The options residents and property owners have access to pay and receive rent is kind of a headache to say the least. We are starting to sound like a parrot repeating back the same thing over and over again: There should be an easier way. I’ll be honest, it makes me upset enough that my words are best expressed in the form of a haiku:
Why must we suffer?
Paying rent is a pain.
What a waste of time.
On a more serious note, there are countless problems with the process residents pay rent, property staff collect rent and the communication tools in between those. In my humble opinion (and I assume so many more) paying and receiving rent, maintenance requests and lease management should all work together seamlessly.
Used all together, property management should be an equally easy software to use for renters and owners alike. So, what does that look like in a perfect user experience? I’ve broken up my ideal software package into four management sectors: Data, Community, Financial, and Time.
Choosing the right software for multifamily property management
Data Management:
Apartment management is a huge junction for data collection and management. Pulling together important user data and putting it together in graphs is an age old task that can be easily automated.
The ideal property management software would do the heavy lifting for an operator. Creating efficient data flows and displaying data on dashboards should be a top priority to help generate trends and outliers, and help forecast business operation and marketing decisions.
Financial Management:
Rent management, vendor invoices, and more…the list could go on and on. Dealing with physical invoices and payments and balance sheets are far better off in a centralized online location.
A rounded out property management software makes it easy to receive, store, and pay invoices, receive and process rent payments and more. Each apartment is a complex business of their own and online financial management is a must.
Time Management:
Time is love. Who has extra time for omittable processes in the renting world? Staff members have business objectives and initiatives to tend to, and a clunky property management platform can add hours of work.
For renters, why not help save time by simplifying processes and creating shortcuts for basic tasks like paying rent or submitting a maintenance request? Property management will ideally automate and streamline hiccups to create a smoother and quicker experience for every party.
Community Management:
Community management is important to create a welcoming environment for renters and property staff. Maintenance, shared space upkeep, event posting and hosting and news are important tools to holistically support an apartment community.
As an owner, this looks like a cohesive platform to manage all renter support tickets and messages. Happy community=long term renters=happy staff=happy owners.
Take these four M’s with you and remember ten years from now that you heard it here first. Once this is the industry standard I will be able to sleep at night, knowing that the world is a better place. But – until then, I’ll keep bugging my coworkers about it.
