Getting the most from portals and online payments

Portals and online payments turn TenantLedger from a back-office tool into a service your tenants and owners can use directly. Tenants who pay online and check their own balances create fewer late payments and fewer “what do I owe?” calls. Owners with portal access can see how their properties are doing without emailing you for a statement. This article covers how to roll all three out well — online payments, the Tenant Portal, and the Owner Portal — and the habits that make them stick.

Why this matters to your business

Every manual step you remove is time back in your week and one less chance for an error.

Online payments record themselves. When a tenant pays through the portal, the payment posts to their ledger automatically — no re-keying a check, no transposed amounts.
The Tenant Portal lets tenants self-serve their balance, history, and payment, so routine questions never reach your inbox.
The Owner Portal gives owners read-only visibility into their own properties, which builds trust and cuts down on status requests.

These features reinforce each other: a tenant with portal access and online payments enabled is the lowest-friction tenant you have.

Turn on online payments first (if Stripe is connected)

Online payments are powered by Stripe and are optional and gated — they’re only available if Stripe has been connected for your account. If you don’t see an Online Payments tile on the Settings page, it isn’t turned on for your plan.

Recommendation: If you can accept online payments, connect Stripe before you invite tenants to the portal. The portal is far more valuable to a tenant when they can actually pay through it, not just look at a balance.

Why it matters: Online payments reduce late and missed rent (paying is one click), eliminate manual data entry, and remove bounced-check headaches. The money flows to your bank through Stripe’s payouts, and each payment posts to the tenant’s ledger automatically.

What to do in TenantLedger:

Connect Stripe from Settings → Online Payments. See Connect Stripe to accept online payments.
Decide who pays the processing fee using the Tenant Pays Stripe Fee setting (Yes adds the fee on top of the tenant’s payment; No takes it out of what you receive). Pick a policy and apply it consistently.
Use the Recent Payments and Recent Payouts tabs to confirm money is flowing as expected before you scale up.

Tip: Online payments only appear inside the portal once Stripe is connected. Connecting Stripe and enabling a tenant’s portal access are two separate steps — you usually want both.

Get tenants onto the Tenant Portal

The Tenant Portal is a secure, separate login where a tenant can view their leases and balances, see payment history, manage saved bank accounts and cards, and pay online (when payments are enabled). Enabling access emails the tenant an invitation with their username (their email), a temporary password, and a sign-in link.

Capture a real email on every tenant

A tenant’s email is their portal login. Recommendation: make entering a valid primary email part of your standard move-in routine.

Why it matters: Without an email, the Enable tenant portal button is disabled — you simply can’t invite them. A wrong email means the invitation goes nowhere and you’re back to manual follow-up.

What to do: Add or correct the email on the tenant record first (Edit a tenant), then enable access from the tenant’s Summary page via Action → Enable Tenant Portal. Full steps: Enable Tenant Portal access for a tenant.

Recommendation: Enable the portal and walk a new tenant through their first login during onboarding, while you have their attention.

Why it matters: Adoption is highest at move-in. A tenant who logs in, saves a payment method, and makes their first online payment in week one rarely reverts to mailing checks.

What to do:

Enable portal access for the tenant.
Tell them to check spam/promotions for the invitation, and to use Forgot password on the sign-in page if it doesn’t arrive — the invitation page also shows the sign-in URL and username so you can share them yourself.
Ask them to change the temporary password on first login.

Set expectations on what the portal does

Tenants can view current charges and balance, payment history, and lease info, and they can pay online when payments are enabled. Recommendation: Tell tenants the portal is the fastest place to see what they owe and to pay it.

Why it matters: When tenants trust the portal as the source of truth, they stop calling to ask their balance and stop disputing amounts they can see for themselves.

A simple rollout for existing tenants

Step	Action	Why
1	Confirm every active tenant has a valid email	Email is the login; no email, no invite
2	Connect Stripe (if available)	Makes the portal worth using, not just viewing
3	Enable portal access tenant by tenant	Sends each their invitation
4	Send a short heads-up note	“You’ll get an invite from TenantLedger — here’s what it’s for”
5	Follow up with anyone who hasn’t logged in	Catches bad emails and spam-filtered invites

Give owners portal access for transparency

The Owner Portal is a separate, read-only login where an owner can see information about the properties you manage for them — a dashboard, their properties, leases, and a financial overview — without changing anything. Owners only ever see their own properties’ data.

Default to enabling the portal for owners

Recommendation: Offer portal access to every owner who wants visibility.

Why it matters: It replaces “how’s my property doing?” phone calls and emailed statement requests with self-serve access, and the transparency builds trust. Because it’s read-only, there’s no risk an owner accidentally changes your records.

What to do: From the owner’s Summary page, click Add Owner to Portal (the button then changes to Remove Owner From Portal). The owner needs a valid email on file first. See Enable Owner Portal access for an owner and What owners can see in the Owner Portal.

Keep the underlying data current so the portal earns trust

Recommendation: Treat the Owner Portal as live — keep properties, leases, payments, and bills up to date.

Why it matters: The portal shows owners the data you already maintain. If charges or bills lag behind reality, the owner’s financial overview will look wrong and you’ll spend the call you were trying to avoid explaining the gap. Link each property to the correct owner so it shows up for them.

Note: Paying profit out to an owner is a manual step you perform — you write the check or record the payment yourself; there is no in-app owner-payout feature. Owner contributions (money an owner puts in) do have a dedicated screen. See Record an owner contribution. For where deposits sit on the books, remember security deposits are tracked as liabilities, not income.

Build portals into your monthly routine

Portals and online payments pay off most when you maintain them, not just switch them on.

Monthly checklist:

Confirm online payments came through — check Recent Payments and that Recent Payouts match your bank deposits.
Post charges and bills before owners log in to review, so their financial overview is accurate.
Spot tenants still paying by check and nudge them toward the portal.
Re-send portal invitations to any tenant or owner whose email recently changed.
Remove portal access promptly when a tenant moves out or you stop managing for an owner.

Common mistakes to avoid

Don’t invite tenants to a portal with no payment option when Stripe is available — connect Stripe first so the portal is worth logging into.
Don’t skip the email field. A missing or wrong email blocks the invitation and silently sends it nowhere.
Don’t assume the invitation always arrives. Tell people to check spam/promotions and point them to Forgot password or the sign-in URL on the confirmation page.
Don’t leave the temporary password in place — coach tenants and owners to change it on first login.
Don’t let your records go stale once owners can see them; an out-of-date financial overview erodes the trust the portal is meant to build.
Don’t expect an owner-payout feature — recording a distribution to an owner is a manual payment you enter yourself.
Don’t forget to remove access. Disable a tenant’s portal when they move out and remove an owner’s access when you stop managing their property.
Don’t treat security deposits as income; they’re held as a liability and should be reflected that way in what owners and tenants see.