RentPilot

The context

A firm managing a hundred rentals doesn't have a property problem: it has a calendar problem. Every month you have to collect a hundred times, apply the escalation to the leases hitting their anniversary, work out the late fee on whoever paid late, and pay out a hundred owners what's theirs after the commission, the HOA dues and the water heater repair. It gets done in a spreadsheet, and the mistake isn't caught when it happens: it's caught when an owner adds it up and gets a different number.

What the system does

• The month's screen is collections, not the property list: who paid, who didn't, and how much has to be disbursed. A rental system that opens on the listings is solving somebody else's problem
• The rent increase applies on the lease's date and not on the month's, because each lease hits its anniversary when it hits it. The system gives notice ahead of time, with the new number already worked out
• The late fee runs on its own from the day rent comes due, at the interest that lease states. It isn't a flat charge: it's a different lease per tenant and the one that was signed is the one that counts
• The owner statement shows the four deductions —commission, HOA dues, repairs, withholdings— and not just the net. An owner who can't rebuild the number calls, and that call is half an hour
• A repair that gets deducted needs its receipt uploaded before it can be deducted. It's the only way the statement doesn't get argued over later
• Renewals show up ninety days out, which is while there's still room to negotiate. Flagged the month before, the conversation is already lost
• And the receipt comes out of the same entry that records the payment. Two separate steps is how you reach the end of the month with receipts issued that nobody paid