Handling rental payments for your property doesn’t have to be complicated, especially if you’re using RentBetter! The platform gives you more control over your payments to ensure you get paid on time, every time.
With automated reminders, receipting and income reporting, you can benefit from efficient and hassle-free rent collection.
In this Article:
How Rental Payments Work on RentBetter
Setting up and collecting rental payments from your tenant is simple. Here is a quick overview of the steps required on RentBetter:
Setup: When setting up your tenancy on RentBetter, you'll specify the rental amount, payment frequency, and start date for rental payments.
There are two ways your tenants can pay, either through RentBetter (recommended) or outside of RentBetter (manual).
Tenant onboards: Once your tenants are onboarded onto the platform, they set up their payment method and confirm their agreement to the rental terms. If you set up your tenants to pay through the platform, your tenants can pay using a credit card or their bank account, and our direct debit billing system will run payments for your schedule automatically.
Automatic Payments (Recommended): If selected, RentBetter handles the rental payments automatically based on the agreed-upon schedule. Payments are processed on the scheduled date and settle into your account automatically. The ledger is automatically updated, and receipts are sent to you and your tenants.
Notifications: Both you and your tenants receive notifications when payments are processed. This ensures transparency and keeps everyone informed.
Reminders: RentBetter sends automated reminders to tenants before payment due dates, reducing the chances of missed payments.
Receipts: Receipts for each payment are issued to both you and your tenants, providing a clear record of transactions, and they are available for download on the site at any time.
Income Reporting: The rental income automatically flows into your reports so when it comes to the end of the financial year (or any time really), you’ll benefit from knowing your investment property information is organised and ready to be sent to your accountant at tax time.
Setting up Rental Payments on RentBetter - Automatic
Managing payments through the platform offers some great advantages. It means the payments will run according to the agreed schedule, no more checking bank accounts and entering data into spreadsheets, and it will completely automate a task that is usually quite tedious - no more chasing payments!
To create a Rental Payment schedule you will first need to set up your lease. Navigate to the Properties page and click on 'Tenancy setup'. You will be guided through the steps to set up your lease. In the second section under 'Payments' you will go through the steps to set up your payment schedule.
Rent Amount and Frequency
Enter the weekly rental amount and the payment frequency for the schedule. Rent can be collected either Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly.
Rent Collection
To collect payments through the RentBetter platform, select 'Automatic' under the section for Rent Collection:
Include or Exclude Past Payments
This option becomes available when you have an existing lease with a start date in the past.
You can choose whether to include or exclude past payment periods when setting up your rental payment schedule. This allows you to choose whether previous rent periods should be included in the schedule or whether payments should begin from the current period.
Exclude Past Payments - Only adds future payment periods to the payment schedule starting from a recent payment date.
Include Past Payments - Adds the full payment history from the tenancy start date to the payment schedule.
Note - For any past periods outstanding, the tenant will need to log into the RentBetter portal and pay them via the 'pay now' buttons.
Add your bank account
Add the bank account details where you would like the rent sent to (This is your bank account where rental payments will be paid.)
Review Payments
When you get to the final section of the tenancy setup, you can review the details of the rental payments. The main points you need to review are highlighted in yellow.
Once everything is set up and you have sent it to your tenants, you can view the full details of the schedule from the 'Rental Payments' page:
The tenants will be invited to connect to your lease and requested to set up their payment method on the platform via their tenant dashboard:
Once they have set up their payment method, the payments will run automatically according to the set schedule.
Collecting an Early First Payment
You might consider collecting an 'Early First Payment' at the beginning of a new lease when new tenants are moving into your property. This payment is a one-off payment that requested before they move in and is designed to provide you with a payment ahead of the start date.
If you choose to collect an early first payment, your tenant will be notified to complete the payment by the due date you have set in their account on the platform.
To set up to collect the first payment early, select 'Yes' under the question 'Collect an Early First Payment'?
You can set how many payment periods you would like to collect early and set the due date. For example, if you have set up your payments as fortnightly, you can choose to collect either 1 or 2 fortnights as the early payment.
Once you send the tenancy to your tenant/s they will be invited to get set up on RentBetter and create their account. Once they have signed the lease and have added a payment method, they will be able to complete the early first payment step on their dashboard:
IMPORTANT - The early payment is optional and should the tenant not complete it early, the first payment will run not run early and will run as part of the normal rent schedule.
Your tenant is also able to complete payment for additional payment periods should they wish to pay ahead.
Setting up Rental Payments Outside RentBetter - Manual
If you’d prefer your tenants to make their rental payments outside of RentBetter, that’s absolutely fine. It just requires a little more manual tracking, as you’ll need to keep track of the payments received and mark each payment as paid on your Rental Payments page.
To create the payment schedule you will first need to set up your lease. Navigate to the Properties page and click on 'Tenancy setup'. You will be guided through the steps to set up your lease. In the second section under 'Payments' you will go through the steps to set up your payments.
Rent Amount and Frequency
Enter the weekly rental amount and the payment frequency for the schedule. Rent can be collected either Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly.
Rent Collection
To collect payments through the RentBetter platform, select 'Manual' under the section for Rent Collection:
Include or Exclude Past Payments
This option becomes available when you have an existing lease with a start date in the past.
You can choose whether to include or exclude past payment periods when setting up your rental payment schedule. This allows you to choose whether previous rent periods should be included in the schedule or whether payments should begin from the current period.
Exclude Past Payments - Only adds future payment periods to the payment schedule starting from a recent payment date.
Include Past Payments - Adds the full payment history from the tenancy start date to the payment schedule.
Add your bank account
Add the bank account details where you would like the rent sent to (This is your bank account where rental payments will be paid.)
You also have the option to include the bank details on invoices for your tenant so that they see the account name, BSB and account number on all PDF invoices.
Review Payments
When you get to the final section of the tenancy setup, you can review the details of the rental payments. The main points you need to review are highlighted in yellow.
Once everything is set up and you have sent the tenancy to your tenants, you can view the full details of the schedule from the 'Rental Payments' page and can start tracking your payments manually.
You can use the 'Mark as paid' function next to each payment period to mark payments as paid as you receive them from your tenant.
💬 Need further assistance?
Have more questions on rental payments? Reach out to our friendly team via the support chat or email info@rentbetter.com.au and we’ll be happy to help.