When it comes to rent collection, most Property Management staff only focus only on the bare minimum: on time rent payments and late fee billing.  The most comonly overlooked issue concerning rent collection is security.   When collecting rent, you should always rememeber that residents are putting their personal information and financial livelihood in your hands.   If rent money or banking information is compromised due to poor security and operation policies, you put your residents and your community in danger.   Stay informed and educated on the procedures of collecting rent securely.

Rent Drop Box Danger: Even the safest community can have fraud or theft issues arise from unsecure rent drop boxes.   In a recent discussion forum on Multifamily Insiders managers discuss ways to make drop boxes more secure, suggesting angled chutes, certain distance from door ratios to prevent the always present issue of check theft.   However, the truth is, no external drop box is completely safe.

A Secure Solution for Rent Collection: A solution to security issues when collecting rent is to implement and promote a secure and compliant electronic payment option at your community.  Many of the renters who use the drop box likely do so because they need to pay rent after office hours or to avoid late fees. But with online payments, renters can pay any time. This may be a more convenient option for renters (since they won’t have to write a check and walk to the office drop box) and it is certainly a safer option.

Electronic payments also eliminate risk from human error.  You never know when a check can accidentally be misplaced or a paper record can some how be leaked.  In addition, it can also be risky when you’re exposing renter’s bank account numbers to multiple staff members at the property or a drop box thief.  With online solutions like RentPayment, all credit card and eCheck data is locked and stored as tokens (a security measure called tokenization),  plus only partial account numbers and credit card numbers are viewable to property staff.   In addition, electronic rent collection doesn’t have to mean only online.   With RentPayment, transactions can also be made by phone, or with AutoPay;  giving renters multiple options to pay rent safely.