cash rent payment on erentpayment.com?

Question

I am getting ready to acquire my 3rd rental property and it is already starting to be a pain collecting rent payments.  I want to start using an electronic rental payment service to make it easier for myself and my tenants.  I was curious if any of you use electronic rental payment services and if so what if you have a tenant who insists on paying cash?  Do you require the tenant to use the electronic payment service in the lease or do you offer it as an option?

I know a lot of old timers are set in the way they do things and just prefer paying cash, I would hate to loose a good tenant over requiring them to do something they don't want to do.

I have done some research and it seems a lot of people seem to like erentpayments.com on this forum.  I looked through the questions and answers and don't se any instructions for somebody wanting to do a cash transaction.

Thanks

Kevin

Nicole A. · Answer

My tenants pay in cash only and several do not have bank accounts either. They use Pay Near Me which is a service at some 7-elevens and ACEs. They take the cash there and also pay a $3.99 fee. Then I get an email saying I received a payment of however many dollars and who it's from. It shows up in my checking account about 3 business days later.

Kenneth LaVoie · Answer

Both local banks I use will allow tenants to come in and pay "over the counter" by allowing them to deposit money into your checking account. I tell tenants to walk in, tell the teller (yeah) that you want to deposit your rent into Southern Angel Properties checking account and to make sure your name appears on the deposit slip so I can see it online. It's nice because I can see the payment in real time. I cannot see who it's from until the next day, but usually a little deductive reasoning will narrow it down. 30% of my tenants pay this way, 70% use eRentPayment.com -- I've been emailing tenants about the erentpayment feature where they can report each payment to a credit bureau, to encourage more of them to use that option.

Jassem A. · Answer

If they want to pay with cash then have them send a money order.  Some tenants will find it easier to deposit into a bank that you have an account at.  Some banks have a night deposit box as well like Woodforest bank inside Walmart.

JD Martin · Answer

I require payment through either erentpayment, or customer deposit funds directly into my checking account. No other form of payment is accepted as per the lease, though I don't stick to such rigid rules all the time (i.e. I was at a tenant's house and she wanted to pay a couple of weeks early and I took the check since I was near my bank anyway). Recently I added cozy.co for a tenant that wanted to set up direct transfer from her account to mine, and it has worked well so far (a bit slow, but Cozy says they've fixed that so we'll see).

If they want to pay in cash, have them deliver the cash to your bank - give them some deposit slips. There's no reason they have to deliver the cash to you.