Record payments and charges

TenantSee provides a centralized payment tracking system so you can record rent payments, monitor payment history, track payment statuses, and keep organized records across all your properties. The dashboard also alerts you to overdue payments so nothing slips through the cracks.

There are two ways money can land in your records:

• Manual payments — anything you record yourself (cash, e-transfer, cheque, bank transfer, or other). Available free on every plan, including the free Hobby tier.
• Auto-pay (Pre-Authorized Debit) — rent is debited automatically from your tenant's bank account each month via Stripe. Available on the Growth plan and above. A flat $1.99 CAD platform fee, paid by you, applies to each successful auto-pay charge. See Collect rent by auto-pay for the full setup walkthrough.

Recording a manual payment

To record a payment you've received outside the platform:

1. Navigate to Payments in the sidebar
2. Click the + button
3. Select the Tenant and Unit
4. Enter the Amount and choose a Payment Source
5. Select a Category — defaults to Rent. Choose Deposit, Late Fee, Utility, or Other as appropriate.
6. Choose a Status — defaults to Settled for payments already received. Set to Processing for expected payments not yet collected.
7. Optionally set a Due Date for the payment
8. If the status is Settled, you can optionally set the Date Paid
9. Add a Description (e.g., "January rent — e-transfer")
10. Save the payment

Payment sources

Payment statuses

Every payment has a status that reflects its current state:

Manual payments default to Settled, which works well for recording payments you've already received. Use Processing when you want to track an expected payment before it arrives.

Payment categories

Every payment can be assigned a category to help organize your records:

New payments default to Rent. You can change the category when creating or editing a payment. Categories appear in the Payments table and can be used to filter your records.

A Rent payment pays the tenant's monthly rent charge, including any charges you've added to it. The other categories are for money you record outside that monthly charge.

Charges beyond rent

Parking, storage, utilities, a replacement key, a repair — anything on top of the rent can be added to a tenant's lease and rides on their monthly rent charge. The tenant sees one amount due with a breakdown of what it includes, and you collect it the way you collect rent: by hand, or with auto-pay. Charges are available on every plan.

Adding a charge

1. Open the tenant's page and find the Other charges card (it's also on the unit's Financial tab)
2. Click Add Charge
3. Choose Recurring (added to every monthly rent charge from the month you pick) or One-time (added to a single month's rent charge, with no due date of its own)
4. Pick a Category, enter a Name and an Amount. The tenant sees the name on their rent charge and receipt.
5. For a recurring charge, choose the First month and, if you know it, the Last month. For a one-time charge, choose the Month.
6. Click Add Charge

If you've set up an amenity such as parking, From an amenity fills in its name and price to save typing. Assigning an amenity to a building or unit never bills anything by itself: a charge exists only once you add it to a lease.

A lease needs a rent and a rent due day before it can take charges, because they join the monthly rent charge. You can also add a one-time charge from Payments → Rent: open the menu on a rent charge and choose Add One-Time Charge.

Which months a charge reaches

• Whole months, no proration. Charges are for the whole month, the same as rent. To bill part of a month, add a one-time charge for the amount you want and start the recurring charge the month after.
• A recurring charge starts this month or later. Earlier months have already been billed, so they stay as they were.
• A one-time charge joins this month, a later month, or a tenant's last month once they've moved out (for damage you find after they leave). Earlier months can't take one.
• A change touches only that charge. Editing, ending or deleting a charge changes that charge's line on the rent charges it reaches. The rest of a rent charge stays as it was billed.
• Auto-pay limits what can change. Once the tenant has been emailed a month's auto-pay amount, that month can still go down, and it can go up only while what's left to collect stays within that amount: a change that would take it past the amount starts with 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 it by hand. After you save, TenantSee names any months it couldn't change and why. A month the tenant has already paid more than the change would leave is left alone for the same reason.

Editing, ending and deleting

Use the menu on a charge in the Other charges card:

• Edit changes its name, category, amount or months
• End stops a recurring charge after this month
• Delete takes a recurring charge off the rent charges it reaches, or a one-time charge off its month

What your role isn't allowed to do isn't shown. Adding a charge needs permission to create payments, editing or ending it to update them, and deleting it to delete them.

On the Rent tab and when you mark rent paid

A rent charge that includes charges shows its total with + $X charges underneath. Click it to see the breakdown: the rent, each charge and the total. Mark Paid reads Mark rent and charges paid and fills in the whole amount still owed.

When money comes in against a rent charge, TenantSee counts it toward the rent first and then toward each charge in the order it was added. A tenant who pays only the rent shows the rent as paid and the charges as still owed, and a receipt lists what each payment went to.

A late month or a failed auto-pay debit never adds a charge for you. If you charge a fee, add it yourself as a one-time charge.

Splitting rent between roommates

When several people are on one lease, the rent is still one monthly charge. Split Rent says who pays how much of it, so you can see who has paid and who hasn't. Shares are fixed amounts, and they always add up to the monthly rent exactly. Split rent is available on every plan.

Splitting the rent

1. Open the tenant's page, or the unit's page, and find the lease card
2. Click Split Rent (it appears once the lease has a rent and more than one person on it, and it is off while anyone on the lease has auto-pay: cancel that first)
3. Tick the people who pay. Everyone living there starts ticked with an even share.
4. Type each person's share, or click Split Evenly. Any leftover cents go to the lease holder.
5. Watch the line under the list: it says how much is left to give out, or how much is over. Split Rent is available once the shares add up to the rent.

A guarantor can pay a share too, for example a parent who covers part of the rent. Someone with a move-out date can't be given a share. To change who pays what later, click Edit Split on the lease; Stop Splitting puts the whole rent back on the lease.

On the lease, each person's share shows beside their name. Before you record a paying person's move-out, remove them, or change their role, give their share to someone else in Split Rent.

A person you've left out of the split can still owe their share of a month already billed that nobody has paid. Until it is paid, or someone else has covered it, you can't remove them, change their role, or delete them as a tenant, and TenantSee names the months. If a person who pays a share deletes their TenantSee account, they stay on the lease and what they owe stays owed. Nothing is sent to them: give their share to someone else in Split Rent, or record the money.

What a split changes

• It's still one charge. Rent is paid when the payments from everyone reach the amount due. Overdue, Owed and the figures on your dashboard count the whole charge, never the shares added up.
• This month and later. The new shares reach this month's and later months' rent charges that nothing has touched. A month with a payment or an auto-pay debit on it keeps the shares it had, and earlier months are left as they were. After you save, TenantSee names the months it left alone.
• A different rent needs new shares. If you change the monthly rent of a split lease in Edit Lease, the form asks for each person's share of the new rent, and saves them together.
• Charges beyond rent can be billed to one person. On a split lease, Add Charge has a Billed to choice. The charge is added to that person's share. Without one, it goes to the lease holder.
• No auto-pay while split. A split lease is paid by hand: you record each person's payment, and TenantSee shows who has paid and who hasn't. A lease is either split or on auto-pay, never both. Split Rent is off while anyone on the lease has auto-pay, and the lease card offers no auto-pay invitation while the rent is split. To switch, cancel the auto-pay, or choose Stop Splitting. See Auto-Pay on a Shared Lease.

Who has paid

On Payments → Rent, a split charge shows Split 2 ways under the names. Click it to see each person's share and where it stands: Paid, Processing, Due today, Upcoming or Overdue. The charge's own status above it is still the truth. A person reads Paid when someone else's payment covered their share, too.

• Mark Paid lists the people who still owe something, each with the amount it will record. Everyone starts ticked; untick the people who haven't paid. Each ticked person gets their own payment, and a receipt if you leave Email a receipt to each person recorded ticked.
• Record a Different Payment, at the bottom of Mark Paid, records one payment for any one person on the lease, whether or not they pay a share. The amount starts at what is left of their own share, or at what the month still lacks when theirs is paid. Type a different amount to record a roommate covering another's share, or a payment from someone who pays no share, up to what the month still lacks. It is recorded under the person you pick, for that month.
• Record Payment on a person's page works one person at a time too, and the amount starts at their own share. With no month named, it goes to the first month their own share is still owing.
• Money from outside the split. A payment from someone who pays no share, or more than a person's own share, goes toward the people who still owe: the lease holder first, then the others in the order they're listed. A $900 payment from someone with no share pays the holder's $900 and leaves the next person late for theirs, and reminders ask only for what is missing.
• Reminders go only to the people whose share is late, each with the amount they owe.

What roommates see

On their Home page, a person who pays part of the rent sees Your share (for example $900 of $1,800) with their own status, and each roommate's name with one status: Paid, On its way, Due or Late. They never see a roommate's amount, payments or bank details. A person who pays no part of the rent sees where the household stands (for example, that the month's rent is late) without any amount.

Editing a payment

To update a manual payment after it's been created:

1. Navigate to the payment's detail page (click any row in the Payments table)
2. Click the Edit Payment button
3. Update any fields — status, amount, payment source, category, due date, description, or date paid
4. Save your changes

Refunds (Auto-pay)

For auto-pay charges that have settled, you can issue a full or partial refund through the rent invoice:

1. Navigate to 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 $1.99 platform fee is automatically reversed in proportion to the refund amount. You'll see the payment status flip to Refunded as soon as Stripe confirms.

Disputes (Auto-pay)

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

• The payment status flips to Disputed
• Stripe takes the disputed amount and its dispute fee from your Stripe balance
• You'll receive an urgent email with the dispute reason and amount

Pre-Authorized Debit disputes can't be contested, and the bank's decision is final. When the dispute closes, the payment is marked Refunded. TenantSee does not reverse its platform fee on a disputed payment.

See Auto-Pay Rent Collection for what to do next.

Overdue payments

When a payment has a due date in the past and hasn't been marked as Settled, Refunded, or otherwise resolved, it's considered overdue. TenantSee surfaces these on your Rental Dashboard as a warning alert showing:

• The tenant's name
• The building and unit
• The amount owed
• How many days overdue

Click any entry to go directly to the payment detail page where you can update its status.

Rent reminders

To remind a tenant about late rent yourself, select the charge on Payments → Rent and choose Send Reminder. They get an alert in TenantSee and an email, at most once every three days per charge.

On the Starter plan and up, TenantSee can send reminders for you. Turn them on under Settings → Rent collection → Rent reminders:

• Before rent is due — 3 days before the due date
• When rent is late — 1, 7 and 14 days after the due date, while it's still unpaid

Rent that auto-pay will collect, and payments already on their way, never get a reminder. If auto-pay will take only the rent (an older agreement covers rent only, or the amount email couldn't be sent), the tenant is still reminded about the rest, and the reminder asks for just that amount. To leave one lease out (a payment arrangement, say), untick Send automatic rent reminders for this lease in its Edit Lease. Tenants can turn the emails off in their own notification settings.

Receipts

When you record a payment as settled or mark rent paid, leave Email a receipt to the tenant ticked and they get a receipt by email, with a link to the payment where they can download the PDF. Untick it when you're entering an old payment. Auto-pay payments send a receipt when they settle, and a payment you mark settled after it was on its way (a cheque that cleared) sends one then. Each payment's receipt goes out once; its page shows when.

Viewing payment history

Payment history is accessible from multiple places throughout the app:

Filtering and searching

The Payments page offers several filters to help you find specific records:

• Search — Filter by description text
• Tenant — Show payments for a specific tenant
• Building — Show payments for a specific building
• Status — Filter by payment status (Processing, Settled, Failed, Refunded, Disputed)
• Source — Filter by payment source (Manual, Cash, E-Transfer, Cheque, Bank Transfer, Online via Stripe, Other)
• Category — Filter by payment category (Rent, Deposit, Late Fee, Utility, Other)
• Due Date — Filter by due date range
• Amount — Filter by amount range

Exporting payment data

You can export your payment records for bookkeeping or tax preparation directly from the Payments page:

1. Apply any filters to narrow your results
2. Click the Export button in the toolbar
3. Choose your format — CSV or Excel (.xlsx)
4. Select which columns to include
5. Download the file

Related articles

• Collect rent by auto-pay

  Connect Stripe, invite tenants to auto-pay, and understand fees, timing, failed payments and disputes.

• Track rent collected and owed

  See a year of rent by month and by building: what's collected, on its way, still due and late.

• Add amenities to your buildings

  Create amenities, assign them to your buildings, and charge a tenant for one.

• Add tenants and manage leases

  Add tenants, assign them to units, and manage tenant relationships

• Choose, change or cancel your plan

  Compare what each plan includes, change or cancel your plan, and see what the auto-pay fee covers.

Still stuck?

Email [email protected] or use the contact form.