Managing agents are the one part of Payreq Delivery that touches nearly every other part. An agent's Subscriptions live in Subscriptions, the authorisation that creates them lives in Settings, whether they update automatically depends on a Mailer option, and what actually drives them is your Contact data. This article joins those pieces up.
For the practical steps of sending, viewing and cancelling an authorisation, see Agent Authorisations. For what a Group Subscription is, see Group (agent) Subscriptions.
The terms
A managing agent holds a group (business) Mailbox and receives documents for the properties they manage. Payreq calls them a group customer, because the same arrangement is used by businesses that are not property agents at all. This guide uses "group customer" for the Payreq side of the relationship and "managing agent" where the real-world role is what matters.
The identifier that ties your records to that group customer goes by different names at different organisations: Group Account, Notice ID and Major Agent are all versions of the same idea. The field's name is configured during onboarding and is usually Contact Field 3. See Understanding Contact Field Settings.
The console label for the relevant Mailer option is Allow MyBills Agent registrations from Contacts. See Understanding Mailer options.
Three models
Group Subscriptions are created and removed in one of three ways. Which one applies depends on whether the group customer has authorised you, and on whether you have the Mailer option turned on.
1. Receiver-managed
The group customer creates, manages and deregisters their own Subscriptions from inside their Mailbox, and follow the same Subscription requirements as an individual user.
You have the same control over their subscriptions as usual, and if they need help subscribing, all you need to do is give them the details for the properties they have confirmed they are authorised to receive documents for.
2. Receiver-managed with your help, Mailer option off
You request authorisation from the agent to create Subscriptions on their behalf. The request asks only for an agent email address associated with their Mailbox. Once the agent accepts:
- you can add Subscriptions for that agent, individually or in bulk using Import registrations on the Subscriptions tab; and
- the agent keeps the ability to create and manage their own Subscriptions.
This is usually a one-off, to help onboard an agent or to handle a large batch of changes such as one agency acquiring another's rent roll. Make it clear to the agent that ongoing management remains theirs, or you inherit work that was never meant to be yours.
3. Mailer-managed, Mailer option on
With Allow MyBills Agent registrations from Contacts enabled, the authorisation request asks for the agent's email address and the relevant Group Account, Notice ID or Major Agent details. Once accepted, that agent's Subscriptions are maintained from your Contact data on every subsequent Contacts update.
Under this model:
- the agent can no longer create Subscriptions at all, individually or in bulk. They see a message reminding them that they have authorised Subscription management and should tell you about changes instead;
- the agent can still deregister a Subscription and can still use Return to Sender on a document they were sent in error; and
- you can still deregister Group Subscriptions manually, but the expectation is that changes flow through your Contacts, from your own source system.
The intended cycle is: the agent takes on a property, tells you they are the authorised recipient, you update your source system, your Contacts update, and the Subscription is created for the authorised agent.
Why the agent cannot add properties themselves
This is the question agents ask, and the answer is worth giving them plainly: owner consent.
An agent receiving mail on a property owner's behalf usually has to satisfy the issuing organisation of their authority to do so, often by submitting a signed management agreement or authority form. That evidence sits on paper, outside Payreq. Blocking self-service Subscription creation is what prevents an agent adding a property without that step.
An agent told "you need to contact the council to add a property" will accept the reason. An agent told "the system will not let you" will not.
The agent still has to tell you
This holds under every model, and it is the single most common misunderstanding. Authorisation does not automate portfolio changes. It automates the Payreq side of a change you already know about.
If an agent stops telling you when they take on or give up a property, their Subscriptions drift away from the properties they actually manage, and neither side finds out until documents go to the wrong place or stop arriving.
Two things help:
- tell agents explicitly, at onboarding and in writing, that they must continue to notify you about portfolio changes in the usual way; and
- define what "the usual way" is. Some organisations have a formal channel, such as a managing agent notification form. If yours does not, agents will guess, and some will assume Payreq handles it.
Timing: automatic does not mean immediate
Under model 3, a Subscription is created or removed when you next update your Contacts, or when documents are next issued. On a quarterly billing cycle, an agent who notifies you in April may not see the Subscription appear until the July notices go out.
During that gap the agent cannot tell the difference between a change that has not been processed yet, one that failed, and one you never received. Setting the expectation up front removes most of the follow-up contact this generates.
Deregistration and your Contact record
Under model 3, your Contact record is the source of truth. If an agent deregisters a Subscription but your records still carry that Notice ID or Group Account against the Contact, the Subscription is re-created on the next Contacts update.
The practical consequence: when an agent tells you they no longer manage a property, the fix is in your source system, not in Payreq. Removing the Subscription without correcting the Contact record only postpones the problem to the next update.
Where an owner or agent changes, the affected Subscriptions are flagged for your review in the Deregister? view. See Managing "Deregister?" Subscriptions.
Return to Sender is the one signal that reaches you
If an agent receives a document for a property they no longer manage, they can use Return to Sender. That deregisters the Subscription, removes the document from their Mailbox and flags the item Undeliverable in your Mail tab.
It is the only agent action that surfaces to you inside Payreq, and it only works in the removal direction. Treat a Return to Sender as a prompt to correct the Contact record. See Handling Undeliverable Mail.
Practical notes
Authorisation requests are sent one agent at a time. There is no bulk send. For a large agent list, plan the work: a council with 159 agents is 159 separate console actions.
The authorised agent email list is not an address book. The email shown against an authorisation records who received and accepted that request. Some authorisations have been in place for years and the original person may have left the agency. Do not treat those addresses as a current contact list.
Encourage agents to use a generic, team-wide email address. Turnover at agencies is high, and the person who downloads notices is often an administrator rather than the property manager. When that person leaves without a handover, the account is tied to a mailbox nobody can open, and a password reset cannot be completed. A shared address avoids both problems and means notifications are not missed while someone is away.
When a portfolio changes hands
If a rent roll is sold, two agencies merge, or a group customer needs their subscriptions moved into a different Mailbox, that is not something either of you can complete alone. Payreq Support has to do it, because there is no way to remove subscriptions in bulk and the documents already delivered do not move with them.
Point the group customer at the Payreq Mailbox guide Moving subscriptions to another Payreq Group account, which sets out what moves, what does not, and what they need to tell you. Your part is updating your own records once the move is agreed, or the subscriptions revert at your next Contacts update.
Related articles
Was this article helpful?
That’s Great!
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry! We couldn't be helpful
Thank you for your feedback
Feedback sent
We appreciate your effort and will try to fix the article