Tenant Payments:  Processing Payments

You can process tenant rent payments automatically through PROMAS, or process them manually based on the reports created in your HomeRentals.net Control Panel.  Regardless of the manner in which you process the payments, you must be sure the funds have been transferred from your company PayPal account to your rent trust account before you post the rents as paid in PROMAS, otherwise your statement balances will not line up on the day of processing.

Before you decide how to account for online payment fees, make sure you are very familiar with your local real estate and accounting laws.  These laws vary by state; it is critically important that you comply with them fully.  If any of our recommendations conflict with your state laws; the laws should always take precedence.  It is your responsibility to ensure that you do not violate any applicable laws.

In order to most effectively account for electronic payments, we recommend that you account for the for the “statement balance due” portion of the payment in PROMAS; and, account for the processing fee deficits or surpluses separately through the management company. 

For Example:  If a tenant owes $1,000.00 in rent, and you assess a 3% convenience fee, we recommend you process $1,000.00 of the net payment as rent, and process the $30.00 as a processing fee to the  management group.  Credit card and check processing fees would be accounted for in the management group. 
 
If your cost for processing this rent payment was $23.50, the management company would net $6.50 from this transaction.  If your cost was instead $30.50, then the management company would be responsible for the $0.50 deficit. 
 
The instructions that follow are based on processing in this manner.  If you choose to process payments differently, modify your procedures accordingly.