Technology is a force multiplier. With it, you can achieve great result that otherwise would have cost you more human hands, materials and lots of time.
No matter the industry that you are in in this modern times, especially post-covid-19, your choice of software is going to make an impact in your productivity and revenue.
PropTech (a group of technology focusing on the property industry) is enabling real estate transactions, property marketing and property management to be a lot easier more than ever before. With proptech, you can keep track of data in real time, manage relationships, market your portfolios and gain insights into your real estate business in a way never imagined.
Narrowing down to property management, whether you are a property manager or property owner, here are the top ten important features and benefits you need to look out for as you integrate a property management software into your business.
Accounting and Reporting
With a good property management software, you should be able to record, track and monitor your finances in a way that give you great insights into your financials. It should help you keep your books up-to-date and help you generate reports based certain criteria.
There is no doubt that when you have quality property management software, you will be able to better monitor finances and be more organized.
Because you are able to easily monitor your inflows and outflows in an organized way, you will be able to better prepared to manage larger accounting tasks like annual audit or tax filling.
Business Operations is Efficient
While property management can be profitable, it is not always easy. Especially if things like keeping records, preparing agreements, maintenance, payments, etc are done manually. With a good software, you should be able to efficiently carry out these tasks and seamlessly manage your operations with relative ease.
It’s a Great Time Saver
PropTech is a great business enabler. One of its most important benefits is that it helps you saves time managing your business while getting better result.
A good property management software should help you save time managing and interacting with landlords, tenants and vendors. Many tasks like rental reminders can be automated. Your landlord can have real-time access to reports on his/her portfolios you are managing. You are able to better receive maintenance requests from tenants and track each request until they are resolved. Working with vendors and managing invoices and receipts should become a breeze.
Easier Access to Information
Most times you’ll need to access some critical information. Maybe you need to know when a rent is due, run accounting report on a property, or need a document or receipt; with a solid property management software, you are able to easily have access to the information you need anytime, anywhere. No need to visit the office or start looking everywhere for that document of seven years ago. All the data you need are within your reach from the property management software.
Data Security
This is very important. No matter how good a property management software is, you should not trust your data with a company with credibility issues. This is why you want to use software from a company that has a face to it and, preferably, are within same region or country as your business.
A good property management software helps you better manage your tenants and their leases. Automated reminders helps you and the tenants easily keep track of when rent payment or service charge is due. Tenants can log on to the tenant portal to view any records on their previous payments, status of maintenance requests, download the lease agreements and see history of communication with your business.
In fact, generally,having secure access to your data is a feature that you should always ensure your software has. A good software from a creditable company will secure and protect your personal and business information.
Scale Easily
Again, this is how PropTech is a force multiplier in business. The right software should help you easily grow or scale your operations cost-effectively and with little or no additional resources.
You are adding 50 units to the 23 units your are already managing? Scaling your operations to handle the extra workload should be a no brainier with the right software. You are able to scale or downsize your operations much easier with a good property management software.
Cost Savings
A good property management software should help you automate many aspects of your operations. It should therefore help you cut or free resources for other tasks better handled by humans. Payroll is often the greatest expense on your finances. Follows by logistics, stationery and what have you.
With a good software, you are able to get things done more efficiently and much faster. You may no longer need that cabinet to store files and insure them against theft or fire; your onsite visit to deliver documents, that agreement, handle that maintenance issues, deliver reports to Owners, etc is greatly reduced, thereby saving you money.
If done manually, these tasks will costs you more time and more money, and the resources you should otherwise have channeled into another tasks is spent trying to do what a software will achieve in not time. This affects your business productivity and finances.
Managing and Storing Documents
Not only to store, but to also help you manage your documents relationships with the rest of your data. For instance, you should be able to see all the documents related to a property, to a landlord, tenant, vendor, etc. well organized for easier access and context.
As you increasingly use a property management software to manage your business, you become increasingly less dependent on physical files or paperwork. This will free up space in your office, make it less cluttered and reduce if not eliminate your stationery expenses.
You have easier access to your document and paperwork s in a way that is even much more secure than when you stored them on premise in those big old cabinet!
Communications Will Be Faster
As a property manager, you communicates a lot: to owners, tenants, vendors, and others. You do this by email, SMS, messaging apps (not ideal), physical documents delivered to recipients, etc. A good property management software, for instance, can help you conduct all your business communication in a way that is central, so that in one glance and from one tool, you can view all previous messages and interactions pertaining to the person your are interacting with.
Tenants can easily submit maintenance requests. With auto-reminders, tenants are notified of their payments few weeks before it’s due (like in Nigeria where rent is mostly paid annually). You can automate notifications so your staff, landlords and vendors receive messages from you when certain events are logged into the software.
A good property management software should help communicate faster and exchange information quicker with your clients, tenants, vendors and staff.
You Can Work From Anywhere
The present and the future is remote work. Even before Covid-19, many businesses have upgraded their operations to take advantage of remote work.
A good property management software is ideal for enabling your business to be able to operate even without a physical office; be able to work anywhere because all that you need is in the cloud, and you are able to collaborate and function without the limitation of a physical office.
Technology is a great business enabler and a force multiplier. It enables you to be more efficient and productive. You are able to focus more on the tasks you are better able to handle like sales, negotiations, etc while the software powers your business and automate so many tasks for you.
If you are on the market for a good cloud-based software that meets the above benefits, Hutstack Property Manager is a great choice. Request for a free demo and start managing your property management business like a rock-star!