Chances are, you’ve heard about ways to pay rent online. Your landlord may have introduced the idea to you on move-in, or you may just be tired of checks and cash and are exploring alternate ways to pay. You are probably used to more traditional methods of rent collection, like walking your paper check over to your landlord’s office on the first of the month, but there’s a new wave of innovation in this industry that will make your life as a tenant ten times easier. Here are just a few of the reasons you should pay your rent online.
Flexibility
By fulfilling your rent payment online, you are able to be much more flexible in how and where you pay it.
There are a few different ways to pay rent online. You can choose to take payments out of your bank account directly, or you can input your debit or credit card for your rent payment software to charge. This flexibility is especially helpful for tenants who choose to pay rent with a credit card to build their credit: rent is usually a tenant’s largest monthly payment, so paying it off in full each month can have a positive effect on your score.
Also, for someone who travels a lot or finds themselves not at home for most of the day, the ability to pay rent from your mobile device or computer is invaluable. You no longer have to be physically present at your unit or at your landlord’s office to hand over your payment. You can pay your rent with the click of a button, whether you’re sitting at home on the couch or tanning on the beach.
Important note: never pay rent in a place without a secure Wi-Fi connection, like a coffee shop or restaurant. Doing so can make your personal information vulnerable to hackers. Make sure that anytime you are completing an online transaction, you’re doing so on a private network, or are using a VPN to hide your personal IP address. Online rent payments are extremely secure, but to make sure you’re protecting your personal information as much as possible, commit to safe internet practices like changing up your passwords every few months and ensuring that you don’t have only one password for multiple sites.
Reminders and Recurring Payments
Do you struggle to remember to pay your rent on time? Are you constantly fighting late fees because you simply lost track of what day of the month it is? With reminders and recurring payments, you no longer need to worry about absentmindedly forgetting to pay.
If you pay rent through quality property management software, you can choose to get reminders a week or so before your rent is due. You can get these reminders by email or through notifications on your mobile device. Paired with the ability to automate recurring payments, you should never miss a rent payment again. As long as you sign up beforehand and you have the right amount of money in your account, there is no direct action needed on your end.
You should keep in mind though that these benefits are not available if you complete your rent payments through a P2P platform like Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal.
Settling Potential Disputes
Sometimes disputes can arise from landlords and tenants thinking they completed a transaction when they did not. Thankfully, a primary benefit of online rent payments is rent payment history through an online ledger. When you pay rent with checks and cash, you have to keep your own records, which can become tedious and difficult. However, online rent payment keeps an on-going list of each transaction, so it’s easy to go back and see the history of your payments.
The ability to see who paid, what amount, and when is crucial when settling disputes with your landlord. Automated record-keeping makes it easy for both parties to see what really happened, and hopefully this ability will cut out any potential issues before they arise.
Conclusion
The future of online rent payment is here: it’s time to embrace it! More and more tenants are making their lives easier by paying rent online, and you can be the newest member of that group by keeping these tips in mind and taking the plunge. Ask your landlord about paying rent online and see what options are available to you.
