Businesses of all sizes across Canada — including micro and side businesses — are leaving behind their inconvenient reliance on cheques and modernizing how they handle payments.
If you’re a landlord or property manager, you may want to join the trend and harness the advantages of digital payments for your business.
According to a survey of financial decision makers commissioned by Interac in June 2023, about six in 10 financial decision makers we canvassed across all industries believe cheques are an outdated payment method. Customers and vendors expect the convenience of digital or other forms of payment. About three quarters of businesses that we surveyed (74 per cent) expect to totally phase out cheques within the next five years.
(These insights and more are contained in an Interac report about the phaseout of cheques in the real estate and property management industry.)
Interac e-Transfer can help landlords modernize the way they handle payments, whether they’re managing one property or many. Taking a digital approach simplifies the process of receiving and sending money for you (and for your tenants, who may appreciate a more convenient way to pay).
And because you can track your transactions quickly and digitally, you can spend less time on accounting — while enjoying faster access to funds and better management of your cash flow.
Here are ways you can take advantage of Interac e-Transfer to bring efficiency and cost savings to the operation of income properties:
- Accepting rent payments
- Requesting payments
- Paying for services and contractors
- Sending payments to tenants
- Fraud protection
Accepting rent with Interac e-Transfer means you have access to the funds right away, without having to wait for cheques to clear. And Interac e-Transfer payments are on a “good funds” model — say goodbye to bounced rent cheques.
Electronic payment methods make for easier record-keeping, which is especially helpful if you’re managing multiple properties.
You can also recommend that tenants set up recurring Interac e-Transfer payments on the due date each month to avoid late or missed payments, if this feature is available through their financial institution. And to make collecting rent even easier, set up Interac e-Transfer Autodeposit and you’ll be able to accept funds without the need for a security question and answer.
(Note: You and/or your tenants can get in touch with their financial institution to inquire whether a limit increase is possible if necessary.)
Learn more about Interac e-Transfer Autodeposit
For tenants who are late or behind on rent, remind them to get caught up — and make it easy to follow through — by using Interac e-Transfer Request Money where available through your financial institution. It’s a feature that allows you to send a request for funds to someone if you know their email address or SMS number.
Learn how to use Interac e-Transfer Request Money
If you’re a landlord, you already know that you often have to pay for services like repairs, painting and building maintenance. Interac e-Transfer can help make those payments to other businesses easier — and less costly than cheques. It’s not uncommon for a commercial cheque to cost $15 to $25, so you can potentially reap significant savings from adopting digital payment methods like Interac e-Transfer (and Interac e-Transfer for Business, which enables payments of up to $25,000 per transaction), provided your suppliers and contractors accept it as a form of payment.
Learn more about how Interac e-Transfer can make business payments easier
You may have occasional payouts to tenants as well. For example, rent deposit interest and reimbursements for costs that tenants have incurred on your behalf (e.g. appliance repairs). Tenants will get their money right away if you use Interac e-Transfer rather than a cheque. This may also help you keep on top of cash flow — you won’t have to note the balance of outgoing cheques and keep the amount in your account until they clear.
Learn more about making payments with Interac e-Transfer
According to an Interac survey of financial decision makers in June 2023, security is one of the top motivations for embracing Interac e-Transfer for Business as a payment method. Among forms of payment, cheques are highly vulnerable to fraud attempts. Meanwhile Interac e-Transfer and Interac e-Transfer for Business provide multiple layers of digital security that are built in by design and executed in every transaction, including encryption and the Interac risk detection model. Each transaction is accessed through a financial institution and is secured by a robust set of security measures that protect commercial banking platforms, which could include multiple-factor authentication and secure passwords.
How else can Interac e-Transfer empower your small business?
