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How Integrated Payments Can Help Your Property Management Business

Isn’t life just better when things balance?  When you have the right ratio of milk and cereal; when you have just enough chips to finish off the guacamole; when your phone battery holds just long enough to get you home.  Balance is a good thing.

And it is a really good thing when you are reconciling rent payments into your property management software.  Let’s examine several critical points of balance and how integrations can help.

Resident Roll

Who are the residents that should be allowed to pay their rent online? With automation, only the most up-to-date list of eligible residents will be able to make online payments.  This is important with new residents because you want their move-in experience to be seamless. Being able to make an online payment immediately is one more step towards resident satisfaction.

You also want to ensure that former residents don’t receive any further notifications or correspondence that might cause confusion. But what about the often-overlooked and unpleasant topic of evictions? It is critical to ensure that the eligible residents in your accounting software jives with the residents who are able to make online payments. We never want to evict a resident, but when we get to that point, it is essential that the payment system prohibit the resident from even paying $1 if that will disrupt the eviction process.  Having your property management software balance automatically with your payment provider when it comes to your resident list is an absolute must.

Balance Due

Knowing what each resident currently owes the property management company and being able to clearly display that balance and its components is a sure way to stay in sync with your residents and drive both online payment adoption and resident satisfaction. Surprises can be great when it comes to birthdays or marriage proposals, but no one wants to pay a bill that they neither understand nor expect. Pulling in the latest balance from the accounting software and clearly displaying it in the payment portal takes away unplanned and unwelcome surprises. This can be particularly meaningful when including utility expenses or ancillary fees like pool keys or pet deposits. Let’s pull in the whole balance, the right balance and the up-to-date balance every time. Then life can be in balance.

Payments

Does the money in my bank deposit match the batch of money in my accounting software? Every accountant at every property management company has asked that question at one point. Having a payment provider who is committed to, and capable of, handling that balancing act can be worth its weight in gold. When the numbers match, the property management staff can turn their attention to revenue driving activities, rather than spending hours in the turbulent seas of reconciliation. Timely application and recognition of payments can be a game-changer for resident satisfaction as well. Let’s say the resident goes online to make a payment and then visits the office to ask a question or pick up a package. When the onsite management staff knows that the payment has been made and correctly applied, the conversation between the two is aligned and productive. Timing definitely influences our sense of balance in our lives.

Returns

The final area of consideration where balance is needed in our day-to-day operations has to do with returns. Whether it is a voided payment, an insufficient funds return or a granted refund, being able to see the return transactions in the accounting software is incredibly helpful. Again, as we strive to have the bank deposit match the accounting software batch, returns can throw everything off. But when your returns are integrated and the credits are handled as cleanly and accurately as the debits, reconciliation is a piece of cake. Returns are an area of the business that we don’t like to talk about because we want every payment to be processed without drama. Unfortunately, reality and human residents can make that unlikely, so it is good to be partnered with a payment provider that can handle it.

If your life lacks balance, it might be worth taking a look at who you surround yourself with. If you don’t have a good support team, it is easy for things to get out of whack. At PayLease, we pride ourselves in having robust, deep integrations with as many accounting software and property management systems as possible. And we aren’t satisfied with simple communication – we want comprehensive interfaces that address real-life scenarios. It is our goal to keep you in balance – both literally and figuratively.

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