The Multifamily Innovation® Podcast
Patrick Antrim, Founder and CEO of Multifamily Leadership, Producers of the Multifamily Leadership Innovation & AI Summit, the Multifamily Women® Summit, and the Best Places to Work Multifamily® will bring you success strategies for Multifamily CEOs, executive leaders and aspiring leaders that want to drive high performance results for their portfolio.
The Multifamily Innovation® Podcast
Accounts Receivable Management for Multifamily Housing
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In this episode of the Multifamily Innovation® Podcast, host Patrick Antrim sits down with Lynn Musil, CEO and Co-Founder of Pay Ready. Lynn shares his journey in the multifamily industry and the innovative solutions his company provides for managing post-move-out rent collections. The conversation delves into the origins of Pay Ready, highlighting the gaps it addresses in the multifamily industry, particularly in handling the move-out process.
Lynn provides an in-depth look at Pay Ready’s platform, discussing its features like automated outreach, flexible payment plans, and integrations with other systems to ensure seamless ledger reconciliation.
Lynn emphasizes how Pay Ready improves the experience for both property managers and former residents by making the rent collection process more efficient and less confrontational. He introduces innovative payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay and explains how the company uses a CRM approach to manage accounts receivable. Lynn underscores the importance of a customer-friendly communication strategy to preserve positive relationships even after residents move out.
The discussion also touches on the culture at Pay Ready, with Lynn sharing insights into building a strong, cohesive team and maintaining a flat organizational structure. He outlines his vision for the future of Pay Ready, including potential expansions and the careful balance of maintaining focus while exploring new product opportunities.
Lynn's approach to involving clients actively in the development process ensures that Pay Ready continues to meet the evolving needs of the multifamily industry.
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About the Multifamily Innovation® Council:
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is the executive level membership organization that makes a difference in your bottom line, drives a better experience for your employees, and allows you an experience that keeps demand strong for your company. The council is uniquely positioned to focus on the intersection of Leadership, Technology, AI, and Innovation.
The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.
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Innovative Rent Collection and Communication
Speaker 1All right, welcome back to another episode of the Multifamily Innovation Podcast. You know I've got a great interview for you. We've got the CEO and founder of PayReady and a remarkable human being who's built an organization from the ground up and has put together a really great team to think through what the customer needs in terms of how we collect and receive rent after somebody moves out. So you're looking at that whole sort of accounts receivable system and process, from communications to integrations to collection agencies all of the platforms so you can make payments frictionless and easy for the customer. All of that matters to your ability to keep money into the business after somebody leaves. Some really compelling things about what he explored in terms of the first 90 days after somebody moves out their strategy and how to capture that income and then seamlessly integrate that into other applications in the business, seamlessly integrate that into other applications in the business and so many relationships that come together with what they've put together in terms of creating value for multifamily owners. But most compelling is what they're doing to gap the communication that we all know is hard to get from multifamily owners and operators because we have turnover at our properties and people really aren't trained for this and in so many ways there's.
Speaker 1You know Lynn mentioned in the interview so many ways. It's difficult to navigate these conversations, but when you put a system and a process in place with technology, you get to the answer faster. You get to the money faster. So with that, I hope you enjoy this interview. Have a listen with Lynn. So, lynn, welcome in. I just want to get to know you a little bit more about what you're working on with PayReady. I know you're doing some interesting things, so talk to us a little bit about what you're working on.
Speaker 2Yeah, great to meet you and be here. Yeah, great to meet you and be here. Things like that are really the focus right now, and some product expansion as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, you're speaking my language. I think companies are looking for ways to become more profitable, more efficient in how they go about getting to their yields. Let's step back a little bit and tell me a little bit more about you and what you're working on. You have a great background, obviously, in multifamily and technology, building teams, culture, enterprise, value. Give me a sense of where this all originated. Where did you get the idea for this?
Speaker 2sure, yeah, um, yeah, I've been. I've been in multi-families since the late 90s, I guess it is um. Primarily. My background had been in um resident screening and then um lease automation online lease automation with a company called Onsite several years ago. But the idea of pay ready was really born from that background where in the screening world you're looking at trying to determine who's going to perform well in the rent and prevent bad outcomes and that kind of thing. But there really hadn't been a solution to help handle the move-out process in terms of resident communication, follow-up, payment processing, all of those things that go with that.
Speaker 2Traditionally, what we saw when I decided to start PayReady was that most of the software is really unit-centric. It's unit-based and there's a move out. You're trying to make ready and get the system cleaned out and oftentimes even small balances, ledger reconciliation was happening kind of off the books and it wasn't a system to sort of track everything. Outreach to the resident a lot of times is manual, by leasing staff at that point and then even further down the road, eventually there's this gap in communication where you know there could be a lot of positive outreach to the resident but there's gaps in communication that were happening, and then some of them would end up in a collection state and that would be frustrating for the resident and untrackable for the operator as well.
Speaker 2So that was the gap that we saw when we first started PayReady. It really just started as a CRM platform for a couple of clients', internal accounts, receivable teams, just as a system of record to keep track of things. And then they asked us to build in a payment portal and then it just built from there. There's layers that were built from there, but it was all started as a bootstrap startup, just partnering with some clients and seeing if we could build something. So it's been a really fun adventure.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's impressive, and tell me a little bit more. Can you take me through more of the product, the service, what customers experience when they're on the platform you mentioned? I love how you said that sort of like an accounts payable or receivable. I should say right, crm, right, and then pairing that with payments. This has been a challenge. So take me through the actual product. Anything you want to share there?
Speaker 2Yeah. So I mean the way it works today. With the maturity that we're at with the product as of now, it's really a turnkey process. So once a resident moves out, the move out statements created. All of that information is then populated into the pay ready platform. There's ledger reconciliation that happens there. There's integrations with deposit alternatives and those types of things to make sure that we get the ledger cleaned up and correct If there's an outstanding balance. There's automated outreach that starts to the resident. So there's emails and text messages in some cases voice outreach to just remind them that they still have a balance due and give them an easy way to pay.
Speaker 2We've worked really hard to have a lot of flexibility and payment types and payment plans and there's a lot of structure in the background behind that. We just recently released Apple Pay, google Pay, for example, and then there's what we call the first party process, so that first 90 days is a very customer-friendly, brand-centric communication style, both automated and through call center outreach to help clear balances. And then, if there's still a balance due 90 days later, there are around a dozen approved collection agencies that we've certified to live in our platform that we assign those accounts to, that all operate within the parameters that the operators have agreed to and all payments are still made through the platform. So the operator gets to have complete visibility into everything that's been collected. The finances are reconciled on a monthly basis. The finances are reconciled on a monthly basis. There's no questions. There's about you know what's been received and what hasn't, what the charges have been and that sort of thing, and it all gets updated real time in the platform for the operator.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's interesting, you know, in those first 90 days our well, because now they're in another ecosystem, another communication channel and I love how you said that. Where so this integration or this facilitation of that sort of tougher collection process after the 90 days still happens on the platform? Did I hear that right?
Speaker 2That's correct. Yeah, and yeah, it's really. It's great for the operators because they don't have to. You know there's a test agency against one another, which would typically happen. Right, If you're looking at performance and that sort of thing, because we're doing that on their behalf and from an agency standpoint, you know you're getting all the data and all the documentation that you need to perform well, so everybody gets to focus on what they do best.
Speaker 1And in those first 90 days you had mentioned something around brand and it sounded like you've been in conversations and you want to still know, at the end of the day, that property has a relationship with a customer and you're extending that in that process, in terms of the platform, to where the main goal is to collect the rent but at the same time, is to protect risk as well. I imagine in that communication, what are you hearing inside of your sort of sales calls or with your current customers about that experience? Is that something they customize or they have control over? What does that look like?
Speaker 2Yes, they do. So I mean there's recommendations that we can make, obviously, but they completely customize the templated outreach, the payment plan, delivery, scripting, messaging, all those kinds of things are completely controlled by the operator. Ultimately, scripting, messaging, all those kinds of things are completely controlled by the operator. Ultimately and again like to your point, not only brand friendly but the insurer's compliance. You know you don't have, you're not relying on leasing staff that's maybe untrained on what they're allowed to say and not say and those kinds of things. But also, you know, in the past it was the last, really the last communication that a leasing staff generally wants to have the uncomfortable move out money owed conversations and that's why it would just sort of sit in limbo until maybe a collection agency finds it. And from a brand perspective, you've put all this work into resident relationship and it leaves a big opening to put a bad taste in their mouth right at the tail end, and you could see that in reviews, and so we've gotten a lot of really positive feedback on that front as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, I would imagine most people that are in that situation where they have that balance. I would assume that they would want this to be resolved. They may not have the ability to resolve it and I'm curious to you, from an innovation standpoint, that providing this type of platform and this sort of integrated process, even post 90 days, is in a sort of I'll just say in a psychological way a better way to approach collections than the confrontation of a call that gets avoided or a letter that we don't open, or a notice that doesn't get seen on a door. All these things Like does providing the things that you've done, like the Apple Pay. You mentioned the different ways to facilitate payment plans, those types of things. That's obviously in the strategy. How is that playing out for you guys?
Future Vision and Company Culture
Speaker 2Yeah, it's playing out really well. I mean, to your point, we're also, I think, living in a culture where people prefer to interact with technology in a lot of cases. Where people prefer to interact with technology in a lot of cases, Maybe they're too embarrassed or frustrated to have certain kinds of conversations or calls and that kind of thing. So having a system that's able to help navigate that certainly is an increased overall recovery without having that sort of friction that's created in those kinds of conversations.
Speaker 1You're right about that. I mean, it's so interesting because people are very prideful about things. You end up with the story yeah, I'll pay tomorrow, and it's like they just want you off the phone.
Speaker 2Yeah, you have to even answer the phone, right? Who answers phone calls these days? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And you mentioned voice and text and all these different things. So you're coming at them with whatever, whatever's going to give the property the ability to have that system.
Speaker 2That's correct, yep.
Speaker 1That's great. So what are people saying, Like what are you hearing from customers?
Speaker 2I mean, what I'm hearing from customers is they love the idea that they never have to really think about this again. You know there's a holistic approach, that they're not having to do individual testing and rethink integrations. You do one integration. There's several different ways to test, there's complete transparency, the communication tools with the residents our clients really like as well, and you know, integrations like posting back into the software and making all that seamless has been great too, so the feedback's been really positive. We've grown a lot over the seven years. We've got about three million units on board and we're still growing. So, yeah, the feedback has been great. Of course, everyone's asking about you know what do we do next as far as you know, ai integration and further.
Speaker 1You know, say, account scoring and things like that prioritization, and there's a lot of that happening in the background as well. Yeah, that's interesting and it sounds like a true partnership, where it's never done. We always keep making things better. What would you say? So there are other providers that do similar things, or even you mentioned collection agencies. There's a lot of people that are trying to tackle this problem. How would you position your company as different from all the rest? What are you walking in and making that as a statement? How are you positioning yourself as unique in the marketplace?
Speaker 2Yeah, I think. I mean we really value our collection agency relationships, so we work closely with them and collaborate on, you know, the best job we can do to get them the best information possible so that they can perform well. So that's a very collaborative relationship there. As far as other collection agencies you know there's some great agencies out there I think what we offer is just the flexibility to rotate between agencies. Even, you know, agencies have staffing issues. Sometimes, if they get a big new account, there's an influx of files. Being able to distribute that in a way that makes sense is really helpful there.
Speaker 2More recently, there are you know, there's several, I think AI solutions that are really mostly AI-based around communication and maybe some payment solutions and things like that data actual real information that we're tapping into to feed those types of solutions, as well as a platform that's able to facilitate human interaction. So a lot of times there's hybrid solutions that need to happen. You know there might be escalations that need to go to a human being, whether that's outsourced or an internal call center of some sort. There might be disputes that need to be handled. There's you know's outbound calls still that are happening, and all that integrated into one platform and one continuous communication thread for the residents. So it all feels like there's continuity certainly gives us an advantage, but, like you said, we partner very closely with their clients and kind of take the path of least resistance and let them tell us what to build on to next. So that's really where things are today.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, that was really well said and I like you going back to that system, having the whole process end to end in how you approach that. I like that thinking You've made some really great hires recently. Even so, tell me a little bit about your team. I mean, you value culture. I'm sure, as a founder and CEO, like this matters to how you build the company. Tell me a little bit about the team.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, the team is great, I mean the core team that we all started with. It's kind of like family. We had worked together, most of us at a couple different spots, and really go through wars with your compadres. You bond, you know. It's a family atmosphere and I'm really lucky to have a core group of people that has been through a lot of stuff but has the same outlook on everything, which is just liking to solve puzzles, enjoying challenges. You know, when we face difficulties or struggles, our reaction is kind of excited to to overcome it, and so that was, that was really one of the main reasons for starting the business is just because we, you know, we, our company had been sold.
Speaker 2We want to keep a lot of our group together and then over time, as we've added, you know we had you try to add people that are a good culture fit, but bring a lot of different skills and backgrounds to the table so you can get those layers in. And I feel really fortunate that the last couple of years we've added some amazing teammates that add a lot of different, you know, background viewpoints but still maintain the culture of. You know, leave your ego at the door. The best idea wins. Let's prioritize the main things first, work really hard to overcome the problems, react to challenges in a positive way and be, you know, super supportive of each other. Everyone in the company is still. We've got a pretty flat organization. Everyone's got the opportunity to reach outside of their job description and it's necessary to smaller company and not have anyone feel like their toes are being stepped on. So there's a lot of leeway with all of that. So it's, you know, it's a very fun, fast paced, positive, optimistic environment.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's great to hear I know that, tackling those challenges at times you need to have that in place. You mentioned a little bit of an outlook. Have you thought through what that vision looks like going forward? And some you may be able to share, maybe others not. But it's also challenging sometimes to think too far forward. But what's next, I guess?
Speaker 2Yeah, well, the first things. First is we're really focused on even executing better on what we do today. We're really analyzing the debt that we've accumulated in the system and better ways to handle that, ways to rotate accounts using statistics and algorithms. Debt buying is something we have our eye on as well, getting creative in that space. As far as product expansion, we're certainly going to be expanding the product, moving a little bit upstream into the resident life cycle, things that are involved in the move out process, so things like, potentially, eviction management. We've had clients ask us to help with communication with late paying residents, for example, before we move out, using the platform for that, and so we're focused on doing what we do best but expanding the product where it makes sense, but being careful not to overreach because in my experience, when you expand into too many product sets, it becomes unwieldy to support and the experience starts to fail. So a careful balance between all of that.
Speaker 1Right, right, do too many things and get tricky. So did I read this correctly. But you enjoy ranching, is that accurate?
Speaker 2Yeah, I grew up in Colorado on a small ranch and I recently moved to Las Vegas and kind of accidentally stumbled into a small horse ranch here, so it's become a hobby for sure.
Speaker 1Well, I'm interested in knowing what we can learn from ranching that could be applied to multifamily, because a lot of these properties end up being named ranch this or hunter this and and rain. You know, like there there's a. There's something special about the mindset of the investor in terms of building and maintaining assets in America, and I'm curious what you think about ranching and how it applies to even business.
Speaker 2No, I mean, yeah, it is a little bit of a business, it's actually a little bit of a boarding facility, but I would go back to the same thing. It's like there's always going to be unexpected issues and challenges and it's about having the right team and network to help support that. So, for example, with the ranch, it's been really helpful that I've gotten some great neighbors and some people that understand you know where the resources are here and because there's always going to be things that go wrong and you know challenges to overcome. So a lot of it, a lot of it, has to do with just having the right team and the right connections and building trust.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's important and that takes time. And, and in terms of building trust, uh, it sounds like you're doing that with your customers. Uh, as you've built the company along with them, it sounds like to me, um, what, when, when there's so much opportunity at coming at us? Um, I'm curious to to know, as a leader, how you say no to things. To stay focused, because you mentioned that a couple of times. Our vision is to focus on what we've got now, what we're going to do, make better and really understand the needs of the customer. So how do you do that? Because that takes discipline.
Speaker 2Yeah, and we don't always say no. My background is in sales, so sometimes you get a little excited and say yes before you should. But the habit of the discipline has really been born out of deep client interactions. We have a client advisory committee that we engage with regularly, and that's been really helpful because you know you start to get ideas and start to build things in a vacuum and then you get with a focus group and they say, well, that doesn't even make sense. But this other thing makes way more sense, you know.
Speaker 2So that active engagement with our clients really pushing us to move into maybe an adjacent area, it's really collaborating with them and testing and working with them on an agile basis to incrementally start to build things out and see together where it's going to lead us. And the whole key to me is just don't build anything in a vacuum. Our philosophy is we're not going to just go to the lab and put tons of time and energy into building something without a really active involvement from clients and clients that you know are at least representative of um, a diverse set of what clients might look like yeah, yeah, it's interesting, um, in terms of perspective, like, who do you want to spend time with?
Speaker 1And, I guess, who's buying this? Is it the CEOs? Is it the regional managers, the operators? Like, who's integrating this into the companies as you're seeing these 3 million plus units play out?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's been interesting. I mean all of the into the companies as you're seeing these 3 million plus units play out. Yeah, it's been interesting. I mean all of the above, as with a lot of things. But because we are a centralized platform and really simple to implement compared to most things, because we're not asking to interact a lot with the leasing staff it's typically driven by, you know, a leader in operations Often finance will get involved, you know, depending on company size. And then we've also found that with this particular solution, a lot more attention from ownership groups driving decisions, as they just, you know, they're paying more and more attention to the financials and particularly outstanding debt and things like that are more important ownership groups.
Speaker 1Yeah, they're looking to keep the money, I guess. Right, it's one thing to generate marketing, get people moved in, all the expense to maintain the lease relationship, but it can get tricky when that money leaves and doesn't get collected on the exit. Well, are there any questions? I should be asking that I haven't asked about what you're working on. You know I don't think so.
Revenue Capture and Company Vision
Speaker 2I mean it's been a fun stage for us as we've grown. So I mean it's been a fun stage for us as we've grown really organically over this time. You asked what I like to pay attention to. I've gotten such a strong team surrounding me over the last couple of years. I'm really excited to focus more on customer engagement myself. Customer conversation that's where my heart is is spending time with clients and figuring out what we can build for them, and we have a long-term view on all this. We're wanting to stay in this for a long time, so that's been really fun. This year. I've got to spend a lot more time back with customers instead of a lot of the internal sort of administrative stuff that comes with running a business.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, that's exciting. I love that. I love that you're still in there and you're spending time with those customers. I imagine it helps in. You mentioned Agile and how you build and design the product as well. That's useful.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 1What's the best way for people to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2Well, my email is Lynn at LYNN at PayReady, so that's the easiest way. And then PayReadycom is our website to set up demos and get an overview and those sorts of things. We have an active LinkedIn following as well on our LinkedIn page. It has a lot of updates there too, so those are the best ways to keep in touch.
Speaker 1Amazing. All right, and we'll put all that information in the show notes for those that are tuning in Until then. It's been great sharing the time. I had an opportunity to learn a little bit more about some of the things you're working on, the team that you've built, and sort of a little bit about your vision around how you've built and sort of a little bit about your vision around how you design, product and help tackle what I believe to be a very important financial system that needs to be in place to capture that revenue that we all are so desperately trying to keep within the organization. So I appreciate you coming on and we'll be tracking all your success and we'll see you in the next one.
Speaker 2Great. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Take care.
