Not all rent moves through Rentor. Cash changes hands, a bank transfer goes direct, someone pushes to the landlord's paybill without going through the app. Rentor has a place for all of it, so your ledger stays true — but the two sides record it differently, and the difference is deliberate.

If you are the landlord or agent: record what you received

Open Rent & Payments and click + Record a payment. Pick the tenant — the amount fills in with what they owe — choose the method (Cash, Bank transfer, or M-Pesa (recorded manually)), and add the reference if there is one: an M-Pesa code, a bank slip number. The same button is in the phone app.

That posts straight to the ledger. A receipt is issued, the arrears drop — oldest month first — and the tenant is notified. There is no approval step, because you are attesting to money you received yourself — asking you to approve your own statement would be theatre.

When it's the tenant who tells Rentor first, their claim appears in the Reported payments card on the same page (More → Money → Reported Payments on the phone), marked Waiting on you. Confirm received records it — change the amount first if less arrived than they said — and I didn't get this sends it back with your reason. Details are in Collecting rent.

M-Pesa codes are checked for reuse. If the code you enter has already been recorded against any payment on Rentor, it will be refused. That is not distrust; it is what stops one confirmation message being used twice by accident.

If you are the tenant: tell your landlord you paid

Open Rent & Payments and click "Already paid another way? Tell your landlord →". The form — Report a payment you've already made — asks how you paid, the amount, when you paid and, this matters, the reference (for a paybill payment, the M-Pesa code). Under Proof you can attach a photo of the M-Pesa message, the bank slip or a receipt; only you and your landlord can open it. Then press Ask my landlord to confirm. The same link is on the payments screen of the phone app.

What you have made is a claim, and it waits until your landlord confirms it. Your ledger does not change yet, and your arrears do not drop yet — so don't worry if a reminder still reaches you in the meantime.

That can feel like being doubted, so here is the honest reason. Arrears are the most consequential number on this platform: they drive reminders, they decide whether a unit can be re-let, and they are the thing argued about when a tenancy ends badly. If typing "I paid 30,000 in cash" reduced arrears by itself, then arrears could be erased by assertion, and the number would stop meaning anything — including when it is in your favour. So the money is recognised by the person who received it.

What you can do to make it fast:

• Give the reference. A claim with an M-Pesa code is confirmed in seconds. One without needs someone to go and look.
• Attach the message. A screenshot of the M-Pesa confirmation is usually the whole conversation.
• Get the date right. A payment recorded on the wrong date can land in the wrong month's bill.

Your landlord is notified the moment you submit, and you are notified when they confirm — at which point the receipt is issued and the ledger updates, with the date you paid kept on the record. If they received less than you reported, they can confirm the figure that actually arrived.

If a claim is declined

A landlord can decline a claim, with a reason. That does not delete anything: the claim stays on record with the reason attached, so if there is a dispute later there is a trail of what was said and when.

If you are sure you paid and the claim was declined, do not raise a second claim. Open a support ticket under Rent & payments with the reference and a screenshot — that goes to a person who can look at both sides.

What cannot be recorded this way

Card payments. A card payment always goes through the gateway and confirms itself, so it can never be "offline". If a card payment is missing, it is a gateway question rather than a recording question — see Paying rent.

Rent you paid before you joined Rentor

Rent from before the tenancy existed on Rentor is a different thing again — it belongs to a history that was never on the platform. A landlord records it separately — Payments before Rentor, on the tenant's panel on their Tenants page — and the tenant sees it as Before Rentor on their own Rent & Payments page. It is kept apart from the live ledger so that it can never be confused with money owed today. How it works — for both sides — is in Receipts & transaction history, with the landlord how-to in Collecting rent.