All Forum Posts by: Alex Pelletier

Quote from @James Eckert:

Quote from @Alex Pelletier:

Hey I found this post just now, but in case you're still looking for an all-in-one solution with tenant screening along with rent collection, Azibo has got you covered. We've recently added accounting tools as well so that you can collect rent and get professional-level reporting in the same place. 

Note: I am part of the Azibo team! 

 

I just tried switching a unit over to them and I had a terrible experience. I wouldn't recommend Azibo, especially not for accounting. If they can't fix their own invoices, why would I trust them to keep track of mine?

Here's the sitch. I had a rent-collection setup on Azibo for $1850/month, with an $1850 security deposit. My unit's lease started mid-month so I turned on collection for the pro-rated rent (which would've come out to $835 for the remainder of the start month) and security deposit. Azibo should issue two invoices: one for $835 (pro-rated rent) and one for $1850 (security deposit). Right?

Instead, Azibo sent my tenants two invoices: one for a full month's rent ($1850) and one for a pro-rated rent payment ($835). My tenants see the correct amount but it has a late fee and they don't know why. We waive the late fee and figure it's a fluke from Azibo with the mid-month lease. Tenants pay, thinking that they've just finished their first month and security deposit.

Later, we see one the books that they're missing an invoice for the security deposit and that the one we thought was for the deposit is marked as a full month's rent. I created a ticket with Azibo to find out why, and why they never collected the security deposit. It was annoying, but since the amounts paid matched up, we could just correct the full month's rent invoice to be a security deposit instead and it would all line up. Right?

Not only could Azibo's team not figure out why the invoices weren't created correctly, but their only solution to reconcile the payments on the back end was to keep the full month's rent on the books and request a new payment from the tenants for the security deposit! They were completely unable to reconcile any of the invoices or make any changes at all, and the "workaround" would've meant Azibo telling my tenants that the invoice they just paid was actually past due and now they needed to pay again. Azibo's customer support finally said their fix would be to send the tenants a note along with the payment request to say "Sorry for our error".

No thanks. If this is how they run their operation, I don't have any confidence in them.

Hey there,
We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback. It looks like our customer support team was able to resolve this issue for you, promptly and effectively. We're happy to see this.

Your satisfaction is our priority, and we're grateful for the opportunity to make things right for you. If you have any further questions or if there's anything else we can assist you with, please feel free to reach out to us.
Thank you!

Quote from @Allen Berrebbi:

Quote from @Alex Pelletier:

Quote from @Allen Berrebbi:

I'd love one with built in accounting. Simple accounting needs

 In that case, Azibo may be a great fit. We (I work at Azibo, just a disclaimer) have quite robust accounting capabilities and time saving features like Schedule E generation and automated  transaction tagging rules. If you want to chat or hop on a demo, feel free to connect with me!

 How is it free then? You must make money somehow?

We make money from value add features and services: credit card fees (ACH is 100% free), credit reporting for tenants, insurance policies (both renter’s insurance and landlord), our lease creation and e-sign feature. So we don’t charge anything for the platform but we make money as we provide value for our users! 

Quote from @Allen Berrebbi:

I'd love one with built in accounting. Simple accounting needs

 In that case, Azibo may be a great fit. We (I work at Azibo, just a disclaimer) have quite robust accounting capabilities and time saving features like Schedule E generation and automated  transaction tagging rules. If you want to chat or hop on a demo, feel free to connect with me!

Quote from @Allen Berrebbi:

Quote from @Alex Pelletier:

Hey! Here's a list of tools you can use to automate rent collection and other aspects of your business. Hope these help! Check each out as they all offer different things

• Property management/rent collection: Avail, Innago, Apartments.com, Hemlane, Turbotenant, Rentredi, Tenant Cloud, eRentpayment, zillow rental manager
• Rental accounting tool: Azibo, Stessa, REIHub
• Rental banking: Azibo, Stessa
• Move-in/move-out inspections: RentCheck

 Any preferences and if so, why?

This list has a wide range of use cases. Are you looking for an all-in-one type of solution, or are you looking to solve a specific problem? 

There are several solutions one can use to systemize their tenant screening process and integrate it into other aspects of managing rentals. Each of the solutions give similar data but have differences in their application process and user experience. The biggest difference between the solutions is pricing. These are separate from any platform costs these solution may carry.  I’ve gathered some pricing data across popular platforms in case that’s helpful for you:

Solution	Pricing
Apartments.com	$30
Avail	$55
Azibo	$39.99
Hemlane	$40
Innago	$30 ($35 with eviction history)
TenantCloud	$39 , $30 (credit only), $25 (background check)
TurboTenant	$55
RentRedi	$35
Zillow	$35

Congrats on your first property! I don't have the best answer for you in terms of scheduling walkthroughs (I know there are some platforms that help with this, especially those that deal with short-term rental check-ins. I just don't have experience with that). On the property inspection and itemization of deposit returns, there's a tool specifically for this called RentCheck that could help you automate this. I believe the inspections are set up by the tools, and they require the tenant to send a video or images for each item in the checklist to inspect.

Nothing will be quite as good as in-person, though, so maybe an informal or part-time property manager may be less of a headache to protect your investment. Hope this helps!

I think most providers like that are going to be blocked more and more often - just too common a fraud vector. In my eyes, the best alternative is a dual-sim or e-sim phone where you can use your phone as normal with another number. You're still keeping work/personal separate, but not dealing with any issues put in place by those services blocking VoIP and such technologies. I just use a cheap Boost Mobile line and have had no issues.

Copied from another post I made today:

A ton of programs do this, and the majority of them come from the same providers: Equifax and Transunion. You want to have the right tool that makes it simple for a tenant to apply. Here's a list of common platforms with this feature:

Avail, Innago, Apartments.com, Azibo, Hemlane, Turbotenant, Rentredi, TenantCloud, Zillow rental manager.

All of these have different focuses, prices, and UX. I'd recommend trying a few!

A ton of programs do this, and the majority of them come from the same providers: Equifax and Transunion. You want to have the right tool that makes it simple for a tenant to apply. Here's a list of common platforms with this feature: 

Avail, Innago, Apartments.com, Azibo, Hemlane, Turbotenant, Rentredi, TenantCloud, Zillow rental manager. 

All of these have different focuses, prices, and UX. I'd recommend trying a few!

Best practices for rent collection depend on how big your portfolio is. With just one property, bookkeeping and collecting rent is simple since you could just use one of the main payment platforms like Paypal, Venmo, Zelle etc to collect rent without hitting limits -- I believe many investors are still at this level. Once you add tenants, though, you can run into issues like hitting limits on these money transfer apps and also messy books at tax time.

For the issues above, there are some easy ways to get ahead of this:
1. Get separate accounts for each property you have: This will help you and your CPA with bookkeeping and accounting! 

2. Use a rent collection/property management tool: this has been noted by other members, but these tools will help you both collect rent easily, manage other aspects of your property like screening, listing, bookkeeping, etc. 

3. Use a bookkeeping solution built for rentals: These provide solutions for bookkeeping alongside your rental units. There's no big setup process like with Quickbooks if you go this route, since it's all rental-specific. 

Here's a list of tools for each category: 

• Property management/rent collection: Avail, Innago, Apartments.com, Hemlane, Turbotenant, Rentredi, Tenant Cloud, eRentpayment, zillow rental manager
• Rental accounting tools: Azibo, Stessa, REIHub
• Rental banking: Azibo, Stessa, Baselane