Collecting rent through M-Pesa: paybill vs till, explained

The one difference that matters: the account number

Both a Paybill and a Buy Goods (till) number let a tenant pay you on M-Pesa. The difference that matters for rent is a single field:

• Paybill asks the payer for a Business Number and then an Account Number. That account number is a free text field you control — so a tenant can enter their unit (e.g. A-205) every time they pay.
• Buy Goods / Till asks only for the Till Number. There is no account field, so every payment arrives with the payer’s name and nothing that ties it to a unit.

For a shop selling sodas, a till is perfect — you don’t care which customer paid. For rent, you care about exactly that: which unit is now paid up. The account number is what makes rent reconcilable.

Paybill vs till for rent, side by side

There are cost and settlement differences between the two on Safaricom’s side, and those change over time, so confirm the current tariffs with Safaricom before you decide. But for the bookkeeping, Paybill wins for rent because of that account field.

The recommendation

Use a Paybill, and give every unit a fixed account number that never changes. Put it on the lease and on every invoice.

A stable per-unit reference (say the unit name) means that six months from now you can still tell that A-205 paid on the 3rd, in full, without phoning anyone. It is the difference between a five-minute reconciliation and a lost Sunday.

What a Paybill still won’t do

Even a well-set-up Paybill only collects the money. It still leaves you with a statement of payments that you have to match against your rent roll, chase for the ones who didn’t pay, and total up for your books. Tenants also mistype references, pay partially, or pay late — and the raw M-Pesa statement won’t flag any of that.

That last mile — matching each payment to the right tenant, spotting who is short, and keeping a clean arrears list — is what property software automates. TENari Rentals connects to your Paybill and auto-matches every payment to the right unit by reference, then keeps a live arrears board so you always know who owes what.