How do I use payment coupons and lockbox files in Buildium?

Lockbox files are an alternative method of transferring payment information from your bank into Buildium.

Payment coupons are created for your residents, who send them along with their payment to your bank, who provides the lockbox service. Your bank will then create a data file for you of those payment records, which you can import directly into Buildium.

In this article, you'll learn how to:

1. Set up payment coupons for a lockbox file import
2. Import a lockbox file into Buildium

1. Set up payment coupons for a lockbox file import:

1. Navigate to Settings > Export Data and choose Payment Coupons.
   
2. Bring the export file to your bank, where the bank will create payment coupons according to our required information on the file.
   
3. The exported file assigns an account number to each of your residents, and when they make a payment using a coupon to your bank, that payment can be tied back to their Buildium account number.
4. After you receive the payment coupons from the bank, distribute them to your residents. When residents send payments to your bank, they’ll need to include the payment coupon with it.

2. Import a lockbox file into Buildium:

Once your bank starts receiving payments and payment coupons from residents, they will provide you with a lockbox file to import into Buildium.

To import a lockbox file:

1. Navigate to Settings > Import data.
   
2. Click Upload data file and choose Payments (lockbox).
   
   
   
   
3. In the pop-up window, scroll down to the Upload section. From here, click Upload, then choose the lockbox file.
   
4. Once uploaded, scroll to the top of the window and click Save.
   
5. Buildium will validate the file, and let you know if there are any errors. If all fields have been validated, a button will appear Import data.

It’s important to know there is NO going back once you’ve hit the “import data” button after validating the files. We do not have the ability to correct any information in bulk once it’s been imported, so you want to double or even triple check the files before you import. 

Once the lockbox file has been imported, the payments will appear as received on each resident’s ledger. You will need to navigate to Accounting > Banking in order to show these payments as deposited into the bank in Buildium.