Catalyst Rent Reporting: Turning Rent Into Credit History
About the Project
Catalyst Rent Reporting is a rent-reporting program for residential communities. The idea is simple and powerful: rent is most people's largest monthly payment, yet it rarely counts toward their credit. Catalyst changes that: residents' on-time rent payments are reported to the major credit bureaus. Catalyst promises residents a credit score increase of up to 53 points.
Catalyst partnered with ZestIQ to design and build the digital platform behind the program. Not a landing page, but a working ecosystem delivered in phases: automated reporting first, then a public portal and an internal admin dashboard, and now a full self-service resident portal. It has to work day to day for two audiences at once:
- Residents get a clear way to register, monitor their credit, manage their membership, and opt out if they choose.
- The Catalyst team gets an internal toolkit to see how the program is performing and run it without a developer on call.
The Challenge
Turning rent payments into credit history is an operational chain with no room for error: property data, lease data, payment data, identity verification, and monthly reporting all have to stay in sync. The platform had to satisfy five core requirements:
Reporting without manual work
Monthly reports built entirely from Entrata property-management data, so residents are never asked to submit payment data themselves.
Room to scale
An architecture built to serve entire residential communities as the program grows.
Credit data, safely
Show residents their credit data only after identity verification, and keep it off the platform's own servers entirely.
Serious security posture
Follow SOC 2 compliance recommendations across authentication, access control, sessions, and audit logging.
Self-serve operations
Let the Catalyst team monitor adoption, manage residents and opt-outs, and export reports on their own, without developer involvement for every request.
The Solution
The solution has two layers. The first is the three products people actually use. The second is the machinery underneath them: data sync, reporting, credit integration, and the design and security foundations they all share.
One Platform, Three Products
Public website
The public front door of the program: how-it-works content, FAQ, contact, and the entry point into the resident portal.
Resident portal
A secure self-service area where residents manage their profile, membership, and opt-out, and monitor their credit through the built-in credit dashboard.
Admin dashboard
The internal control center for the Catalyst team: program performance at a glance, plus management of residents, properties, opt-out requests, subscription plans, administrators, and monthly reports.
Under the Hood
Automated Monthly Reporting
The project started where the business value is: monthly reports. Each report is built entirely from property, lease, resident, and payment data synced from Entrata, so residents are never asked to provide payment data themselves. Reports generate automatically every month, and administrators can generate a report for any period on demand and get notified when it's ready.
Entrata Integration: Property Data That Manages Itself
The platform syncs with the Entrata property-management system automatically on a schedule, so properties, leases, residents, and transactions always reflect reality, and the Catalyst team never imports anything by hand. The sync also handles the awkward real-world cases, like properties leaving the program or residents opting out, without any manual cleanup.
Array Integration: Credit Data That Never Touches Our Servers
Credit monitoring in the resident portal is powered by Array, a third-party identity verification and credit data platform, embedded directly into the portal. Residents see their credit data only after completing an identity verification step, and the data itself flows between the resident's browser and Array. It is never stored on the platform's servers. The result: a full credit dashboard inside the portal, with sensitive data kept where it belongs.
Membership Management
Residents can view and upgrade their Catalyst membership right in the portal, with upgrades taking effect immediately. The Catalyst team can also manage any resident's plan from the admin dashboard, and every change triggers an automatic email notification to the resident.
A Design System Built From Zero
Starting from the brand colors, we assembled a dedicated design system: typography, buttons, form fields, status badges, down to a distinct "prefilled" state for form fields that arrive already populated from Entrata. The entire product is fully responsive from the first screen, with a mobile drawer menu and breakpoints tuned for tablet and phone.
Security Following SOC 2 Recommendations
The platform handles personal and financial data, so it was built to SOC 2 compliance recommendations:
- Mandatory two-factor authentication for every administrator and every resident.
- Strict role-based access control: users see only the sections their role and plan permit.
- Rate-limited logins and protected registration flows.
- Hardened sessions with automatic logout and forced re-authentication after password changes.
- A full audit trail of logins, plan changes, and sensitive operations.
Our Process
The platform is being delivered in phases, each one shipping working software the Catalyst team uses in production.
Automated reporting
The Entrata data sync and the monthly report engine: auto-generated reports every month, on-demand generation, and email notifications on completion.
Public portal and admin dashboard
The public website, the full internal admin toolkit, and the security layer built to SOC 2 recommendations.
Resident portal (ongoing)
The self-service portal: registration and authentication, the resident profile, opt-out, membership management, and the Array credit monitoring integration.
Key Achievements
Three products live on one coherent codebase, reporting that builds itself from synced data, sensitive credit data kept off the platform's servers, and a security posture guided by SOC 2, all run day to day by the Catalyst team without a developer on call.
On-time rent, reported to all the major bureaus. The score lift of up to 53 points is Catalyst's promise to its residents.
A public website, an admin dashboard, and a resident portal on one codebase, live in production.
Automated Entrata sync keeps properties, leases, residents, and transactions matching reality.
Credit data flows straight between the resident's browser and Array. The platform never stores it.
Universal 2FA, role-based access, rate limiting, hardened sessions, and a complete audit trail.
A component library of typography, buttons, forms, and badges, built from the brand colors up.
The Catalyst team monitors adoption and manages residents, properties, plans, and reports on its own.
Each phase ships working software the team uses in production; the resident portal is in active dev.
Ongoing Platform Support
This is not a "ship it and forget it" project. ZestIQ remains the ongoing technical partner behind Catalyst, and the resident portal phase is actively in development.
Regular Releases
Functionality keeps shipping against the backlog: resident registration and authentication, live data in resident profiles, the Array credit monitoring integration, membership and upgrade flows, and opt-out handling.
Production Automation
Recurring operations run themselves: scheduled Entrata synchronization, automatic handling of inactive properties and residents, and monthly report generation with notifications.
Support and Fixes
Bugs and small UX issues, like error message copy or form behavior, are fixed promptly as the client or the team finds them.
An Admin Dashboard That Keeps Growing
The admin toolkit keeps expanding alongside the resident portal, so the Catalyst team manages more and more of the program without needing a developer for every request.
Frequently Asked Questions
Catalyst is a rent-reporting program that reports residents' on-time rent payments to the major credit bureaus, helping residents build credit history from payments they already make. Catalyst promises residents a score increase of up to 53 points.
The digital platform behind the program, delivered in phases: an automated monthly reporting engine built on Entrata data, a public website, an internal admin dashboard for the Catalyst team, and a self-service resident portal with credit monitoring, currently in active development.
The platform syncs with Entrata automatically on a schedule, keeping properties, leases, residents, and transactions current. The Catalyst team never imports anything manually, and residents are never asked to submit payment data.
Credit data is shown only after identity verification and never touches the platform's servers; it flows directly between the resident's browser and Array. On top of that, both admins and residents use mandatory 2FA, access is role-based, and sensitive actions are logged.
Yes. ZestIQ remains Catalyst's technical partner: the resident portal is in active development, alongside production automation, fixes, and continuous expansion of the admin dashboard.
A PLATFORM THAT HAS TO WORK Flawlessly?
Building something with real data, real users, and no room for error? Let's talk about how ZestIQ can design, build, and support it.