Like many other industries, property management is going through the process of automation, defined as “the act of replacing human labour with machinery or computers.” Over the years, there have been numerous studies that all come to the same conclusion: automation reduces costs and increases productivity, leading to greater profitability. This Sunshine Coast Property Management has done everything possible to take advantage of the latest advancements in property management automation. This has resulted in increased revenues, a reduced need for staff, and overall cheaper operation costs. This post will help property managers learn about automation and how it can benefit their company.
What Property Managers Can Learn about Automation
Automation in property management is typically defined as manual tasks being passed over to machines or computers. It can reduce labour costs by either replacing the workers who do the task or those who perform the task while using a machine in place of human labour. In property management, automation can handle various tasks, including
The Rent Collection Process
Automating rent collection is done through online payments, auto-debit, or even mobile payments to a tenant’s bank account. These programs can save property management a lot of time in billing, receiving payments, and storing money.
Tenant Screening
Automated tenant screening can do background checks from any number of resources for a lower cost than traditional methods and generates reports faster. The process involves scanning for criminal, tax, and credit history.
Tenant Notifications
Smartphone apps like Tappit allow property managers to send a custom message to tenants for any number of purposes. This could include notifications such as “your rent is due in three days” or “there’s a broken light in the stairwell.”Property managers do not have to personally give out the information to every tenant in the building.
Maintenance Requests
An automated maintenance request process can notify managers when a particular room or building needs to be repaired. For example, a tenant can call in and complain about a leaking tap in their kitchen, a broken toilet, or lights that aren’t working. From here, a work order will be put into the maintenance request system, which automatically notifies the property manager to arrange repairs. When the work is done, the system will generate a new work order, notify the tenant, and update the repair manager’s timesheet.
How Automation Can Benefit Your Property Management Business
Automation can serve a number of benefits for property management companies and landlords. This includes;
Saving Time and Money
Through automated tools, property management companies can get more work done during the day and on weekends. This includes opening up more hours to receive more tenants and viewings for potential new tenants. By removing the need to do these things in person, a property manager is able to handle an increasing amount of work without hiring additional staff.
More Efficient Property Management
Automation allows the property manager to do less labour-intensive work that is done on a daily basis. Without automation, the property manager may need to hire additional staff to handle all of these tasks. However, with automation, they are able to do less work and devote more time to managing their tenant’s needs and building relationships with them while protecting them through insurance.
Getting a better return on investment (ROI)
Automation programs can often contribute to higher returns on investment for property management organizations because it allows managers to automate many of their routine tasks and monitor those tasks more closely.
Timely Responses to Client
Automation allows real estate agents to be more organized in the way they work. With the help of these programs, property managers can easily respond to their tenants’ emails promptly and communicate with them more fluidly compared to other conventional ways of communication such as written, fax and paper mail.
Efficiency Enhancements
Individuals can be assigned specific tasks, which can help teams work more efficiently together and achieve specific goals on time. This is especially useful for large property management companies with many buildings to manage and maintain.
Simplifying Operations
Many property management companies employ a full-time staff, which means there is a lot of paperwork and processes that need to be followed for things to get done. With automation programs, there is less of a need for documents, and it all flows more smoothly. This means that time spent on records keeping will be reduced as well as fewer errors.
Automation can be used to improve the operations of a property management company significantly. This can be done by automating many of the physical processes as well as administrative and bookkeeping tasks. From there, there is a much higher chance of acquiring more higher quality tenants and revenue. However, property managers have to stay up-to-date with technology to remain competitive in today’s marketplace and new trends.