AI for rent collections: how Darcy's agent works

How rent collection works today

Collections is a daily job from the first of the month until every balance is paid or sent to an attorney. Most teams follow the same steps:

1. Pull the delinquency report. Each morning, someone runs the aged receivables report.

2. Sort the list. Staff decide who to contact first. A first-time late payer, a resident with a partial payment, and a resident who disputes a charge need different messages.

3. Send reminders. Staff email or text each resident with the balance. Many teams copy the number from the ledger by hand.

4. Apply the late fee policy. After the grace period, staff post late fees according to the lease and state law. Managers decide on waivers.

5. Work out payment plans. A resident asks for more time. A manager approves terms. Staff record the plan and track each installment.

6. Serve notices. If the balance stays unpaid, staff prepare a past-due notice or a notice to pay or quit. State law sets the form and the timing.

7. Call. Managers call residents who do not answer messages.

8. Hand off. Unresolved balances go to an eviction attorney or a collection agency.

Subsidized households add one more check. In the Housing Choice Voucher program, the housing agency pays its share directly to the landlord, and the resident pays the family rent portion, which HUD says is usually 30% of adjusted monthly income. A reminder that names the full contract rent instead of the resident's portion confuses the resident.

What Darcy does at each step

Every morning Darcy ranks who is behind and why. It writes each resident a message with their exact balance, and it sets up payment plans, late fee waivers, and past-due notices according to your rules. Darcy's collections work also includes calls for your managers.

The rules are yours. Darcy does not invent a waiver policy or a plan length. It applies the ones you set, and it shows the ledger lines behind each balance.

What your team still does

• Legal steps. Notice forms and timing vary by state. Your team or your attorney approves each notice. Evictions stay with your attorney.

• Exceptions. A resident in hardship, a disputed charge, or a payment that the bank returned needs a person.

• Policy. You write the rules for waivers, plans, and notices. A clear written policy also supports equal treatment under the Fair Housing Act.

How review and approval work

Darcy starts by preparing work for your team to review. In collections, that means the morning ranking and drafted messages arrive for a manager to check against the ledger. The manager sends them or edits them.

As Darcy learns your policies and your team's decisions, you hand it more tasks to run on its own, one type of work at a time. A team might hand over routine balance reminders first and keep payment plans and notices in review longer, because they carry legal weight. Every action shows the records it used, so you can trace any message back to the ledger lines.

Payment fees

Darcy's price is $2 per unit per month. Payment processing is billed per transaction: $2.50 per ACH bank transfer and 2.85% + $0.30 per card payment, as of October 2026. On a $1,500 rent payment, a card fee is $43.05 ($1,500 x 2.85% = $42.75, plus $0.30). Ask in the demo who pays these fees in your setup.

What to measure

• Delinquency rate on the 5th, the 10th, and the last day of the month.

• Dollars collected per staff hour in collections.

• Payment plans kept, as a share of plans set up.

• Waivers granted outside policy. This number should fall as rules get clearer.

• Notices served late. Every late notice delays the legal timeline.

For definitions, see delinquency rate, grace period, late fee, and notice to pay or quit. To compare tools, read our list of the best rent collection software. To see Darcy rank a delinquency list like yours, book a demo.