The Functions of a Property Management System You Must Know

What are the Functions of a Property Management System?

Property owners are usually faced with the uphill task of properly managing their properties. The problem is that managing a property/property is a lot of work. A property management system is a platform that combines the resources property managers require to run their businesses, putting them all in one location for automated processes and streamlined communications that lessen the need for manual administrative work and increase revenue.

If you are a property owner or manager and find it hard to manage a property, here are a few functions that a PMS will help you with.

Property Marketing

In general, people lack marketing expertise for their homes. The ideal people to comprehend how a particular property has to become the talk of the town are those who are knowledgeable about the real estate business. Therefore, most property owners or landlords enlist the assistance of firms that manage properties to promote their property effectively. These businesses offer the greatest preparation services and are adept at promoting a specific property on the market.

These businesses often use property management systems that they can easily integrate with other property marketing tools. A good PMS should easily integrate with such tools, making it easy to align management efforts and streamline communication. Property marketing is at the heart of managing your property since, without marketing, you will have low vacancy rates, and your property might lose value.

Tenancy Management

Tenants are at the core of your business as property owners, and as such, they deserve your attention and quality services. As a property owner/manager, you need a system that allows you to easily onboard new tenants into the system, process and file lease agreements easily, and manage your tenant’s claims and disputes seamlessly. A good PMS allows you to do all this from your mobile phone, even on the go. That way, you can easily attend to any tenant-related issue fast.

A good PMS allows you to do all this in one common place. It should also be very fast, especially when processing contracts and lease agreements, when screening the tenants, and onboarding the tenants onto the system.

Reports and analytics

We are currently living in the data-driven digital age. Business decisions are based on data that has been carefully collected, stored, analyzed, and understood to make business decisions that will have more impact. Property management also relies on such data to decide which type of tenants to attract, how much rent to charge, whether to add more units and which features to add to improve property quality and value.

A good property management system will enable you to capture all important and required data at every point of interacting with the system. This data gets captured and stored automatically within the singular system and can be retrieved, analyzed, and used for various purposes.

They can also capture data from regular reports filed within the system, making it easy for property owners.

Rent Collection

Collecting rent should be done by a given date of the new month. However, this can not be easy, especially when the number of tenants involved is high. Therefore, as a property owner/manager, you need a system that will allow you to collect rent easily by confirming from your end on a common system whether your tenants have paid their rent. 

Therefore, a good system should be capable of integrating with other features such as your bank account and other accounts to which tenants pay rent. This ensures that your work is made easier when collecting rent, and you do not have to switch between different applications. 

Repairs & Maintenance

Homeowners may be unable to handle the upkeep or damage to their properties for several reasons. Either they live in distant states, nations, or continents or are preoccupied with their jobs. Because of this, the property starts to look outdated, which causes its market value to go off rapidly over time. 

To prevent such damages, homeowners might use property management services. They make sure that, if any, damaged furnishings or portions of the building are fixed. Additionally, they ensure good property maintenance before prospective customers, such as tenants or other house buyers, visit to inspect the property.

A good system allows proper tracking of such cases that need repair and maintenance and schedules the repairs regularly. This will ensure that the property is always maintained and in good condition.

CRM and customer data management

As a property owner, your customers are your tenants and potential tenants. Like any other business, your property also relies on tenants so that you can earn something from your investment. Therefore, you need to have a system that will ensure you are always on the lookout for new tenants to have a low vacancy rate and constant revenue from your property. A customer relationship management system will help you attract new clients and convert them into paying customers (tenants). 

A customer data management system will also enable you to capture, store and easily retrieve tenant data from anywhere. This data is important since it will assist you with other things, such as screening tenants and contract generation. You must also store your tenant’s data securely to avoid tenants’ data landing in the wrong hands. 

Legal Services

Like any other business, managing a property isn’t easy since the law involves various aspects of the property. As a property owner, it is always important to ensure that you are on the right side of the law to avoid run-ins with the law. It is, however, hard to know all the legal issues involved in property ownership, and at times you need both lawyers and a good system in place. 

For example, a good system will always alert you of pending bills such as water and sewage bills, land rates and rents, etc. This will enable you to avoid having to deal with disputes with various authorities. 

Finding Credible Tenants

The hunt for good and loyal tenants is one of the most difficult tasks for homeowners who wish to rent out their property. This task in hand is made possible by property managers. It has been observed that hundreds of people from different backgrounds are always on the lookout for a rented property. However, homeowners sometimes prefer tenants with a particular family structure. Such as some homeowners prefer a bachelor while others prefer a family. 

Therefore, property management systems help homeowners find their respective tenants most seamlessly and rent out the property at the best price possible. This has made the work of homeowners much easier. At the same time, they also help tenants find their preferred property, such as an apartment with/ without a balcony, number of bedrooms, pet-friendliness, etc. 

Thus, the advent of such property management systems has enabled the real estate sector to boom exponentially by making its market players function with ease.

Contract management

Contracts bind the landlord and the tenant together. Contracts will also define the nature of the relationship between the two parties. It is, therefore, to have a system in place that will always keep track of these contracts and also update them if required occasionally.

Therefore, a good property management system should be capable of generating contracts, filling contracts, and always ensuring that all the tenants abide by the terms of the agreements. This makes it easy for the property owner in that there will never be any pending contract-related issues. The system addresses these issues promptly and automatically with little input from the property owner. 

However, it is important always to have all the necessary information about the tenants so that the system can work best. The system will only be useful if the tenant information is accurate, true, and relevant to the tenancy agreement.

Accounting and tracking finances

The exchange of money between real estate market participants is crucial, including landlords, home sellers, tenants, and developers. To develop a sense of loyalty, the parties must conduct these financial transactions as safely and credibly as possible. Property managers are involved in these circumstances to establish trust and provide witnesses to the transactions. 

Additionally, they ensure that there is no violation of the law by the parties to the financial transaction by ensuring that they do not disobey any legal requirements.

Another important responsibility of the property management companies is to ensure that in case of rented properties, the tenants pay the rent timely without any delays. This gives assurance to the landlords about timely payment by the tenants, and thus, they do not have to remind the tenants constantly. This promotes healthy financial dealing between both parties without any discrepancies involved.

A good property management system also keeps track of all the expenses involved in running and maintaining the property. Thus, at the end of each financial period, there is an up-to-date accounting of all the financial commitments. 

Conclusion

To sum it up, property owners and managers should consider automating the entire property management process. It will help them save more time, be much more efficient, and focus their time and energy on other issues requiring more attention. Get yourself a system that integrates with other platforms/applications is easy to use, and use on the go. Do this, and you will see a much improved and streamlined property management operation.