Collect rent by auto-pay

Auto-pay lets you collect rent automatically each month via Pre-Authorized Debit (PAD). Once a tenant authorizes a one-time mandate through Stripe, their rent — and any other charges you've added to the lease — is debited from their bank account on the day it's due.

Key facts at a glance:

• Plan availability — The Growth and Business plans. See the pricing page for what each costs
• Geography — Canada only, in CAD
• Payment rail — Stripe ACSS Debit (Pre-Authorized Debit, governed by Payments Canada Rule H1)
• Platform fee — Flat $1.99 CAD per successful payment, paid by the landlord, deducted from the payout. A month's rent and charges come out in one debit, so it is one fee
• Timing — A debit takes about 5 business days to clear, and then the money is paid out to your bank. That's a banking timeline, not a TenantSee one
• Failed charges — Not auto-retried by Stripe (PAD limitation). You'll be emailed and can re-attempt manually
• Dispute window — Personal-account tenants have 90 days under Rule H1 to dispute with no questions asked
• Bank details — Stripe holds the mandate and banking credentials; TenantSee never sees raw account numbers, only the bank name and last 4 digits

Setting up auto-pay

Before you can invite tenants, you need to connect your company to Stripe Connect — Stripe's onboarding flow that verifies your business and links a payout bank account.

1. Go to Settings → Rent collection. Only the company owner can connect the Stripe account, since rent is paid out to it
2. Under Stripe account, choose Connect Stripe
3. Read Before you connect: a few things to know (the platform fee, settlement timing and the 90-day PAD dispute window, covered below) and choose I Understand
4. Complete Stripe's onboarding flow. Stripe will ask for:
   • Business details (name, address, tax ID)
   • Personal details for representatives, owners, or directors (Stripe is required to collect these by Canadian financial regulations)
   • A bank account where payouts will be deposited
5. When Stripe sends you back, the Stripe account section shows one of these states:
   • Finish connecting Stripe — You started but didn't finish. Choose Continue Setup to pick up where you left off
   • Stripe needs a few more details — Stripe needs more information before you can collect rent. Choose Add Details
   • Stripe has paused your account — Stripe flagged something. Choose Resolve in Stripe
   • Collecting rent by auto-pay — You're ready to invite tenants

Inviting a tenant to auto-pay

Once your account is active, invite each tenant individually:

1. Go to Payments → Auto-pay (or open the lease and choose Set up auto-pay)
2. Choose Invite a tenant
3. Pick the person and their lease. A lease has one auto-pay, so if someone on it already has it, you can't invite another person (see Auto-Pay on a Shared Lease). A lease whose rent is split is paid by hand and can't be invited at all
4. Confirm and send

The tenant receives an email with a unique link (valid for 7 days) that walks them through:

1. Confirming the email address you sent the invite to
2. A redirect to a secure Stripe Checkout page
3. Selecting their bank and authorizing the PAD mandate

After the tenant completes the flow, one of two things happens:

• Instant verification — The mandate is verified immediately and the tenant is set up.
• Micro-deposit verification — Stripe sends two small deposits (typically arriving in 1–2 business days) and emails the tenant a verification link. If the verification fails or times out, you're notified and need to send a new invitation.

You'll see the tenant's auto-pay state on their lease card, with one of these statuses:

How charges work

Once auto-pay is active for a tenant:

• A charge is created on the day rent is due (we run a daily job at 06:00 UTC)
• The charge is submitted to the tenant's bank as a Pre-Authorized Debit
• Status starts as Processing and usually takes about 5 business days to clear
• When the bank confirms, status flips to Settled, and the money is then paid out to your connected bank account

Every charge appears on the Payments page (with source Online (Stripe)) and is also visible on the rent invoice and the Auto-pay tab of Payments.

What auto-pay collects

Auto-pay debits a tenant's monthly rent charge: the rent plus the other charges on that month (parking, storage and so on — see Charges Beyond Rent).

• One debit a month, on the due date. The rent, the lease's recurring charges and any one-time charge added to that month come out together, with one platform fee. A one-time charge is never debited on its own: it comes out with the month it was added to.
• The tenant is told first. When a month's rent charge includes charges beyond rent, the tenant gets an email with the debit date, their bank account and a breakdown of the amount. The charges go into the debit only once that email has gone out, and the debit never takes more than the amount in it. If the email can't be sent by the due date (an address that can't be emailed, say), auto-pay debits the rent only that day and the charges stay for you to collect yourself. They show as owed, like any unpaid rent. The email is a courtesy so the tenant isn't surprised.
• The amount in the email is a limit. After it goes out, a change that lowers the month (a charge removed, a rent cut) still applies, and a change that would take it past that amount waits for the next month, or you collect it by hand. Once a month's debit is on its way or has gone through, you can still add a one-time charge to it (damage found at move-out, say) and collect that by hand.
• A part-paid month is debited for the rest. If the tenant paid part of the month another way first (an e-Transfer for the parking, say), auto-pay debits only what's left, and the email shows what was already paid. A payment you've recorded as on its way (a cheque, say) doesn't hold auto-pay back: it debits what's still owed after that payment. Money that arrives after the email makes the debit smaller, never larger.
• One debit per month. If a debit comes out smaller than the month, or fails, auto-pay doesn't try again for that month. You record the rest as a manual payment, or retry a failed debit yourself. A retry takes the money from the same person auto-pay would: someone living in the unit who has auto-pay switched on. If the person who set it up has moved out, or turned it off, TenantSee tells you there is nobody to debit and you record the payment by hand. If less than $2.49 is left, nothing is debited; record it by hand.
• Older agreements cover rent only. A tenant who set up auto-pay before charges existed authorized rent only. For them auto-pay debits the rent and leaves the charges for you to collect by hand, and the tenant's auto-pay page says so. To collect charges by auto-pay, cancel their auto-pay and send a new invitation: the new agreement reads "Monthly rent and other charges under your lease, on the Nth of each month".

Auto-pay on a shared lease

A lease can have several people on it, but it has one auto-pay, held by one person. That person is the payer.

• One payer, the whole amount. The month's rent charge, rent and any other charges, comes out of the payer's bank account in one debit, whoever else is on the lease. The lease card says who holds it, and the invitation to set it up goes to that one person.
• Auto-pay or a split, not both. A lease is either split (you record each person's payment by hand) or on auto-pay (one person's authorization pays the whole amount). While anyone on the lease has auto-pay, Split Rent is off and the lease card says why; cancel the auto-pay first. While the rent is split, the lease card offers no auto-pay invitation and says so: choose Stop Splitting first. An invitation sent before a split can't be completed after it, and the tenant sees that this lease is paid by hand. Auto-pay for each person's own share is not available yet.
• Everyone else on the lease (co-tenants and guarantors) can't set up their own. A new person added to the lease doesn't get one, and an invitation to a second person is turned away. A guarantor can't be invited at all.
• The payer is told. The invitation email, the setup page and the heads-up before a debit all say that, on a shared lease, the whole amount comes out of the payer's account and not just their share.
• If the payer moves out, auto-pay stops collecting once they have gone, and the lease card says so. Rent carries on while anyone else stays: invite someone who is staying to set up theirs. If the payer is a co-tenant you want to make a guarantor, cancel their auto-pay first.
• Cancelling stops it for everyone. If the payer cancels, or you do, nobody on the lease is debited until a new invitation is accepted.
• One fee per debit. The platform fee is for the debit, not per person on the lease.

Fees & what comes out of your payout

For each successful auto-pay charge:

The platform fee is not kept when:

• A charge fails (no fee is ever charged on a failed attempt)
• You issue a refund in TenantSee (proportional return — a partial refund returns part of the fee)

If a tenant's bank reverses a debit through a dispute, the platform fee is not reversed; see Disputes.

The platform fee is never charged on manual payments — only on auto-pay charges that successfully settle.

Failed payments

Pre-Authorized Debit charges can fail for several reasons:

• Insufficient funds (NSF) — Tenant's bank account didn't have enough balance
• Mandate revoked — Tenant cancelled the auto-pay authorization with their bank
• Account closed — Tenant's bank account no longer exists
• Bank rejection — Other reasons specific to the tenant's bank

Important: Stripe does not automatically retry failed PAD charges. This is a Canadian banking rule, not a TenantSee choice. When a charge fails:

1. Both you and the tenant receive an email immediately
2. The rent invoice stays unpaid
3. The payment record shows status Failed
4. You decide what to do next:
   • Manually retry the charge from the rent invoice (after the tenant tells you the underlying issue is fixed)
   • Accept payment another way (cash, e-transfer, cheque) and record it as a manual payment
   • Cancel and re-invite if the mandate has been revoked

No platform fee is charged on a failed attempt.

Refunds

You can refund any settled auto-pay charge:

1. Open the rent invoice for the charge
2. Click Issue Refund
3. Choose Full or Partial and confirm

The refund is sent through Stripe back to the tenant's bank account. The platform fee is reversed proportionally. The payment status flips to Refunded when Stripe confirms (typically within a few business days).

Disputes

Tenants on personal bank accounts have a 90-day window under Payments Canada Rule H1 to dispute a PAD debit with their bank — no questions asked. If a dispute is filed:

1. The payment status flips to Disputed
2. Stripe takes the disputed amount and its dispute fee from your Stripe balance straight away
3. You receive an urgent email and a notification with the tenant, unit, rent period, amount and the bank's stated reason

Pre-Authorized Debit disputes can't be contested. There is no evidence to submit and no deadline to meet: the tenant's bank decides, the decision is final, and Stripe doesn't refund the dispute fee. When the dispute closes, the payment is marked Refunded and the rent invoice may show as unpaid again. TenantSee does not reverse its platform fee on a disputed payment.

If the debit was a mistake, talk to your tenant. If they agree to return the money, it has to come as a new payment.

Cancelling auto-pay

Either side can cancel a mandate:

• The tenant can cancel at any time through their bank — that's a Payments Canada rule we can't override. When they do, Stripe notifies us and the status flips to Auto-pay cancelled.
• You (the landlord) can cancel an active mandate from the lease's auto-pay panel.

When a mandate is cancelled, no future charges will run. To re-enable auto-pay for that lease, you need to send a new invitation — the tenant will go through Stripe Checkout again to authorize a new mandate.

Disconnecting your Stripe account

If you want to stop offering auto-pay entirely:

1. Cancel any active mandates from each affected lease
2. Go to Settings → Rent collection
3. Under Stripe account, choose Disconnect Stripe
4. Type DISCONNECT to confirm

What tenants see

When you invite a tenant to auto-pay, here's what they experience:

1. Invitation email — A single link that expires in 7 days
2. Email confirmation step — Tenant confirms the email the invite was sent to (security check)
3. Stripe Checkout — Tenant selects their bank, signs in with their bank credentials (handled entirely by Stripe), and authorizes the PAD mandate
4. Verification — Either instant, or 1–2 business days of micro-deposit verification followed by a Stripe-emailed link
5. Confirmation email — Tenant receives a "you're all set" email with the bank name and last 4 digits on file
6. Monthly debit — Rent, and any other charges on the lease, are debited automatically. When a month includes charges the tenant is emailed the amount and date first. Tenant sees the debit on their bank statement. On a shared lease it is the whole amount from the one person who set it up, and the invitation and setup page say so

TenantSee never sees raw bank account numbers. Stripe collects, verifies, and stores all banking credentials directly. We only see the bank name and the last 4 digits.

If a tenant has questions about cancelling, disputing, or the mandate itself, point them at Set up auto-pay as a tenant.

Troubleshooting

"My tenant didn't receive the invitation email." Check that the email address on file is correct, then resend the invitation from the lease's auto-pay panel. Invitation links expire after 7 days.

"The tenant clicked the link but it says 'expired' or 'already used'." Send a new invitation — invitation tokens are single-use and expire in 7 days.

"Charges aren't running on the day rent is due." Confirm the lease's rent due date and that the mandate status is Auto-pay active (not pending or verifying). Charges run once per due rent invoice — if a previous attempt is still pending or has already settled, a new charge won't run.

"The debit was less than the rent charge's total." Either the tenant paid part of the month another way first, or their agreement covers rent only (an older one). Open the rent charge's breakdown to see what's still owed, and record that payment by hand when you collect it. See What Auto-Pay Collects.

"A charge I added isn't in this month's debit." Once a month's amount has been emailed to the tenant it can't go up, so the charge starts with the next month, or you can collect it by hand. The debit also leaves out the charges if the email couldn't be sent by the due date.

"A charge keeps failing." There's no auto-retry. The tenant needs to address the underlying issue (top up the account, reauthorize a new mandate, etc.) before you re-attempt the charge manually.

"Stripe is asking for more information." Open the Stripe Dashboard and complete whatever Stripe is requesting. The Stripe account section of Settings → Rent collection shows what Stripe needs and links you to Stripe.

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