Owner contributions can be paid manually, or owners can choose to pay a contribution online when they log into their rental owner portal.
In this article, you'll learn:
- How to enable and update owner contribution settings
- How to request a contribution from an owner
- How an owner pays online
- How to set up convenience fees for contributions
1. How to enable and update owner contribution settings
Owner contributions are only available to be paid electronically if the bank account they're being paid into is set up for ePay. To enable a rental owner to be able to pay contributions online:
- Navigate to Accounting, then select Banking.
- Click on the ePay-approved bank account you want to enable contributions on.
- From the transaction summary page, click the Payment settings tab.
- Under Incoming payments, you'll find Rental owners.
- Click Enable ePay and follow the prompt.
- On the next screen, you can enable all rental owners whose funds use this bank account to be able to pay contributions online, by clicking the checkboxes next to the EFT (ACH) and/or Credit and Debit Cards headers.
- If you'd like to select which owners to enable, you can select individual owners for either or both EFT and Credit Card by selecting the appropriate checkboxes to the right of their name.
- Next, you'll set your Owner Contribution convenience fee settings for EFT, Credit Card, or both.
- At this step, you can see what you'll be billed for the payment to your Buildium account, and will have the opportunity to recoup costs on transactions.
- Finally, you can let Buildium do the work of communicating this new way for your owners to make payments or, if you'd rather let them know yourself, you can choose to not have Buildium send any emails at this time.
If you'd like to manage your Rental Owners individual contribution ePay settings after setting up your bank account, you can always return to the bank account's Payment Settings tab. Alternatively, Owner Contribution ePay settings can also be found for each individual Rental Owner in Buildium.
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- Search for the Rental Owner by name, or navigate to Rentals, then Rental owners, and find and select them from the list.
- From the Rental Owner summary page, select the Financials tab.
- On the Financials summary page, click Contribution ePay settings, then click Edit to update the settings for that particular owner.
2. How to request a contribution from an owner
It's easy to request a contribution from a rental owner to cover a large repair cost or capital expense.
To request a contribution:
- Navigate to Tasks > All tasks.
- Then, click Add task, and select Rental owner request from the drop-down menu.
- Choose the rental owner you are requesting funds from, then enter the details in the subject line and description box.
- Complete the remainder of the form, then click Create task.
After the task has been created, the rental owner will be notified by email, and the message will also appear on their rental owner site.
3. How an owner pays online
A rental owner can pay online directly through their portal. Once logged in, there will be a Send Funds button on both the Financials page, and the Requests page.
When an owner clicks Send funds, they will be brought to a form to fill out their payment information.
The owner is required to select the property they are making a contribution to, then fill out the payment information.
Note: Payments can be made electronically by EFT/eCheck or Credit Card in the United States, but only by EFT/eCheck in Canada.
After the owner has filled in their payment details and a memo, they will click the Review button. They will be prompted to confirm the payment details are correct, and then will receive a confirmation by email once the funds have been sent.
Additionally, all staff members who currently receive email notifications with a daily digest of ePay transactions will be notified immediately via email when the contribution has been initiated, in addition to the contribution being included in the daily digest.
4. How to set up convenience fees for owner contributions
Just like with resident payments, you can set up convenience fees for owner contributions, too. A different fee can be set for each bank account enabled for ePay.
To set up convenience fees:
- Navigate to Accounting, then select Banking.
- Then, select the bank account you want to set up convenience fees in.
- From the transactions page, click the ePay settings tab.
- Click edit EFT/eCheck to add a fee for rental owners, which can be separate from the resident convenience fee you have in place.
- If you're accepting contributions by credit card, click Edit Credit card to set that type of fee.