A tenant sends a screenshot: rent paid, reference number, correct amount. Weeks later you reconcile your account and the money was never there. Screenshot editing tools have made fake payment confirmations trivially easy to produce — and if you manage more than a handful of units, checking every receipt by hand is exactly the kind of chore that gets skipped.
What a fake receipt looks like
- A real screenshot with the amount or date edited.
- A reused receipt — one genuine payment claimed against two different months, or two different rooms.
- A payment sent to the wrong account (the tenant's friend, not you) shown as proof.
- A transaction that was initiated but never completed.
How to verify manually
- Telebirr: every completed payment has a receipt number that can be looked up on Ethio Telecom's receipt portal — check the amount, date, and receiver name match.
- CBE and other banks: cross-check the reference against your own SMS alerts or statement — never against the tenant's screenshot alone.
- Always check the RECEIVER: the money must have landed in your account, not just left somebody's.
- Log every reference number you accept — the same reference appearing twice is a red flag, not a coincidence.
The discipline that makes it work
Verification only protects you if it happens every time, before the payment is recorded — not at month-end. That means a fixed routine: receipt in, reference checked, receiver checked, amount matched to the invoice, then recorded. One skipped check is all a fake needs.
Making it automatic
Kiray360 verifies receipts online at the moment the tenant submits them. The tenant uploads a screenshot or types the reference from their phone; the system checks the payment against Telebirr or the bank's own records, confirms the receiver account is one of yours, matches the amount to the tenant's balance, and blocks any reference that has been used before. You approve verified receipts with one tap — and fakes never reach your books.
Whether you use software or a notebook, the rule is the same: a screenshot is a claim, not a payment. The payment is what your account — or the bank's records — says it is.