Receiving electronic payments from tenants for small operation

[Jason Cunningham]

Hello BiggerPockets People, 

I manage a small book of for single family rental properties here in Orange County, California. Most of the tenants pay with paper checks, and one pays by electronic wire, which we incur a $25 wire fee. Ideally, we would like all tenants to pay electronically in some form other than Zelle or Venmo due to the risks associated with those platforms. 

What is your advice? I have seen the online property management websites, but are they worth the subscription costs for a small operation with only 4 properties? Any feedback would be much appreciated... Thank you!

Sincerely,

Jason

[Drew Sygit]

@Jason Cunningham first understand that there's really only two main types of electronic payments involving bank accounts:
1) Wire - to expenseive to consistently use

2) ACH - Automated Clearing House, USA banks only

Almost every USA bank allows these two payment types right on their client portal!

So, you could supply your tenants with your bank name, routing & account numbers and they could set you up as a Bill Pay option in their bank portal and pay you via ACH. Payments from them would have their name, so you could ID who paid what.

Every PM software just automates this process.

PS: change your lease so that it states you will NOT absorb the cost of wired funds and will deduct from any rent payment amount. We absorb the cost of ACH fee as cheaper than paying our bookkeeper to track down and enter other payment methods in our accounting software:)