Set up your prescreening requirements | RentEngine Help Center

Overview

RentEngine prescreening stops unqualified leads and scammers before they schedule a showing. You control prescreening through Prescreening Templates, which define requirements, questions, and rejection logic.

Fraud Guard adds additional identity and fraud protection for self-guided showings.

This article explains how to create prescreening templates, assign them to properties, and configure Fraud Guard.

What prescreening does

Prescreening lets you:

Set minimum credit and income requirements
Ask custom questions
Automatically allow or reject prospects based on responses
Collect information without rejecting when needed

Prescreening is done before a prospect schedules a showing.

Create a prescreening template

Go to Settings → Showings → Prescreening
Select an existing template, or click New template
Click the pencil icon to name the template
Click Set as default if you want this template applied to new vacancies automatically

You can create multiple templates, and assign them to the relevant units.

Set credit and income requirements

Use the sliders to define:

Minimum credit
Minimum income

If you'd like the prospect to answer with exact numbers instead of ranges, click Ask for the credit and income as free text instead of pre-defined ranges

Then, if you don't want the prescreening to ask for credit and income, click Bypass pre-screening income & credit questions

Note: Even if you bypass the pre-screening income and credit questions, we still recommend setting your minimum so the AI knows how to respond to questions about minimum rental requirements.

Configure prescreening questions

You can ask questions that require a Yes/No, free text, or date response.

Yes/No questions allow you to set rejection logic:

Yes
Rejects prospects who answer Yes
No
Rejects prospects who do not answer Yes
Do not reject (informational)
Collect the response without affecting eligibility

Use informational questions when you want visibility without blocking showings.

Housing voucher question

The first question is always about housing vouchers.

If the prospect has a housing voucher they can bypass the income and/or credit requirements, based on the setting you select here.

Note: we do not recommend removing this question, as it will create confusion about whether or not that property accepts housing vouchers.

Add or remove questions

Click New to add a question
Click the trash icon to remove a question

Order and number matter. We don't recommend adding more than 4 questions.

Configure Fraud Guard for the template

Each prescreening template includes its own Fraud Guard settings (see below).

Configure these before saving.

Save the template

Click Save in the top right to apply changes.

Assign a prescreening template to a vacancy

To assign a template to an active unit:

Open the Properties tab
Click Take action → Edit property
On the final page, select the Prescreening Template from the dropdown
Save your changes by pressing Finish

The template applies immediately.

What prospects see

When scheduling a showing, prospects:

Answer prescreening questions
Complete any required Fraud Guard verification steps
Are approved or rejected automatically

Rejected prospects are not able to schedule a showing but they are able to resubmit the prescreening.

You can test the prescreening flow by clicking the Schedule Showing button on your website's listing page.

Note: For rejected prescreenings, the system does not tell the prospect why they were rejected in order to prevent them from resubmitting with false information.

Fraud Guard explained

Fraud Guard is RentEngine’s built-in fraud prevention system for self-guided showings. It goes beyond basic ID checks to stop scams before access is granted.