Buildium’s online rental application makes collecting applicant information easy. Whenever someone fills out your application, their information will appear in Buildium automatically, and you’ll be able to sort, filter, and screen applicants in just a few clicks.
In this article, you’ll learn how to:
1. Customize your rental application
Only administrators immediately have access to customize rental applications. To enable this ability for any other staff member, an administrator can edit user roles to enable Administrative settings, with view and edit access to Application settings.
To customize a rental application:
- Navigate to Settings > Application settings.
- Then, click Rental applications.
The rental application in Buildium is comprised of sections and question fields. A section is a grouping of similar question fields.
For example, your rental application may have a section entitled, “Pets”. Inside the pets section, there are a series of questions, such as: how many pets you own, the type or species of pet, names, age, favorite treat, and so on. - Click Add section to customize the default list to suit your company’s application requirements. Choose a pre-made section, or create your own.
- Reorder the sections of your application by dragging and dropping the section name. To remove a section, click the x to the right of the section name.
- Click on each section to customize the fields within it. You can add an instruction area to tell applicants how to fill out this specific section, as well as indicate if the answers to the question fields are optional or required.
- When adding fields, the Field types, appearing to the right of the 'label' column, define the type of answer you’re looking for from an applicant
For instance, when asking for the applicant’s name, you are looking for an answer that provides the applicant’s “Full Name”. If you ask whether the applicant has pets, you can have them complete the question by answering yes or no with a radio button.
Keep in mind that the field type selected will set parameters on what type of information is entered. If you select a field type for a phone number, the applicant will not be able to enter any non-numerical text in this section. To add a non-determined field type, select Text single line or Text multiple line. - As you edit and save sections, you’ll have the option to Preview application, Undo changes, or Publish changes.
2. Choose display settings
Display settings allow you to add images to the header and footer of your rental application, which is a great way to display your company’s affiliations, logos, or other desired images.
To choose display settings:
- Click Edit display settings under the Display settings header.
- Fill out the form by selecting a title, and uploading any logos or images in the header and footer sections.
- Click Save.
3. Set an application fee
Before you go live with your rental application, indicate if you charge an application fee. Buildium only supports one type of application fee, you cannot set a separate, lesser fee for applicants who are applying together.
To set an application fee:
- Navigate to Settings > Application Settings.
- Then, click on Rental application.
- From the rental application page, click the Fee tab.
- Indicate the amount you want to charge as a fee by clicking the pencil icon next to the word FREE, and entering an amount.
- Once you’ve set the amount of the fee, select the payment methods you accept by clicking Edit payment methods.
- From here, you can select which bank account you would like the application fees to default to. If you select a bank account that is enabled for epay, you have the option to take in your application fees by EFT/eCheck or credit card.
| Article #: | 201013807 |