Cash Handling - Accepting Rent

Can anyone tell me how they go about collecting rents? Is there a division of responsbility? We have had problems in the past with employee's taking money orders that did not have the property name written in. We have signs posted asking that all money orders be fully completed but that doesn't always happen.

How does your property handle cash, money orders and accepting rent?

Thank you!

The best solution to this problem would be to have honest employees!

We have a drop box in the office door so payments can be left at any time. Above the drop box is a sign instructing residents to fill out their money orders completely. The inside of the drop box is only accessible with a key, and only two people have that key.

If someone forgets to fill out their money orders, I give them a copy of our payment policy and highlight the requirement to fill them out.


I tell residents that I will probably remember who each money order is from, but if something were to happen to be, my replacement would not know, so it's in their best interest to fill the money orders out completely.

Payment Policies:
•We do not accept cash for rent payments.
•We do not accept international currency or international money orders.
•We do not accept third party checks
•We do not accept rent from anyone other than Residents listed on the lease agreement
•We do not accept blank money orders; they must be filled out by the resident.
•We do not accept partial payments.
•We cannot accept more than one personal check per apartment per month.
•We cannot accept a combination of personal checks and money orders.
•Only one form of payment per month is accepted.
•Personal Checks must be filled out and signed by the resident.

Legally, a resident could probably force us to accept cash. But so far I've managed to convince everyone to protect their assets by using a safer method.

My previous property did not accept cash. We did allow ANYONE to pay the rent, after all we wanted the rent paid. For instance if the resident was not available to bring the money order or check in themselves and REFUSED to leave it in dropbox, then this option was helpful to the resident. However; any discussion of the rent or issues with regard to the apartment HAD to be done by the resident themselves. Unfortunately, despite my best attempts the management did not accept rental payments online :huh:

I wish we had online payment too. But even though a lot of residents ask for it and say they would use it, I don't think they would. The fees would have to be passed along to the resident and they wouldn't want to pay extra for the service. My auto insurance charges me a $5 fee every month because I use my banks online payment system instead of theirs.