Rent collection
How to collect rent through M-Pesa Paybill in Kenya
A practical guide for Kenyan landlords: Paybill vs Till, setting tenant account numbers, matching M-Pesa payments to bills, and handling part payments and arrears.
By the Codisha team · Updated · 5 min read
Paybill, Till or your own number?
A Paybill asks the tenant for an account number when they pay. That one field is what lets you know, without guessing, which unit a payment belongs to. A Till has no account number, and a personal M-Pesa number mixes rent with your own money and leaves you reading messages one by one.
If you collect from more than a handful of units, a Paybill saves the most time at month end. Safaricom issues Paybills to registered businesses; your bank may also offer a collection Paybill that pays straight into your account.
Use the unit as the account number
Give every tenant a short account number that never changes while they live there. The unit label works best: A1, B3, G04. Avoid names and phone numbers: tenants type them differently every month, and phone numbers change.
Send each tenant the exact steps once, and repeat them on every bill:
- M-Pesa, then Lipa na M-Pesa, then Pay Bill
- Business number: your Paybill
- Account number: their unit, for example A1
- The amount, then their M-Pesa PIN
Matching payments to bills
Done by hand, matching means reading every M-Pesa confirmation, finding the unit and ticking off the bill, then chasing the payments that used the wrong account number.
Software connected to your Paybill through Safaricom's Daraja API receives a confirmation for every payment as it happens and can record it against the right bill straight away, keeping the M-Pesa code for your records. The rent still lands in your own Paybill: good software only reads the confirmations and never holds the money.
Part payments, overpayments and arrears
- Record every part payment the day it arrives, so the balance is always current.
- Carry unpaid balances into next month's bill, so the tenant sees one clear total.
- Keep overpayments as credit against the next bill rather than refunding small amounts.
- Send a short reminder a few days before the due date, not only after it.
A month-end checklist
- Record water readings and run the month's bills.
- Send each tenant their bill with the Paybill and their account number.
- Check unmatched payments daily and fix wrong account numbers quickly.
- Keep a record of rent received for your monthly rental income tax.
Let Codisha do the monthly work
Bills, water and M-Pesa matching. Free for 1 property and 10 units.