Overview
Despite their best efforts, tenants sometimes make their lease payments late. Rather than track this yourself, set a lease late fee schedule and let DoorLoop handle the late fee charges and notifications for you.
Note that if your leases use the same late fee schedule as the company or property default, you don't have to configure a late fee schedule on each lease. Instead, set late fee settings at the company or property level.
The Steps
Step 1
From the main menu, click Leases and then click Active Leases.
Step 2
Find the lease you want to set a late fee for and click on it. You can either sort the list by the various columns and filters or use the Search leases search bar.
Step 3
Click on the Settings tab and then the Late Fees button.
Step 4
In the Lease Late Fees window, toggle on Automatic Late Fees and select from the following options:
Use property default late fee structure: uses the same late fee schedule as your property settings. Skip to Step 6 if you choose this option.
Select a late fee structure for this lease: set a unique late fee schedule for this lease that you will create now.
Step 5
If you are setting a unique late fee schedule for this lease, set the following options:
Late Fees:
When should we charge this late fee?:
Enter the number of days after rent is due to charge the late fee.
For example, if you charge rent on the 1st and want to charge a late fee on the 5th, enter “4” because the 5th is four days after the 1st.
How often should we charge this fee?:
Select the frequency for this late fee. In other words, do you charge this late fee Once, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly?
How should we calculate this fee?:
You can set a Fixed Amount for the late fee, or charge a Percentage of entire outstanding balance.
How much should we charge?:
If you charge a fixed amount, this will be a dollar amount. If you charge a percentage, enter the percentage amount here.
Which income account should the late fees go into?:
By default the Late Fees revenue account is selected, but you could charge the late fees to a different revenue account you created if you wish.
Memo:
Enter an optional explanation for the late fee charge.
What you enter here is what the tenant will see on their lease ledger in the tenant portal. If you leave it blank, the tenant will just see the word “Charge.” You will also see it in the “Memo” column in relevant reports.
Use the Add another late fee link to set a second late fee schedule on the same lease. For example, you might charge a one-time late fee, and then charge another daily late fee after this.
Use the Show advanced options link to add the following additional Late Fees Options:
Maximum monthly late fees:
Specify an amount at which point the late fees should stop for the month.
Maximum daily late fees:
Specify an amount at which point the late fees should stop for the day.
Minimum balance to apply late fee:
Specify a minimum lease balance that needs to be reached before late fees will be charged.
Specify which accounts to charge late fees on:
By default, only lease charges to the revenue account set as your default Rental Income account will incur late fees. (Learn about your Default Account settings using this article.) If you want to charge late fees when there are outstanding balances on other accounts, select these income accounts here.
Note that you can select more than one account.
Also keep in mind that if you create revenue accounts as sub-accounts of your default Rental Income account in your chart of accounts, they will NOT automatically incur late fees. You have to select the revenue sub-accounts in this drop-down to charge late fees on charges to these accounts.
Email the tenants each time a late fee is charged:
Send an email to the tenant notifying them that they were charged a late fee.
This only works if you have an email address entered in the tenant’s info.
Send a text message to the tenants each time a late fee is charged (each message will use one communication credit):
Send a text message to the tenant about the late fee charge.
This only works if you have a cell phone number entered in the tenant’s info.
Step 6
Click Save.
Good work! Going forward, this late fee schedule will automatically charge the appropriate late fees to this lease for your tenant to pay. You can return to the lease late fee settings at any time to adjust them as needed.