New analysis of tenant payments managed through Goodlord’s new Rent Collection product, which includes automated payment reminders to tenants, has shown that tech-enabled prompts result in over 97% of rental payments being made within seven days of their due date. The company says that this compared to an average of 92% before the tool was introduced.

A sample size of 1,500 rental payments was analysed. Of these, all tenants had received an automatic reminder via Goodlord Rent Collection three days before their rent was due and again as soon as a payment was late. Of this sample group, 97% of those who received the reminders paid within 7 days of the due date.

Some 90% of payments were received within 24 hours of the due date. A total of 95% of payments were received within three days of the due date.

A previous survey of agents by Goodlord, ahead of Rent Collection being launched, found that 7.9% of payments were received up to seven days late, on average. This compares similarly to the latest Government figures, which show average arrears standing at 9% across England as a whole.

Goodlord’s research reveals that introducing automatic payment reminders improves the number of payments received within one week of their due date by 5.25%.

Their Rent Collection product has been designed to remove the need for agents to manually chase payments. It also ensures that 100% of all rental payments are reconciled correctly through the use of unique account numbers. The product is already being used by agents throughout the UK following a beta roll-out earlier this year and its official launch this month.

Whilst building the new product, Goodlord worked with over 50 agents and analysed huge data sets to refine the wording and timing of reminders to ensure the most effective response from tenants.

Alessandro Venerandi, head of payments at Goodlord, said: “Agents can spend a huge amount of time manually chasing late payments; it’s inefficient and not particularly effective. This analysis shows that the use of automated prompts and reminders not only boosts the number of payments made within a week of their due date, but also does so without agents needing to lift a finger.”