Partial bill pay: Let us help you spend your money

Marc Levetin
Marc Levetin | 3 min. read
Get the latest industry insights.

Published on April 29, 2015

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found that adding money to my bank account has been more fun than taking it out. Paying bills isn’t fun. While Buildium hasn’t released a product that eliminates the need to spend money  — paying expenses are a fact of life — we have built software that lets you pay your bills simply and how you want, and partial bill pay just added a whole bunch of flexibility to that process.

You’ve now got the ability to pay some, but not all, of a bill. So the next time you have to pay a contractor half up front and half upon completion, you can do it. Or if a job isn’t done to your satisfaction, you can negotiate a more appropriate amount and cut the appropriately-sized check from Buildium. And when there’s a crush of expenses for a property, and you can only pay a little bit down for now and a bit more when next month’s rent comes in, it’s easy.

We’ve already rolled out partial bill pay to a set of beta customers and the feedback has been superb. Here’s a smattering of comments we’ve received:

“I think the partial payment feature is wonderful, it saves me time because I don’t have to put in two bills and it also reduces the possibility of making addition errors.” ~ Cynthia Grimsley, A Better Choice Realty

 

“The best benefit for us is collecting leasing fees. We typically charge one month rent so we collect partial payment when the tenant doesn’t move in on the first of the month.  We no longer have to break the bill up into multiple bills!” ~ Nick Schilling, Sharper Management

 

“In the past we had to create multiple bills if we had a large contract and the vendor wanted us to put money down or make partial payments along the way. This helps remove the clutter and duplication in the billing process.” ~ Steve Alvarez, Empire Property Management Group LLC

Here are the highlights of how it works:

The Bills page now shows how much has been paid towards a bill and how much is left to pay:

Online partial bill pay 1

When you’re looking at a bill, we’ll show you any associated payments all on one page.  You can pay your bill from that same screen:

Online partial bill pay 2

When you pay your bill, you can choose how much to pay: just write the amount in the box and choose whether you’ll pay by check or by EFT: Yes Online partial bill pay 1 Online partial bill pay 2 Online partial bill pay 3 Online partial bill pay 4

Our unpaid bills reports – by vendor and by property – have been updated to show the remaining amounts as well:

Unpaid-vendor-bills

Read more on Buildium News
Marc Levetin

Marc Levetin is the co-author of Property Management Accounting.

Trending Stories For You
Scaling 11 property management KPIs you should be tracking
The property management industry is highly fragmented. Some companies have only a few employees, some operate independently, and others have massive portfolios. No matter your…
Amanda Maher
| 9 min. read
Associations 6 steps to airtight tracking for HOA violations
When a resident moves into an HOA or community association, they agree to follow a certain set of rules created by the board of directors.…
Laurie Mega
| 6 min. read
Maintenance & Improvements 15 HOA landscape maintenance tips to enhance your community’s curb appeal
Prospective buyers love walking into a beautifully renovated home—but it’s tough to get people in the door to see stunning interior improvements if they’re turned…
Amanda Maher
| 8 min. read

Be a more productive
property manager