Why do you charge a fee for paper payments?

We recently started charging a $10 fee for paper payments (check, money order, cashier's check). Why did we do this?

Well, several reasons:

• Paper payments take a lot of time for our staff members to deal with. Electronic payments are all completely automatic, but paper payments have to be manually put into the system and taken down to the bank to be deposited. This takes a lot of extra time for our staff.
• Paper payments aren't very secure. Money orders can be stolen, they can be lost in the mail, etc.
• The bank has to do a lot of paperwork when we make cash deposits because the so-called "Patriot Act" requires it whenever deposits are for more than $10,000. That takes even more time for our staff to deal with when they get to the bank.

Many property management companies have decided to just stop taking paper payments at all and to require that all payments be made electronically. We didn't want to do that, because we know that some tenants just don't have bank accounts or credit cards. So we wanted to make this option still available to you. But, in order to do that, we need to charge extra to cover our costs dealing with the issues above. We think that $10 is a reasonable fee for that.

So, what other payment options do you have? Quite a few:

• Automatic e-check - set up an automatic recurring payment in your Resident Portal so that your rent gets paid on time every month without worry. This option is completely free. We recommend this option to everyone.
• Cash payments with RentMoney - this option allows you to pay using cash at Wal-Mart, ACE Cash Express, and 50,000+ other locations nationwide. Just print a voucher from Resident Portal to take with you, and the cash you give them will automatically be deposited into our account and credited to your lease. They charge about $3.75 for this service.
• Automatic or one-time credit/debit card payments - we are one of the few management companies offering credit card payment as an option, but it does come with a cost. The payment processor charges $31 as a convenience fee for this. You can set it up in your Resident Portal.
• One-time e-check - if you have a checking account but don't want to set up automatic payments, you can make a one-time e-check payment in your Resident Portal. There is a $25 convenience fee for this option.

If you have any questions, please send us a message at support@therevolutionfirm.com