Making Online Rent Payment Easy To Setup

Online Rent Payment Should be Easy to Setup
Online Rent Payment saves time! And, it should be easy to setup.

The best tools are easy to setup. Online rent payment saves time for everyone – landlord and tenants alike. At ClearNow, we strive to make online rent payment a piece of cake for landlords and tenants to setup.

Tenant Participation is Key

With ClearNow’s service, we make it easy for you to enroll your tenants in online rent payment. The process is straightforward:

  1. In ClearNow, you simply go to the ‘Add Tenants’ screen and enter a tenant’s name, email address, and property address.
  2. You then click ‘Send Email’ and our system sends clear email instructions for the tenant to enroll.
  3. When the tenant receives the enrollment email, they will enter their information in a secure online form, esign the form, and then upload a picture of their bank documentation (e.g. a picture of their bank statement, check, or direct deposit form). Tenants can do this all on their smartphone. No printer is required!

We Automatically Send Email Reminders So Online Rent Payment is Easy to Setup

We’ve learned over the years that people often need a few reminders to do things. So, with ClearNow, three days and six days after you send enrollment emails to your tenants, if they have not enrolled, our system automatically sends them reminders to enroll. That is one less thing for you to do!

Again, the best online rent payment service is the one that makes it truly easy for landlords and tenants to get setup.

Is Tenant Screening Necessary?

As the oldest and most experienced online rent payment service company, we have gotten a lot of questions about landlording over the years. One of the frequent questions is “How can I be assured that my tenants will pay me rent?” One of the best things that a landlord can do, from our experience, is to always do tenant screening.

Tenant Screening Protects Landlords

Your rental property is expensive. Before you hand over the keys to such an expensive property, wouldn’t you want to know as much as possible about the financial behavior of your renter?

TransUnion estimates that the cost of an eviction is $2,500-$3,500 and takes three to four weeks.

Moreover, while tenant screening isn’t perfect, a high credit score statistically correlates to a high likelihood that a landlord will be paid. You can’t be a successful landlord if you are not getting paid.

Tenant Screening Can Be Easy and Free

OK. But isn’t tenant screening a hassle?

Nothing could be further from the truth. Modern tenant screening can be done without a site inspection, and the cost (roughly $40 for a complete credit check with criminal background and eviction history) can be specified to be paid by the tenant. Effectively, tenant screening is free for you as the landlord.

ClearNow recommends starting at https://clearnow.mysmartmove.com/. The process is entirely online, landlords can specify that the tenant pays, and the results come from TransUnion, one of the big 3 credit bureaus. You can get tenant screening results within minutes.

Easy Owner Disbursements of Rent Payment

Every property manager needs to collect rent from tenants and then send those rent payments – less property management fees and other incidental charges – to the property owners. These fund transfers of collected rent to the property owners are known as “owner proceeds” or “owner disbursements”.

ClearNow has long made collecting online rent payments from tenants easy and automatic. Less well known is that ClearNow has a unique capability in the online rent payment industry: We can also directly deposit owner disbursements to property owners. Automating these fund transfers makes your life as a property manager so much easier and allows your customers, the property owners, to get their funds quickly.

We are happy to announce that we have adapted the same all online process (complete with esignatures and bank document uploads) that our landlords and property managers use to enroll tenants to now apply to property owners. Property owners enroll completely online. There is no need anymore for paper, printers, or delays.

With ClearNow, property managers just log into their ClearNow account, click ‘Add Owners’, provide property owner’s name and email address, and click ‘Send Email.’ The property owner will receive an email explaining how they can provide their information and esign to have rent payments directly deposited to their bank account. As the property manager, you don’t even see the property owner’s bank account information, which provides an extra measure of privacy and security for your property owner customer.

Finally, when the property owner completes their part, you will be able to set up a simple formula that allows you to keep a dollar amount or percentage of rent from a tenant’s online rent payment. The remainder of those funds is directly deposited to your property owner’s bank account three banking days after the tenant’s debit day.

To get started using ClearNow for this valuable feature and learn how affordable it is (hint: $2 a payment!), visit ClearNow.

How do I Handle a Month to Month Lease?

You may enroll a tenant on a month-to-month lease the same way you would enroll any other tenant. After your tenant completes the online enrollment agreement, they’ll receive an email entitled “One More Step”, which will contain a link asking your tenant to upload their bank documentation directly to ClearNow. This security measure further simplifies our enrollment process and eliminates the need to attach a separate file in an email.

Once we process their materials, they will be added to your account, and you will receive an email instructing you to set their rent amount and lease end date. When you input the lease end date, we recommend you set it for three to six months out so you don’t have to log in every month and extend the date. Should the tenant vacate in advance of the date you set, you will then need to unenroll the tenant from ClearNow.

We also suggest that you explain to your tenant why you set the lease end date as you decide since we will notify your tenant of the lease end date as it is set in ClearNow.

Can my Tenant Enroll if They Don’t Have Checks?

Absolutely! Your tenant can still enroll in ClearNow even if they do not have checks. We accept other bank documents for enrollment such as their bank statement, a direct deposit authorization form for payroll as provided by their bank, or a bank letter typed on bank letterhead that confirms your tenant’s name and full account number.

After your tenant completes the online enrollment agreement, they’ll receive an email entitled “One More Step”, which will contain a link asking your tenant to upload their bank documentation directly to ClearNow. This security measure further simplifies our enrollment process and eliminates the need to attach a separate file in an email.

Introducing Landlord ESignatures for Easier and Faster Enrollments

We have made enrolling for online rent payment a whole lot easier for landlords and property managers!  We had such success with tenants enrolling with our esignature process that we have now applied it to the landlord enrollment.  Landlords now simply esign the online form and email bank documentation to us.  They no longer need to print, sign, scan, and email the enrollment form.  Everything can be done on their phones!

To enroll, landlords simply go to www.ClearNow.com to start the online enrollment process.  They will receive emails on how to send us bank documentation and on when they are enrolled.

How Does My Tenant Sign Up For ClearNow?

To enroll in ClearNow, your tenant needs to submit the Tenant Enrollment Agreement and his/her bank documentation to us. 

You can email the Agreement to your tenant from within your ClearNow account.  Your tenant will complete the form online, esign it, and then email bank documentation to us.  We will email you when your tenant’s enrollment materials are complete.  At that point, you will log into your ClearNow account, set the debit amount and lease end date, and click “Save”.  That’s it!  It is really that easy!

Introducing Tenant E-Signatures for Faster and Easier Tenant Enrollments

We’re happy to announce that we have incorporated e-signatures into our online enrollment process for tenants.

Tenants no longer need to print, sign, scan, and email the tenant form to us. Recently, many tenants have let us know that they did not have access to a printer and wanted to complete the enrollment process just with their smartphone. Their wish has been granted!

Tenants can now use their smartphone or computer to complete the tenant form entirely online. After they complete the form online, they just need to email a photo of their voided check, bank statement, or direct deposit form.

It is easy to get tenants to use our e-signature process. Landlords simply log into their ClearNow accounts and click on the ‘Add Tenants’ menu choice. Follow the instructions to “Email the form to your tenant”. The email that tenants receive gives them the link to use the new online signature process.

How does my tenant sign up for ClearNow?

Once you have set up your ClearNow account, you may email the tenant enrollment agreement to your tenant. The tenant may also access a blank copy of the form by going to www.clearnow.com, select the “Tenants” tab, choose the correct debit day, and print the form. The tenant must complete and submit the form along with bank documentation either by email to support@clearnow.com or fax to 919-680-4700.

How can a property management company use ClearNow to collect rent?

A property manager can enroll in ClearNow to receive electronic rent payments by completing and submitting the ClearNow Property Manager enrollment agreement with their bank documentation. Once their ClearNow account is set up, they may have the tenant and property owner submit their enrollment materials. The owner will receive owner proceeds from the tenant’s rent payments. The property manager would assign the amount he/she should receive and the amount the property owner should receive from each rent payment. Both of their deposits would occur three banking days after the tenant’s debit day.