Originally posted by @Lucas Hall:
HI @Mike F.
I think it's important to note that a due date is not the same as a payment date.
For example, do you pay your electric bill on the last possible day, or do you pay it when it's convince for you, knowing that paying after the due date will incur a fee? What about your credit card? See my point?
Leases are no different.
I've never seen a lease that says payments must be made on the 1st but rather a lease usually says rent is due by the 1st.
Plus, if tenants wanted to pay early, why wouldn't you let them?
Even if a tenant chooses to pay on the 3rd, they will have to suffer the consequence of a late fee. They are adults and must take responsibility for their choices. This is no different than if you accept cash, checks, bill pay, or crops as rent - except that online rent payments is convienient for both parties.
I think you're missing the big point.
It's an automatic withdrawl.
The tenant isn't choosing when to pay it other than the very first time during setup, after that there is nothing to choose or decide. The issue is the initial set up process.
Secondly my goals as a landlord are to have the least interactions with my tenants as possible, I'm not interested in late payments or making a few bucks more because of them, I'm looking for ways to eliminate late payments and keep interactions and time to a minimum with tenant management. So if I'm using an online system for rent collection I want the benefits of computerization and systems to automate the process, other than that I don't get the benefits for the reason to use it if I'm still screwing around interacting with tenants every month about rents to collect $20, $40 or $100, I've got better things to do with my time than stepping over dollar bills to mess with pennies.
Like I said the system isn't very intuitive, like when you renew a lease, they make you start all over again as if the tenant has not been using the system of the last year, two or three...
Your tenant signs the renewal lease for you and then you have to start the whole process over again with the tenant, "by the way I know you've been living here for 3 years and have been paying for three years, but as your reward for renewing your lease with us, please go enter all your information back into the rental payment system and sign up all over again." That's not ideal. Computers store information they save you time from things like this, what's stopping you from simply clicking on "renewing" the lease and entering in the new dates, hitting enter and being done? The renter has already gone through the signup, entered their information once and been paying, just continue the process seamlessly.
Last time I renewed a lease it was a 3-4 contacts with customer support, them having to change things on there end, delete files, tell me how to do it, me telling them what they are telling me doesn't show up on their system, them finally saying Oops changes have been made... doesn't work like I told you, try this now...
It all works out, but clunky.
Luckily up to now I've not had to use the system to collecting any late payments or anything else, I'm guessing those situations are going to not be as seamless as possible based on everything else so far.
Does Cozy work? Yes, but it's clunky. I'm not complaining, but if somebody is asking about it I'm giving my experiences with it. Would I switch to something else, probably if I start running into additional issues and find others recommending something way better I would, but right now we have a pretty smooth operation as long as you're in the middle of a lease with a tenant and there are no payment issues, and Cozy does work so far for automatic payments each month. I don't think Cozy has any serious competitors right now, when they do I think they might be more motivated to enhacements.
