monthly payments from their tenants other than by mailing a check?

Have your tenants write you 12 checks dated first of each month for the life of the lease. This has been a huge success for me.  Solves the problem and very easy to implement.  Month to month is going to be diferent.  I haven't personally come to that yet.  Good luck! 

[Sam Harrell]

We have used Paysimple and it has worked well for us. It depends on how many tenants you collect from though. Venmo is simple and easy to use so it should work well for smaller groups.

[Jeff Sprunger]

Originally posted by @Michaela G.:

I have them deposit into my Wells Fargo account. They get a receipt and you can see online when they deposited. 

be careful with this method of rent collection.  if you are evicting, the tenant can deposit just $1 into your account which will stop the eviction process.  Now, if your bank allows you to set the amount that can be deposited and will accept no other amount, it might work. 

same as with companies like popmoney.  tenants can deposit any amount with certain systems, so be careful.