What is Property Management software?
To cut costs and streamline operations, landlords and real estate professionals can use property management software to track leases, residents, and maintenance tasks, as well as collect rent and manage finances.
Benefits of Property Management Software
Property management software applications can offer a number of significant benefits, including:
Tenant & lease tracking: It helps landlords keep track of tenant information such as rent payments, contact information, and lease dates. Lease tracking can also aid in the automation of the leasing process from beginning to end.
Maintenance administration: Assists property managers in keeping buildings and utilities in good working order so that tenants can find value and comfort in their homes. Residents can submit work orders, and landlords can assign tasks and keep track of schedules to make sure that important property maintenance tasks are done on time.
Accounting: Users can visualize a property’s financial health by tracking rent payments, using a general ledger, and generating reports.
Tenants’ portal: Tenants can pay their rent, request maintenance, and communicate with their landlords at any time. This portal can also send residents reminders and notifications about upcoming rent dates or important messages from managers.
The Advantages of Property Management Software
Whether it’s used to manage a single apartment complex or dozens of commercial properties, property management software gives landlords the tools they need to handle daily tasks, giving them more time to focus on other parts of their business:
Grow your business: Built-in tenant screening to find the best residents or renters, for example, frees up a property manager’s time to market properties and manage applicants. Users can use marketing tools to quickly post vacancies.
Make things easier for people: Residents can pay their rent online at any time of day or night, making it more convenient for them and their landlords. Furthermore, the portal creates a communication channel between tenants and office and maintenance personnel, allowing everyone to stay up to date on important announcements.
Take control of your finances: Reporting and analytics tools help landlords gather information about their finances, tenants, and marketing so they can spot trends that could hurt their business or find ways to make it better.
For more information about property management software please visit https://www.papertrail.co.za/property-management-software-in-south-africa-for-property-companies/
Property Management Software in South Africa
PaperTrail has recently developed an exciting new Property Management Module. This module provides a powerful workflow solution to automate much of a previously tedious process. The process focuses on an easy-to-use solution from both the prospective Tenant as well as the Property Management company.
The important aspect of the electronic signing of documents is integrated into the solution using the PaperTrail eSign solution. The TPN functionality will soon be automated using the TPN API. Integration with MDA will soon be automated using the MDA API. This is awaiting the formal partnership of PaperTrail with MDA thereby integrating MDA and PaperTrail via the MDA API.
The PaperTrail eSign solution is compliant with the relevant Acts as well as SA Law. A separate document from Michalsons a leading SA Law Firm in regard to Electronic Signatures explaining how and why PaperTrail Electronic Signatures are compliant is available at this link.
The Property Management Module follows the following process:
Lease Agent and Tenant Process
– Lease Agent fills in the first section of the Electronic Application as the start of the Workflow process
– The Electronic Application is mailed to the prospective Tenant to complete their initial details
– The Tenant Application caters for relevant supporting documents to be uploaded with the Lease Application
All uploaded documents are available as Links to the Application and can be easily viewed at any time whilst the particular Lease Application is being viewed
– The Tenant Application is signed with the PaperTrail Electronic Signature. Authentication of the signature is provided via the email address
– The Lease Application form is automatically sent to the Lease Agent via the built-in workflow
– This is checked in terms of the correctness of Supporting docs and the TPN document is uploaded.
– Lease Agent adds the TPN Document and Approves this part of the process.
PaperTrail will soon automate the TPN process using the relevant API to allow for integration with TPN and our Property Management Module
Credit Vetting Process
– The Lease Application now moves to Credit Vetting as part of the workflow
– Once Credit Vetting Approves the Lease Application returns to the Lease Agent to upload the Proof of Payment by the Tenant
– Throughout the process emails are sent to the Tenant for their required actions, for example making the Proof of Payment
Lease Generation Process
One of the most significant aspects of the Property Management Module is the complete auto-generation of the Lease Agreement.
The auto-generation occurs in the form of pre-populated data from the Lease Application and workflow input that has been completed prior to the Lease being created.
Should last-minute changes need to be made, these can readily be done by the Lease Manager prior to the Lease Agreement being mailed to the prospective Tenant.
This in itself saves an enormous amount of time together with the advantage of correct data being presented within the Lease Agreement. Once the Lease Agreement is signed by the Prospective Tenant, this automatically returns to the relevant Lease Manager for their signature. All documents in the process are stored in their correct folders together with the form field data being available for efficient searching and reporting.
Database Lookups
Throughout the process, database lookups form an important part of the solution in terms of the correct data being instantly available. For example, all property building data is stored and used when required.
In the same manner, banking details are stored and automatically served to the relevant User when required. For example, the payment details for each property are automatically mailed to the respective Tenant when payment is required.
As mentioned earlier Phase 2 includes the automation of TPN and MDA data to be available as required using the respective APIs. Together with the industry-compliant PaperTrail Electronic Signatures, the entire process remains electronic without the need to manage paper.
Integration to third-party systems like TPN and MDA cater to a fully-fledged solution without any of the inherent inefficiencies within a paper-based system. Dashboards can easily be introduced into the solution by reporting on any data that is stored within the SQL database.
Throughout the process, PaperTrail displays an Audit / History of every action that has taken place on the Tenant Lease Application, Credit Vetting, and Lease Agreement processes. The Workflow graphical interface shows the current stage within the Lease Workflow.
This allows Management an easy view of the stage of any Lease Application or Lease Agreement whilst in the Workflow process.
Coupled with the Audit /History and detailed Summary info, any information for any Lease is instantly available and easily located on one single screen.
The Property Management Module provides a comprehensive workflow solution to automate the entire Property Management Lease process. This allows for a streamlined solution with enormous savings in both time and efficiency.