There are so many things to consider when you run a property portfolio. From fielding calls from tenants, arranging maintenance, conducting property inspections and filling out documentation. All these things take up your day. If you have many properties, you will find that you don’t have much time left over to do other jobs that require your time.
By automating certain aspects of your job as a property manager, you can streamline these tasks and free up time for what really needs your attention. But where do you begin? There are many processes that shouldn’t be automated and others that you should look into automating first.
So, which tasks should property managers automate first? Here we will go over some processes you can automate as a property manager and where to start.
Start With the Tasks That Take Up the Most Time
Property management software can help identify opportunities to automate repetitive tasks by bringing everyday processes and information together in one place. However, before introducing new tools or changing existing workflows, it’s worth understanding where the working day actually goes. After all, there’s little point automating a process that takes only a few minutes when another task is consuming hours of the week.
Once you’ve identified common day-to-day tasks, you can see where time may be slipping away. It could be replying to tenants, following up, recording data and organising maintenance. Try to keep track of how long you spend doing certain admin-related jobs. If you’re constantly entering the same data into multiple programs or following up with people about things they need, then that may be a process to automate.
Find where bottlenecks are occurring. Are repair tickets sitting around waiting to be updated? Owner communications are taking too long to create. By having all of this information in one place, you will have the ability to get the information you need faster and save time by chasing up tenants or owners.
Not everything will need to be automated, but there are certain tasks that you can identify that are repetitive. If they’re taking up a lot of your time and can be easily streamlined. You want to leave room for your staff members to help customers with issues they may have. This will give you some ideas of where to start streamlining your day’s work.
Automate Routine Tenant Communications
It’s always good to keep your tenants informed about what is happening, but you will find yourself replying to the same questions, and notifications can quickly add up. Allowing certain things to be automated can help ensure that you stay in touch with your tenants without chewing up too much of your time.
Having automatic responses to let your tenants know that you have received their enquiry, or setting up automatic notifications to remind people of inspections or important dates, can be very helpful. Additionally, automated messages provide a way to update tenants on current repair statuses.
Make sure you set ground rules for what can be automatically responded to. Notifications and simple questions can be answered with an automatic message, but if you receive any complaints or issues, you should ensure that this is directed to the appropriate person.
Make Maintenance Requests Easier to Manage
Scheduling property repairs takes time, especially if property managers oversee multiple properties and need to track recurring issues with repairs. Smart home devices can help simplify property maintenance in another way, by allowing property managers to keep tabs on aspects of a property’s condition and identify issues earlier.
Integrating smart technology like leak detectors, smart thermostats and connected smoke alarms can alert you to what’s going on inside the property. Perhaps a water leak sensor can tip someone off to a potential leak before it leads to bigger problems, or smart heating and cooling technologies can identify weird usage patterns that need to be looked into. Smart home technology won’t prevent maintenance problems from happening, but it can help you act more proactively.
Choosing the right technology that will work for your property and provide helpful benefits for tenants and owners is important. Smart devices also need to be installed correctly, maintained and used in a way that’s respectful of tenant privacy. Beyond routine inspections and maintenance calendars, technology can be another valuable asset for property managers, helping them maintain properties efficiently and minimise the time and expense of fixing preventable problems.
Reduce the Administrative Work Behind Leasing
Paperwork is an inherent part of tenancy management. Between processing rental applications, reviewing supporting documents, preparing agreements and coordinating lease renewals, there’s no shortage of documents to manage. Doing this work manually can leave property managers digging through files for hours on end, tracking down missing information, updating paperwork and recording key dates.
Steps in the leasing process can be automated to stay on top of administration. Rental applications and supporting documents can be stored centrally, while automated notifications can be sent to applicants reminding them to submit something that’s missing. Owners can also be notified well in advance of lease expiry dates so managers have time to reach out to tenants and owners ahead of when a renewal decision is required.
Standardised workflows can also make administering the regular paperwork involved in tenancy management easier across your whole portfolio. Simple checklists can ensure you take the same steps with every new tenancy, while automatically assigned tasks can remind your team when it’s time to prepare or review documents.
Reviewing applications, preparing agreements and making decisions that impact tenants or owners will always require a human touch. Automation works best when it limits administration without taking away the important checks that ensure your leasing processes are accurate and consistent.
Streamline Inspections and Compliance Tasks
Monitoring property inspections, required documentation and key deadlines becomes more challenging as your portfolio expands. Forgetting a property inspection or follow-up task can create extra work for you and may leave issues on your property unchecked. Automation can simplify your workload by helping you keep track of upcoming tasks.
You can schedule inspections in advance and automatically notify relevant parties ahead of an appointment. Digital reporting software can organise your findings, photos and follow-up tasks in one platform. Easily see which properties have repairs or other concerns that require follow-up. Instead of remembering due dates or manually checking several calendars, track tasks as they are completed and highlight incomplete work.
A solid maintenance plan can go hand-in-hand with these tools by outlining when regular inspections take place, which duties should be completed and how follow-up work will be recorded. Set automated reminders to ensure these tasks stay on track, and use recurring task lists to simplify managing multiple properties.
Maintenance and tenant compliance requirements differ depending on your property, its location and tenancy agreements. Automate where possible, but don’t lose sight of the rules you need to follow. Double-checking deadlines, maintaining records and ensuring completed work was done correctly should not be neglected. By automating, you can make these tasks feel much less overwhelming.
Keep Financial Administration Organised
Rent payments, invoices and owner statements can result in a flow of money going in and out of your accounts. When property managers have multiple properties to manage, tracking due dates, logging expenses and generating monthly reports can take up a large chunk of their week. Automating recurring tasks can eliminate unnecessary manual labour while staying on top of your financial details.
Sending automatic rent reminders and payment notifications allows tenants to keep better track of upcoming expenses. Having a system in place that organises your invoices and expense records helps you stay consistent with your financial documentation. You can also automate owner statements and recurring financial reports, so you don’t have to generate the same documents from scratch each month.
Another useful feature is to automate certain notifications to highlight when payments have been missed or when other inconsistencies occur that may require further investigation. Instead of combing through every report manually, you can focus on what needs attention and follow up as needed. Property managers will still need to review financial documents, especially when going over payment disputes, human error or difficult conversations with tenants and owners.
How to Choose What to Automate Next
Once you’ve identified opportunities to reduce repetitive work, the next step is deciding which changes will deliver the most value. Using technology to manage your property doesn’t mean automating every available process. The aim is to find practical ways to save time, improve communication and make everyday responsibilities easier to manage.
Begin with activities that are repeated regularly and have a standard process. If your team is spending days each month sending reminders, updating files or following up on expected progress reports, automation in these areas will likely have a quicker payoff than implementing a robust system to track sporadic tasks. You should also consider the time you hope to save versus the cost to implement it, train your team and maintain the system.
Try automating a new process on a small scale before implementing it across your portfolio. This allows your team to troubleshoot issues, collect feedback and refine the process before it becomes part of your regular workflow. Assess whether it actually reduces work, eliminates bottlenecks or improves communication with tenants and landlords.
Lastly, maintain manual oversight when it’s required. Complaints, emergency maintenance issues and sensitive situations with tenants can often depend on context and nuance. Automating your property management shouldn’t put another layer between you and your tenants, landlords and maintenance teams. Prioritise carefully and review your successes to find an automation workflow that helps your team scale.
Make Automation Work for Your Portfolio
Your first port of call shouldn’t be your most complex process. It might well be the task that requires you to do the most unnecessary work. When you automate things like sending out regular reminders, managing finances, or coordinating maintenance, your team’s efficiency sees a quick uplift.
Once you’re up and running, use your process reviews to identify where else you can make improvements. It’s not about eliminating human intervention from property management. It’s about freeing up time for your team to focus on the parts of your business that really require their expertise, decision-making skills, and personal touch.
Pick your automations carefully, build on successes and you could simplify your day-to-day without sacrificing your service.
