Automate your rent collection process with Stessa Rent Pay. Free yourself of all the hassles related to collecting rent with Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, cash, and paper checks. Get paid the right amount at the right time, and track everything in one place.

In order to collect rent through Stessa, you first need to establish a Stessa Cash Management account to receive funds from your tenants. It's a checking account that can be opened entirely online, in your personal name or in the name of your property ownership entity, partnership, LLC, etc. Just log in to your Stessa account and navigate to the Cash Management page to get started. Some applications are approved immediately while others require additional documentation and follow-up.

For more info on Cash Management, check out the Stessa Checking Accounts FAQ article. Once you've established a Cash Management account, read on to learn how to enable rent collection for one, many, or all tenants across your entire portfolio.

To start collecting rent with Stessa, first visit your Leases & Tenants page. Click through to the tenancy details for the unit/tenant you want to enable for rent collection. Make sure you have a valid name and email address for the chosen tenant. Assuming you've already set up a Cash Management account, you'll now see that the "Enable Rent Collection" button is available at the top of the tenant ledger, just to the right of the "Current Balance."

Before clicking this button, take a closer look at your tenant ledger and make sure everything is up to date. This ledger determines the balance due that will be reflected in any payment requests sent to your tenant. Once satisfied that the amount is accurate, click the button and proceed through the prompts to invite your tenant to Stessa Rent Pay.

Stessa Rent Pay is available to tenants on an invitation-only basis. If you've generated the email invitation but your tenant can't find the email or says they didn't receive it, please ask your tenant to take a closer look at their spam (and other folders) for "Stessa Rent Pay." It's also a good idea to confirm that you have your tenant's most current email address on file!

What if it's been more than 5 days since I sent the invitation email?

While it's true that the special link in the email expires after 5 days, the invitation is still valid. Your tenant can simply click the big blue "Get Started" button in the email and follow the instructions to generate a new link to log in and register for Stessa Rent Pay.

Before your tenant can make a rent payment, they'll need to connect a valid bank account. Stessa Rent Pay uses Plaid to validate banking credentials and connect directly to whichever checking or savings account(s) your tenant would like to use to pay rent. Once completed, your tenant can pay rent seamlessly via ACH and with no additional fees.

As a landlord, you can expect to see funds available in your Stessa checking account within 3-5 business days. There are currently no fees when your tenant uses a one-time ACH payment to pay rent through Stessa. Other methods will be introduced in the future and these may have associated fees and/or different deposit timelines.

If your tenant runs into trouble getting their preferred bank account connected, they can simply click the blue circle at the lower right to open a 1:1 support conversation. Our team will take a closer look and get back to your tenant with the next steps.

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Stessa will automatically send a reminder email to your tenant every month, about ten (10) days in advance of the rent payment due date. Another payment request will go out on the due date showing the current balance due alongside a link to make the payment. Note that early rent payments are not accepted more than ten (10) days before the due date.

Payments Methods Not Currently Supported

Credit card payments are not supported at this time. We expect to add this ability in the near future.

Paper Checks

Paper check payments are available via mobile app.

Your tenant may need to refresh their banking credentials and/or reconnect their bank account from time to time. This is often the result of security protocols put in place by the bank. To refresh, remove, or add a new bank connection, you can direct your tenant to visit https://tenant.stessa.com and follow the instructions.

Timeline for ACH Payments

When paying by direct bank transfer (ACH), it may take up to 5 business days for your tenant's payment to settle into your Stessa cash management account. If you prefer to receive your rent on the 1st of the month, you may want to direct your tenant to complete payment well before the 1st of each month, based on the 10-day "heads up" email that Stessa sends automatically each month.

A tenant's rent payment may not go through successfully for any number of reasons, including insufficient funds in the source account, a stopped payment, a closed bank account, or various other reasons. When this happens, your tenant will receive email notification of the failed payment. If the first payment fails, Stessa Rent Pay will not automatically try again. Your tenant will first need to correct the problem and then initiate a new payment attempt.

A brief ledger of past charges and payments is provided for your tenant's reference, but if the balance shown on this Stessa Rent Pay page appears incorrect, you and your tenant will need to resolve the discrepancy. Then you'll need to make the necessary adjustments to your tenant ledger via the Leases & Tenants page. Your tenant will then see the new corrected balance due in Stessa Rent Pay the next time they log in to make a payment.

If you need further assistance or have questions that aren't already answered in the Help Center, feel free to open a new support conversation by clicking the blue circle at lower right once you're logged in at https://app.stessa.com.