Collecting Rent

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  What happens when a rent payment fails or comes back NSF?

  Kompas runs an automated failed payment workflow: as soon as a failure is identified, email notifications go out to both the tenant and the property manager, and the payment is reversed automatically in the accounting ledger. You are not chasing a bank notice and then unwinding entries by hand. You can also choose to automate an administrative NSF fee of your own amount, so the charge lands on the tenant's ledger in the same step as the reversal.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Can I refund a tenant through the platform?

  Yes — you can refund a tenant by Interac e-Transfer or EFT for an overpayment, a returned deposit, or any other reason. The refund runs through the same payment engine as a collection, so it posts against the tenant ledger and your settlement account rather than being a cheque someone writes and then remembers to record. End-of-lease deposit returns are the most common case, and they tie back to the deposit you have been tracking on that lease.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Can my tenants pay rent by credit card?

  No — Kompas does not support credit card payments today. Tenants pay by pre-authorized debit, Interac e-Transfer, or a one-time payment from a bank account or debit card, all of which carry a lower per-transaction cost than card processing would. If this changes, the answer here will change with it. For a tenant who genuinely has no Canadian bank account, the e-Transfer route through a service like Wise, Chexy or Remitbee is the usual workaround.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Can I charge an NSF fee automatically when a payment bounces?

  Yes — you can set an administrative NSF fee of your own choosing and have Kompas apply it automatically whenever a payment fails. The fee posts to the tenant's ledger in the same workflow that reverses the failed payment and notifies both sides, so the charge is on the account before anyone has picked up the phone. Whether you use it at all is your call, and the amount is yours to set within what your jurisdiction allows.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  How do I find out that a payment has failed?

  Failures reach you three ways: email notifications go out the day a failure is identified, pre-authorized debit failure reports list them, and the accounts receivable dashboard updates automatically as soon as the reversal posts. You do not have to go looking, and you are not reconstructing the picture from a bank statement days later. The tenant is notified in the same step, which means the conversation about a bounced payment usually starts before you make the call.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Can a tenant pay first month's rent and the deposit when they sign?

  Yes — once the lease is executed the tenant can pay their first month's rent and security deposit through the tenant portal, by Interac e-Transfer, or by setting up a pre-authorized debit agreement with the landlord. The payment posts against the new lease immediately, and the deposit is tracked separately so it can later be applied to a month of rent or refunded at the end of the term.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Can a tenant make a one-time payment without enrolling in pre-authorized debit?

  Yes — tenants can make one-time payments from a bank account or debit card without committing to a recurring pre-authorized debit agreement. It is the usual route for a tenant catching up on arrears, covering a one-off charge, or simply preferring to authorise each payment themselves. Like every payment initiated in Kompas, a one-time payment reconciles automatically as of its settlement date rather than needing a manual deposit entry.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Does a failed payment reverse itself in my books?

  Yes — when a payment fails, Kompas reverses it automatically in the accounting ledger as part of the failed payment workflow, so the receivable goes back on the tenant's account without a manual journal entry. The accounts receivable dashboard reflects the reversal as soon as it posts. This matters most on the first of the month, when a handful of failures inside a large pre-authorized debit run would otherwise mean unwinding entries one at a time.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Can I collect a security deposit and refund it later through the platform?

  Yes — a security deposit collected at signing is tracked separately from rent on that lease, and at the end of the term you can either apply it to a month of rent or refund it to the tenant by Interac e-Transfer or EFT. Because the deposit sits on the lease rather than in a spreadsheet, the balance is visible for the whole tenancy and the refund posts against it rather than being recorded after the fact.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  How much does it cost to collect rent through Kompas?

  EFT and pre-authorized debit transactions cost $1.00 each, and Interac e-Transfers cost $1.50 each. The fee is paid by the landlord or the property management company rather than being passed to the tenant, and it is the same rate whether the rent is $900 or $9,000, unlike percentage-based card processing. Full detail is on the pricing page.

• Payments·Collecting Rent

  Where do I see everything a tenant has paid and still owes?

  The accounts receivable dashboard carries the live position for every lease, and a detailed statement of account for any tenant exports to PDF or Excel showing full invoice and payment history. Because platform payments reconcile as of settlement, that balance is current rather than as-of the last time someone posted deposits. Aged AR listings cover the same picture at portfolio, owner, segment or building level.