Paper checks or cash may seem like a simple and inexpensive way to collect rent and vendor payments, but they open you up to risks like delayed payments and fraud. When you compare manual payments with a digital solution, you begin to see just how much time and money you could be saving with one simple automation. 

How Manual Payments Can Expose Small Landlords to Risks

Here’s what can go wrong when you use manual systems to handle payments:

Manual Payments Take Longer to Process

Manual payments slow cash flow for a number of reasons. First, it can take several days to a week for a check to arrive in the mail. Then, you or your bookkeeper must manually log, deposit, and reconcile checks with your accounting systems.

Unlike debit card or ACH payments, checks also don’t provide your business with immediate payment verification. That means you must wait anywhere from two days to a week to find out whether a check clears. When a check bounces, it can take even more time to manually follow up with a resident and secure another payment.

When you use an online payment collection platform like ApartmentAdvisor ASSIST, all of your transactions are verified and logged automatically — making getting paid and tracking your financials easy. 

Manual Payments Have Higher Error Rates

If you are still manually collecting and logging payments in a spreadsheet, you may inadvertently mishandle fees and security deposits or make record-keeping mistakes. Even small errors can trigger disputes and expose you to legal risks.

Manual accounting is always vulnerable to human error, even when it’s done by trained professionals. More than half (59%) of accountants make several errors per month, according to a Gartner survey — so even if you are relying on a bookkeeper, you are still at risk of making mistakes with manual payments.

Manual Payments Have a Greater Risk of Fraud

Check fraud is a real concern, even for small landlords. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of organizations experienced it last year, according to a survey by the Association for Financial Professionals. Checks are vulnerable to many types of fraud, including:

• Counterfeiting
• Theft
• Altering
• Forging
• Kiting (A scam where someone exploits the delay between depositing a check and funds clearing to make it look like there’s money in an account)
• Paper hanging (A scam where someone writes checks on closed or non-existent accounts)

Even if you are collecting payments via cash — especially with an online service like Zelle, PayPal, or Venmo — you are still at risk. With instant payment services like these, transactions are very difficult to reverse. Plus, when you accept cash as a rent payment, there is very little documentation. It's difficult to track, to prove any wrongdoing in fraudulent situations, and to correct mistakes.

Investigating fraud takes time, on top of opening you up to financial losses, operational headaches, and cash flow disruption. 

How Automating Rent Collection Benefits Small Landlords

Even if you only have a few units, automating payments can save you time on administration, get money in your bank account faster, and improve your resident experience. 

A tool like ApartmentAdvisor ASSIST lets your residents make quick, secure ACH transfers and card payments. Compared to checks, ACH and credit cards offer near-instant payment verification and faster settlement to provide you with more predictable cash flow.

Plus, ASSIST sends automatic rent reminders to boost on-time payment and improve the resident experience. In an IntelliPay survey, 45% of people said a text or email reminder made on-time payment more effortless.

ASSIST also provides an automated, secure dashboard that makes it easy to track rent, fees, and payouts and lower the risk of accounting errors.

If you’re looking for a user-friendly automation tool to help you collect rent, pay bills, automate reminders, and track financials, ApartmentAdvisor ASSIST is an all-in-one solution.