A tenant's bank payment was returned - what happens?
Bank transfers (ACH) are not instant. A transfer can be accepted, then returned unpaid days later - most often for insufficient funds, a closed account, or the account holder disputing the debit.
When that happens the payment is marked failed, the rent month reopens, and the tenant can retry from their portal. You are notified so a failed payment is never a surprise.
Our payment processor also charges a flat returned-payment fee for the returned debit, and we pass it on to you at cost - charged to the payment method you have on file, and we tell you when we do. This fee is separate from the normal processing fees, and it is not affected by whether you absorb processing fees or pass them to the tenant - that setting prices a successful payment, and a returned transfer never completed.
If your lease has a returned-payment or NSF clause, that fee is what the clause covers, and you can add it to the tenant's balance from the Payments page. We do not charge your tenant for a returned payment.
The fee itself is charged to the payment method you have on file, at cost and with no markup, and we notify you when that happens. We only do this if you accepted the payment terms covering it when you set up rent collection - if you did not, we absorb the fee.