Rent Manager accounts payable automation should start with a choice between its existing bill tools. Smart Bills suits an in-house process where one person reviews each invoice. AvidInvoice supports outsourced invoice intake and configurable, multi-level approvals. A custom connection is worth considering when a recurring exception still needs information from outside that process.
For a property management office, that exception might be a contractor's bill with no matching work order, a charge split across properties, or an owner approval recorded in another system. Identify that missing step before paying to build another invoice intake channel.
We checked Rent Manager's Smart Bills and AvidXchange comparison, AP automation page and customization options on November 4, 2026. Those pages support the product descriptions here. The workflow examples below describe what we would design, with no claimed client result.
Choose the existing bill workflow
Smart Bills is a native Rent Manager feature powered by Orion AI. The vendor describes uploading PDFs or images, receiving invoices at a dedicated inbox, extracting transaction details and having a person validate the invoice before posting. Its comparison positions Smart Bills for simpler, single-reviewer processes that stay in-house.
AvidInvoice is part of the built-in AvidXchange integration. Rent Manager describes vendors sending invoices into AvidXchange's digitization process, import into Rent Manager and approval routing based on predefined logic. Its comparison describes customizable, multi-tier approval chains. The AP page also describes creating a one-time bill for each imported invoice.
VendorPay handles a later part of the process. Rent Manager describes selecting bills and submitting them for payment. Keep invoice capture, bill approval and payment submission distinct when evaluating the setup. Ask the provider to demonstrate each stage with your account's permissions and payment arrangements.
| What your office needs | First option to evaluate | What to demonstrate |
|---|---|---|
| Less typing, with one employee reviewing bills | Smart Bills | An emailed PDF, vendor match, extracted fields and human validation |
| Invoice intake handled outside the office | AvidInvoice | How vendor documents arrive and become Rent Manager bills |
| Several managers approving different charges | AvidXchange approval routing | Amount rules, the review order and substitute approvers |
| Evidence held in a separate work-order or owner system | A scoped exception connection | The permitted records, reliable references and where the reviewer sees them |
| A clearer view of bills waiting for action | Existing reports and workflow views first | Whether they show the hold reason and responsible person |
Confirm current availability, setup requirements and commercial terms with the provider. We do not assume that every Rent Manager account includes every option, or that invoice processing and payment services have the same pricing.
Find the hold that needs a connection
Take a small sample of recent supplier bills and trace where each waited. Separate data entry from missing evidence. If a manager spends time looking for a completion photo, changing the invoice reader will leave that search in place.
For each held bill, record the question staff must answer: Which property incurred the charge? Was the additional work approved? Does the invoice cover several work orders? Is this a corrected copy of a bill already received? Who can approve it while the property manager is away?
Our property management automation guide covers the wider office workflow. The maintenance request guide covers intake and work orders. This bill process begins when a supplier asks to be paid and needs a clear handoff from that operational history.
A recurring, well-defined evidence lookup can justify an integration. An occasional unusual charge may be cheaper to leave with the bookkeeper. Measure how often the hold occurs and how much manual work remains after trying the existing tools.
We'll compare your existing bill workflow with the work-order or owner evidence staff still have to find by hand.
Check access before specifying writes
Rent Manager's customization page distinguishes its Web API, with read and write access for Rent Manager Online, from Open Access, which provides read-only database views. That difference determines what a custom connection can do.
Before promising automatic bill updates, verify the customer's provisioned access, permitted operations and actual documentation. A public statement that an API supports writes does not establish that the required bill or approval operation is available in your account. Open Access can support a review or reporting workflow without providing a write path.
Our Rent Manager integration page explains the account-specific access boundary. We would start with the smallest permitted read needed to show the reviewer useful evidence. If no supported write exists, keep the final update in Rent Manager's own interface and make the handoff explicit.
An example: an invoice spans two properties
Suppose a landscaping contractor sends one invoice covering work at two buildings. This is an illustrative design problem. It does not imply that Rent Manager's existing tools lack allocation features.
First, test whether the chosen bill workflow already handles the allocation and approval rules. If it does, configure that process. A custom addition should only handle the evidence or routing step the available setup cannot cover.
For a missing external-evidence step, we would propose this sequence:
- 1Keep the invoice in the chosen Smart Bills or AvidInvoice intake path.
- 2Link the held item to the existing Rent Manager bill rather than creating a second bill elsewhere.
- 3Retrieve the permitted work references and show the proposed property allocation alongside the source invoice.
- 4Ask the responsible reviewer to resolve an uncertain property, amount or work match.
- 5Record the approved allocation against the version reviewed, then return it through a supported update or an explicit staff handoff.
- 6Leave payment submission with the separately authorized payment process.
Do not allocate costs by guessing from an address in a PDF. A vendor serving several buildings needs reliable property references, and the reviewer needs a way to correct a match. Keep one authoritative bill record and make the external item's purpose clear.
Keep financial decisions with the right person
A completed maintenance job supports a bill review; it does not establish that every extra charge was authorized. Route disputed work, coding questions and charges above the reviewer's authority to the appropriate employee.
Vendor bank-detail changes need a separate verification process. An instruction in an invoice attachment or supplier email should not change payment details automatically. Apply the business's approved verification procedure before any update.
Changes after approval also need defined handling. If an amount, property allocation, supplier or supporting document changes, determine which review must happen again. Ask the provider to demonstrate that behavior rather than assuming an earlier decision covers the edited bill. Our finance approval guide covers these boundaries in more detail.
Test the exceptions during a pilot
Use ordinary bills alongside the cases that currently consume staff time. Include a resent attachment, a corrected invoice, an unknown vendor, a missing work reference, a multi-property charge and an absent approver. Also test a connection becoming unavailable while a review is pending.
The reviewer should see why an item is held, who owns it and what would release the hold. A failed lookup should remain an unresolved lookup. A proposed match should remain a proposal until the required review is recorded.
Check that a repeated document does not create another bill through a second intake path. If an attempted update has an uncertain result, read the target record before retrying. Staff should be able to distinguish a connection failure from a rejected charge.
Compare the pilot with your starting process: time spent finding evidence, time waiting for approval, manual corrections and items still unresolved. The automation ROI guide explains how to use measured work and running costs in the buying decision.
Scope the missing bill handoff
We build systems integrations and workflow automation for property management teams. For a free automation audit, tell us which Rent Manager bill tools you use, where a bill waits and which outside system holds the missing information. An anonymized example of the hold is enough for the initial message; keep supplier bank details and private documents out of it.
