New Rental payment method

[Rashad Ellis]

Hi. With the feds now monitoring all digital money transactions (Zelle, Cashapp, Venmo, etc) should we explore other methods of accepting rental payments ?

[Ryan Garrison]

Are you asking so that you can avoid taxes on your rental income? Just take cash and keep it in your mattress :)

If you want to upgrade your payment system, there are a few apps that seem to do great.

Being a professional landlord, you need to keep professional records - and you will probably have to pay some taxes from time to time. We also get great writeoffs.

I would not recommend the apps you mentioned for rent, because they don't help with record-keeping very well.

I have been using apartments.com (formerly cozy) to have my renters pay me.  My favorite thing about it is the automatic late fee you can setup. 

If they don't pay on time, it tacks on a fee and sends an alert.  

You don't have to listen to some sob story about why it was late each month. I was bad about letting people off on the late fees, now "it's not me, it is the app. It is automated. If the app made a mistake, I am sure they will reimburse you."

There are some other apps, including one mentioned in the bigger pockets podcast. Was it RentRedi or RentPerfect?

You can also keep your expenses in there too. 

We get all the benefits of depreciation, appreciation, debt paydown, cashflow...so, I like using rent payment apps to keep good records of income. 

The records help a lot when applying for a loan as well, I just send my mortgage broker a printout for the properties they request.

Easy Peasy.