I guess the two big things are; does it cost the business anything and what efficencies can it deliver on?

Thats exactly right, Emily. The efficiencies that the system can deliver will benefit us enormously by streamlining our receipting and accounting processes. The concern we have is that the Australia Post payment option is a $4 charge that will come back to us, rather than be passed on to the tenant. For example if only 100 tenants pay at Australia Post twice per month that is equivalent to $800 in fees that will be borne by our office. I know that most tenants will pay by bpay over the phone or online but was wondering what experience others have had with tenants paying using this or similar systems and how it affects the bottom line.

Hi Guys

Emily – I absolutely agree, when looking at a system you need to weigh up cost and functionality.

Generally speaking, most bank products do offer an automated receipting service which will eliminate that tedious manual process, but product functionality is restricted.

Michael – the streamlining of your receipting processes is pretty standard within the industry and most (if not all) service providers should offer this. Absorbing that tenant fee, however, is an unnecessary cost.

The other thing to take into account is how much visibility and control you have over your tenant’s rent payments. Usually bank products are not specific for Real Estate and so these things are limited. Have you spoken to any service providers besides the banks?

Hi Hania,

The visibility and control aspect is important to us and the bank product does seem to be at the tenant’s discretion as to when payments are made.

We have used Rental rewards previously but due to their administration problems are no longer promoting it as a rent payment option. (admittedly in the last 12 months they seem to have lifted their game) 

I will make contact via your website and get a full outline of your product.

Thanks for the introduction to your company :-)

Not a problem, hopefully I can help.

You are welcome to get in touch with me directly:

hania.badran@ippayments.com.au

(02) 8248 1298

I wonder why the post office cost cannot be absorbed by the tenant?

Yesterday I learned that agencies with around 400 managements are generally paying about $10,000 annually in bank fees.. OMG!! Time to look into Payment Gateway.

Hi Michael,

We have used the NAB rent card previously (with Rockend/REST professional) and never had a problem execpt for the charges – Aus Post is a choice for a lot of tenants.

We now use Ipayrent and it offers the same features that the NAB offered BUT the transaction fees are charged back to the tenant regardless if they use Aus Post, online, phone or BPay.  It has saved us a considerable amount in bank fees and intergrates with our real estate software in a similar way NAB did.

Melanie, what offices are these??? You need to let us know so we can help them!

For those that aren’t aware, Payment Gateway is the Ray White branded version of iPayRent.

Hi Melanie – yes we are looking at changing banks to reduce our annual fees. Nab is competitive in that regard but their rent card product does not have the capability to charge the fees back to the tenant, so our concern is that we could potentially end up with crippling monthly fees.

Thanks Justine for confirming what we suspected – that there would be a lot of tenants choosing to pay at Aust Post. Thanks also for your positive feedback on the iPayRent system. I spoke to Hania on the phone yesterday and she was really helpful in providing information about their product.