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Getting Started with Buildium Part 2 - Collect Payments and Make Payments

Buildium Support - Ned Pricket

By Buildium Support

Get up and running with Buildium quickly so you can focus on more important things.

This is part 2 of a 4-part video series that will help you position Buildium as the backbone of your business.

The accounting cycle refers to the series of events that your financials go through each month. It’s important that each event is recorded in Buildium so that you can have an accurate picture of your real-world finances.

In this section, you'll learn how to:

    1. Collect payments
    2. Pay vendors
    3. Pay yourself
    4. Pay owners

Assignment #1:

Before you begin:

    • Collect all of the financial transactions that have occurred since your accounting start date (aka “line in the sand date”), so that you can follow along.

 

1. Collect payments

Collecting payments, like rent or association fees, is essential to the success of your business. In Buildium, there are two steps to collecting payments.

Step 1: Show that a payment has been received:

To show that a payment has been received, you’ll want to update the lease ledger. The lease ledger shows all of the charges and payments a resident makes.

To receive a tenant payment on the lease ledger:

    1. Type the resident’s name into the search bar and click Lease ledger next to their name.

    2. Select Receive payment.

    3. Complete the form.

    4. Adjust the date so it reflects the actual date you received payment. This is important to avoid any late fees being charged to the resident. We also recommend completing the memo field with as much information as possible.

    5. Select Save payment. You will see the resident’s payment reflected in their lease ledger.

Let’s say it’s the 3rd of the month, and you have a stack of checks that you’re ready to enter into Buildium. You can easily show all of those payments as received in bulk.

To receive payments in bulk:

    1. Navigate to Rentals > Outstanding balances.

    2. Check the box next to all of the payments you’ve received. 

    3. Then, click Receive payment in full at the bottom of the page. Note: this feature does not work on partial payments received.

Step 2: Show that a payment has been deposited into your bank account

    1. Navigate to Accounting > Banking.

    2. The payment that you’ve already marked as received will appear as Undeposited funds in the default bank account that you’ve specified for that property during setup.

    3. Click into that bank account, and select Record deposit.

    4. Complete the form. You can adjust the bank account you want to make a deposit to, if needed.

    5. Adjust the date to reflect the actual date that you deposited checks at the bank.

    6. You can select multiple undeposited payments for deposit at once. Just be sure that whatever you do in Buildium reflects what happened in the real world.

    7. Click Save.

The payment you’ve received has now been added to your total bank balance.


Assignment #2: Save time with online payments.


You can get through these two steps much quicker if you enable ePay. With ePay, residents can pay rent online via credit card or EFT—they can even schedule automatic monthly payments. When tenants pay with ePay, the transaction is automatically posted to the lease ledger and it gets deposited right into your bank account so you can skip these two steps altogether.


To learn more about ePay, click here

Before you move on, make sure you’re comfortable with the key concepts in Assignment #3:

Assignment #3:

    • The lease ledger is where a resident’s financial transactions are documented.
    • Showing payments as received is what helps keep track of delinquent tenants.
    • Dates in Buildium should always reflect what is happening in the real world.  
    • Always include as much information as possible (detailed memos, check #’s)
    • Payments that have been received but not deposited are undeposited funds.
    • Showing payments as deposited is what helps keep track of your real-world financials. 

 

2. Pay vendors

Before you pay any vendors, we recommend adding them to Buildium.

Click here to learn how to add vendors to Buildium.

Assignment #4:

Before you move on:

          • Add your vendors to Buildium.


Click here to learn how to add vendors to Buildium.

Once your vendors are in the system, start by keeping track of your bills.

To enter a bill:

    1. Navigate to Accounting > Bills.

    2. Click Record bill.

    3. Select the date you received the bill along with the bill due date.

    4. Include as much information as possible, and click Save. The bill will appear on the bill page automatically. 

When it’s time to pay, click the bill to view it. Select Pay bill. Be sure to select the correct bank account and date, and click Pay bill.

If you have an expense that is not a bill, like a receipt from the hardware store, you can keep track of it by navigating to Accounting > Banking. Click to open the appropriate bank account, and select Record check.

3. Pay yourself

If you provide management services to property owners, the fees you collect are fuel for growing your business. There are three steps to collecting management fees and paying yourself:

If you only manage properties that you own, you can skip this step entirely.

A management fee is income for you, but it is an expense for the property owner.

To mark the payment as an expense on a property’s books:

    1. Navigate to Shortcuts > Collect management fees.

    2. Select the period start and end dates.

    3. Select the property that you’d like to bill in the Pay from field, and select your company as a vendor in the Pay to field.

      If you've already identified your management fee settings, the system will automatically calculate how much money is owed to your management company.

    4. Adjust the date to reflect the date that the payment was made, and hit Save.

Once you hit save, the system will create a management fee expense check paid to your company for the cost of your management services.

If you’re tracking the books for your company in Buildium, check out the link below to see how you can track management fees as income for you and your business using our company financials feature.

Click here to learn more about tracking Company Financials

Assignment #5:

Before you move on, make sure you’re comfortable with these key concepts:

    • Paying yourself is income to you, but it is an expense to the property owner.
    • Collecting management fees shows an expense to the owner.
    • Recording a deposit under Company financials shows income to your company.
    • A management income account refers to a type of income that goes directly to your business.

 

4. Pay owners

Before you pay your property owners, you’ll want to double check your monthly financial transactions. You can do this by running a Rental Owner Statement.

To run a Rental Owner Statement:

    1. Navigate to Reports and select Rental Owner Statement.

    2. Find the owner or property in the Properties drop down menu.

    3. Select your date range, contents (we recommend including both income statement and transaction details for now), and layout.

    4. Click Run report.

On the first page of the Rental Owner Statement, you can see all of your incoming and outgoing money. Page two shows net income, and page three shows the month’s transactions in more detail.

If everything looks good, you’re ready to pay your rental owner.

    1. Navigate to Shortcuts > Owner Draw.

    2. Select a rental owner and bank account from the drop down menus.

    3. Place a check next to the property you’d like to pay out.

    4. Add a check number and be sure the Payment date reflects when the payment was made in the real world. Click Save.

    5. Once you hit Save, the system will create a check written to the property owner to cover the owner draw.

Assignment #6:


Now that you’ve completed Part 2: Collect Payments and Make Payments, take some time to familiarize yourself with the accounting cycle.

Once you’ve had some practice with collecting payments and making payments in Buildium, you’ll be ready for Part 3: Streamline Your To-do List.

 

Check out the other videos in the Getting Started with Buildium series

Getting Started with Buildium part 1 - Set up your Buildium account

Getting started with Buildium part 3 - Streamline your to-do list

Getting Started with Buildium part 4 - Market and fill vacancies

 

Article #: 221613928

 

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