When you’re managing multiple properties, every payment matters. Rent collections, maintenance bills, and supplier invoices all add up to thousands of dollars moving in and out of your accounts each week.
For many real estate professionals, moving that money electronically still feels unsettling. A paper check is tangible. You can sign it, hold it, and hand-deliver it to the post office. With ePayments, funds move digitally. And the rise of phishing attacks—now made more sophisticated with AI —can make those transactions feel harder to trust.
But as the industry shifts away from paper, many finance professionals are asking: are paper checks safer in real estate, or are electronic payments the more secure choice?
Let’s take a closer look ePayments vs. paper checks, and we’ll break down what these risks really mean for real estate professionals.
Common Concerns About ePayments
For many real estate professionals, the hesitation around ePayments comes less from actual risk and more from how unfamiliar they feel. There’s also a perception that changing systems will be difficult and expensive.
Visibility and Control
If you’ve always worked with paper checks, the idea of moving payments online can feel unfamiliar and intimidating. A physical check provides something physical you can hold, while ePayments feel like they happen behind the scenes. That shift can create the perception that you’re giving up control.
In reality, modern digital payment systems often give you more visibility through approval workflows, audit trails, and real-time dashboards with anytime access. The adjustment mostly comes down to learning a new process—and like any change, that can feel scary at first.
Cybersecurity Concerns
With real estate finance teams handling large sums across multiple properties, it’s no surprise that security tops the list of concerns when considering ePayments.
Phishing scams, where criminals trick you into sharing account details, are becoming more sophisticated. Business email compromise (BEC) is another growing threat—in these scams, fraudsters pose as a trusted contact, like a supplier or even an executive, to convince you to send money to the wrong account. Some of these attacks are now being powered by AI, making them even harder to spot.
However, when payments are processed through a sophisticated platform, they’re backed by multiple layers of protection, including encryption, fraud monitoring, and multifactor authentication. These safeguards are designed to make digital transactions harder to exploit and give finance teams greater confidence in how money moves.
Fear of Automation
For some, the hesitation isn’t about the payment itself but about the larger shift toward automation. Paper feels safe because it gives you the sense of a paper trail and a signature you personally control. New technology, on the other hand, can make it feel like you’re losing oversight of the process—that payments are moving without your approval or visibility.
But automated processes are designed to reduce manual labor, not kick you out of the driver’s seat. You still review, approve, and release payments, just without the inefficiencies (and vulnerabilities) of paper. In fact, automation can give you greater control, with dashboards that let you track payment status at every stage from wherever you are.
Paper Checks: Familiar But Riskier
Paper feels safe because it’s familiar. You may have heard the phrase “leaving a paper trail” to feel more in control. But that sense of security can be misleading.
Paper checks introduce several vulnerabilities, especially in real estate where payments often follow predictable patterns.
Rising Check Fraud
Check fraud is still one of the most common types of payment fraud in the U.S., and criminals continue to refine their tactics. Stolen mail, altered payee names, and forged signatures can all turn a seemingly routine check run into a costly incident.
For real estate professionals managing large sums across multiple properties, even one intercepted check can lead to account resets, disrupted operations, and reputational harm.
Predictable Timing
Many property management teams process payments on a consistent schedule: every Friday, for example, or at the end of the month. While this routine helps keep operations organized, it also creates patterns that fraudsters can exploit.
If criminals know when your checks are being printed or mailed, they know exactly when to try to intercept them. For organizations managing payments to dozens of suppliers at once, this predictability adds a layer of risk that’s hard to ignore.
Exposed Information
Every check you send contains sensitive financial details: bank account numbers, routing codes, company information, and even signatures. To a fraudster, that single sheet of paper can be a goldmine.
“If you want to give a crook everything they need to steal from you, just send them a check. It’s all right there: your name, address, account number, routing number, signature. And they get intercepted all the time.”
Operational Strain
Beyond the security concerns, checks come with a heavy operational burden. Printing, signing, stuffing, mailing, and reconciling each payment takes time away from higher-value work.
In real estate, where teams often handle high volumes of payments tied to multiple properties, the cumulative cost of those manual tasks adds up quickly—not to mention the added hard cost for materials like printer ink, stamps, and envelopes.
And every additional handoff, from the printer tray to the mail bin, introduces another opportunity for error or delay.
Which Is Safer for Real Estate Professionals?
So, are paper checks or ePayments safer in real estate?
No payment method is completely without risk. But when you compare the exposure of mailing paper checks against the protections built into electronic systems, ePayments generally provide stronger security.
Here’s how the two methods stack up:
| Paper Checks | ePayments | |
|---|---|---|
| Fraud Risk | High risk: mail theft, altered payees, and forged signatures are common. | ✅ Lower risk: protected by encryption, multifactor authentication, and fraud monitoring. Some risk remains from phishing and email scams, which continue to evolve. |
| Visibility & Traceability | High risk: once mailed, checks can be hard to track until they clear. | ✅ Lower risk: digital payments have anytime, anywhere access. They create audit trails with timestamps, approvals, and confirmations. |
| Predictability | High risk: weekly or monthly check runs create patterns criminals can exploit. | ✅ Lower risk: payments can be scheduled flexibly, reducing exposure to predictable timing. |
| Information Exposure | High risk: account numbers, routing codes, and signatures printed on every check. | ✅ Minimal risk: sensitive data kept behind encrypted systems, not openly shared. Many leading payment platforms are also registered as licensed money transmitters or Money Services Businesses. |
| Operational Burden | High risk: printing, signing, mailing, and reconciling takes significant staff time. Introduces more opportunities for error. | ✅ Lower risk: automated processes reduce manual touchpoints and free up team capacity. |
| Cash Flow Timing | Uncertain – checks often need to be mailed early to account for postal delays, tying up funds sooner. | ✅ Flexible: ePayments let businesses hold funds longer and time payments more precisely. |
So yes, here at AvidXchange, we believe ePayments are the safer path, which is why we offer electronic payment solutions to our customers. But don’t just take it from us—other real estate professionals have experienced both sides.
For example, Wheeler Real Estate Investment Trust discovered the risks of paper checks the hard way: through a case of check fraud that forced a complete bank account reset and systemwide updates. For Samantha Day, the company’s Accounting Systems Administrator, the incident underscored how vulnerable traditional payment methods can be.
That experience became one of the drivers for moving away from paper. After switching to ePayments and accounts payable (AP) automation, Wheeler not only reduced fraud risk but also saved an estimated $47,000 annually in labor and executive time.
Real Estate Teams Are Moving Beyond Paper
If you’ve been relying on checks for years, the idea of moving payments online can feel like letting go of control. But in reality, digital tools often give you more safeguards.
For real estate professionals managing multiple properties and stakeholders, that can mean fewer sleepless nights worrying about whether your payments made it safely into the right hands.
At AvidXchange, we’ve partnered with thousands of real estate companies in their transition from paper to automated AP. And while we may have a vested interest in the shift, the feedback we hear often from customers is this: “I can’t believe we didn’t do this sooner.”
Now that you understand the different concerns between ePayments and paper checks, the next step is to consider the pros and cons of AP automation for real estate companies. Get your free download of this resource at the link below.
The information presented on this page is based on research and intended for educational purposes only. Anyone seeking to follow the information contained herein should consult their own advisors and conduct their own research prior to doing so. AvidXchange, Inc. and its affiliates disclaim any and all liability resulting from reliance on the information contained herein.
AvidXchange is a licensed money transmitter for B2B payments in the United States, licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as all other states that require AvidXchange to have a license.