Paperless, Person-Less Rent Payment Takes a Step Further

It’s never easy to train an entire resident population on new processes – especially when it comes to paying the rent.

But for FPI Management, it discovered exceptional adaptation and ease-of-use with a paperless and person-less method that more and more residents are appreciating.

FPI Management has removed paper payments from its leasing offices by replacing paying by check or money order with online certified payment methods with a service that helps FPI Management to avoid credit card fees.

No longer do FPI Management’s onsite teams have to spend even a second on copying, scanning, and tracking rent checks each month. Visits to the bank have also been removed from the process.

“When you have a 300-unit property, you might have to handle as many as 500 checks, considering roommates paying their share of the rent; that’s not easy,” said Vanessa Siebern, CPM, senior vice president, FPI Management, an early adopter of apartment fintech provider Domuso.

FPI Management operates 1,040 communities representing 140,000 units in 17 states. It is ranked fourth on the NMHC Top 50 list of apartment management companies. Roughly 60 percent are market-rate properties and 40 percent are affordable housing.

“When the pandemic hit back in 2020, processing rent checks in a paperless manner was the best and really only method, given residents’ concerns,” Siebern said. “Residents just didn’t want to have to come to the office to drop off checks. And today, they are comfortable continuing this process – the ability to pay rent by logging onto a portal. They don’t have to go out find a place that will cut them a money order.”

‘Guaranteed Funds’ Delivered

FPI Management has seen its percentage of online payments rise from 33 percent in January 2020 to 55 percent today. Since partnering with Domuso, FPI has increased from 119 properties with an average of 47 percent paying online to 569 properties with an average online collection rate of 50 percent.

“We receive guaranteed funds, so there’s hardly any reason to go back to paperless; companies that are still dealing with paper checks might as well be operating in the ‘Stone Age,’ ” said Siebern, who is mindful that some residents don’t own smartphones or computers or even have personal bank accounts.

Domuso has also struck a deal with MoneyGram to enable off-site cash payments and the ability for residents to pay with a photo of their check using mobile check pay.

Some residents rely on paying rent with their Social Security checks or pension payments, which add layers to the deposit process, particularly in the affordable housing space. There, the government has been big on pushing paper, and slow to permit digital transactions. However, during COVID, regulators began allowing digital payments, a trend Siebern hopes continues for good.

Mobile Check-Scans Is Next Iteration

Siebern said there were no challenges with the online rent-payment function integrating to management software platforms (FPI Management uses RealPage and Yardi).

Based in Folsum, Calif., FPI Management had been using Domuso even prior to the pandemic, so rolling it in portfolio-wide back in March 2020 “was a huge win for us,” she said.

Siebern said her community teams will continue to slowly shift their residents’ behaviors for rent-paying. “At first, we introduced them to paperless, then showed them how to pay without needing a money order, and next we’ll introduce the mobile check pay scan-and-deposit via a smartphone.”

The check-scan method is gaining momentum for many banking functions. Domuso is the only product in the multifamily industry to offer it.

“We’re seeing a move to digital payments,” Siebern said. “Apartment operators are looking to technology to help solve some of their day-to-day, onsite responsibilities.”

Siebern said paperless rent payment means that her communities do not to have to rely on risky drop boxes placed at the leasing office, “which we know sometimes can be broken into,” Siebern said.