Does the service offer bill pay? I don’t see it on the promotional pages, and while the service sounds great, I have not opened the account because, frankly, we depend heavily on bill pay.
Also, can this service accommodate paper checks for payments?
Same, lack of bill pay will prevent me from taking advantage of this feature. I searched FAQ and didn’t see mention of it.
I was wondering about this as well. I just asked support (they are great and quick to respond) and they said it is in the works! But no ETA at this point. I would also like to mention it is free to set up and not difficult to get it going, so you could do like I am doing right now which is transfer a few dollars in to the account to test it out. You can also set up multiple accounts with a couple of clicks so you can have an account for each property you manage. You can even request a free Debit card with a nickname for the property, for each property, so the expenses are automatically linked to the property they go with. The transfers between external banks is pretty slow though (it is estimated from my bank to be 1 week and 1 day), but you can transfer between banks in Cash Management instantly. They also do wire transfers cheaper than any bank I have seen ($5 for outgoing and free for incoming). Oh, and regarding paper checks, there is an account number and routing number for each account you add, so adding paper checks would be no problem! (And if you wanted you could set up a different set of checks for each property.)
I’m just learning this myself but please let me know if I can help to answer any other questions.
My County Tax office doesn’t accept Wire Transfers which seems the only way that Stessa offers. The tax office will take E-Checks but I don’t think Stessa offers that.
I saw your mention about getting paper checks for each account but that sure seems to be a hassle if you have lots of properties plus a needless additional expense in ordering checks!
Any suggestions?
Was just wondering the same thing. What good is a cash management account if you can’t pay bills from it? Basically you can take money in and then wire transfer out. Or write a check? There is not even an indication that you can write a check on the online tutorial. So your money is trapped unless you wire transfer it, or use debit card, or ATM to get cash. Seems not that useful. Any comments?
True, it would be annoying and an expense to get paper checks. I’m not suggesting that is a good long term solution. I actually never write checks so I don’t like that idea either. Currently I’m still using my old checking account that has a bill pay feature while they build the bill pay feature in Stessa cash management.
If the bill you’re paying has online bill pay (most utilities can do that) then you can use the virtual debit card or physical card to pay them. You can also transfer funds to other external accounts easily but that is slow when you do it through Stessa. I connected my old account from that bank’s side and it was much faster (2-3 business days vs 5-6 days).
I agree having a bill pay option would really be helpful, and is the big missing feature right now. Hopefully they will release it soon!
There is a routing and account number for each Stessa checking account you set up, so if the entity you’re paying has the ability to pay with a checking account using those, it will work fine (I did this when paying insurance).
I had paper checks created for my account and routing number and unfortunately they did not work upon a contractor depositing one. Wasted expense to be sure…
Is that true? Blue Ridge Bank (the bank used by Stessa) would not process the check?
Similar to others, I am having trouble getting rent payments out of Stessa to our LLC checking account - which is where mortgage payments occur. Our local credit union is not supported in Stessa as an external bank. Not only that, I’d be hesitant to provide my username and password for it, even if it was.
If your credit union allows you to attach external accounts then you should be able to do it that way. I found the transfer speed was faster anyhow. I’m also disappointed to hear the check didn’t work, I would ask support about that because I feel like they should allow that while they don’t have online bill pay.
Agree with others that this seems more like a cash holding account than a functioning bank account. Bill pay and check writing are essential features - we all have mortgages, vendors, HOAs, utilities, property tax bills, etc. to pay regularly.
Thanks are in order to the person who mentioned that they purchased checks using routing/account numbers that didn’t work. I was about to do this so you spared me some trouble & expense. Kudos. But I am concerned that didn’t work. Makes me doubt the validity of this bank.
I don’t think I can move ahead with using this for rent collection or any function other than holding cash for interest at this point.
Agree with the others as well. This seems more like a cash holding account rather than account for conducting business on daily basis. I’m currently testing the account and struggling transferring between accounts. Many banks have ACH limits, no bill pay, etc. It doesn’t make much sense to use it for anything more than maybe a limited partnership at this time. Would like to see Stessa make an improvement.
Agree with the others. Also, there seems to be a limit on the amount you can transfer out per day. In addition, the mobile app does not have a decimal point on the key pad. You must use the desktop web browser in order to transfer any change.
I was surprised to see a cap on the limit as well. Mine is currently $500 if I try to use Stessa to transfer dollars to an external account. The Stessa based transfer to a linked account was also very slow when I tried it (it took 6 business days). I switched to using my main (current) bank to do transfers from/to Stessa and that went through within 3 days and I don’t seem to have any limit on the amounts since the other bank initiated it.
I will say that none of these issues appear to exist if you are transferring between Stessa cash management accounts, the transfers are instant and I didn’t have trouble transferring amounts over $500. The online rent payments are also very smooth.
I’m guessing these caps and limitations will be updated over time, but I agree with all of you. If they add online bill pay, the ability to use paper checks (which I do rarely, but do still to sometimes), and faster transfers to external accounts, it would really help.
Not sure of the exact issues you are encountering but I have been able to collect rent payments via EFT, and pay utilities, property insurance, and property taxes via the Blue Ridge Cash Management accounts since July '22.
Mobile deposits would be a nice addition as would Cashier Check purchases.
I opened an account last month, but have not used it yet due to the lack of bill pay - such a bummer. Once this is added I definitely plan on switching over. Does anyone know the timeline on this? Or if autopay will be an option once bill pay is added?
I opened three accounts - each attached to a portfolio, not a property. I had two tenants sign up to use the auto rent pay.
The tenant paid/stessa initiated transfer - but I don’t see anything in my account. I asked support about it and they said it can take a week. Apparently they use this free float to cover their costs…
I agree with many others here - the usefulness is so limited. It’s convenient to collect rent - but not if it take a week for me to get access to it and not at all if I can’t use the funds unless I spend $5 to wire it to another account.
Can anyone confirm that using the routing number and account number does work if giving that to an institution to withdraw money? If that works then I will take advantage, but I am reluctant in case it doesn’t work.
did you ever get an answer fo rthis?
@brian.bradke no, I never got an answer. I may try it out. Frankly, having the cash accounts is kind of useless without a good way to access it. Spending money to do wire transfers is not a good solution
Mobile deposits are available, at least on the Android app. It isn’t obvious but there is a green plus sign on the lower right of the screen, if you hit that you can do a typical mobile deposit by taking pictures of the check.
The big feature that is still missing is online bill pay. I doubt they will add Cashier’s Check since they have wire transfers, but that is complete speculation on my part.