Whether you own a small or large business, you will need to ensure innovative, engaging, and memorable experiences that streamline even the most challenging property management interactions and protocols. You need to keep track of building expenses, marketing for one’s portfolio, lease management, measuring and maintaining portfolio performance, tenant retention and customer satisfaction, and much, much more. Luckily, in today’s world, what once took hours to do manually can now be automated and streamlined through property management software for landlords and property teams. Here’s what this looks like, and how you can use it for your office.
What is Commercial Property Management Software?
A property manager is defined as an individual or company that is hired to oversee the day-to-day operations of a unit of real estate. Property management services might include being in charge of supervising and coordinating building maintenance and work orders, collecting and depositing rent, resolving tenant concerns, and more.
Alongside commercial real estate (CRE)’s digital transformation, the property management software field has exploded, allowing property owners of all sizes to work more efficiently and more precisely. An investment in simple landlord software can yield big results. Such software, which helps streamline and automate the day-to-day responsibilities for property maintenance teams, ensures that owners, managers, and operators can succeed in the evolving markets. Through meaningful data collection about building performance and building occupants, teams can strengthen their connections with tenants, refine their asset strategies, and automate building processes to help create modern, frictionless workplace experiences.
A Day in the Life: What Commercial Property Management Software Really Looks Like
Commercial property management software is not just about bookkeeping and maintaining tax rent records. Today’s commercial real estate asset management software can help you seize opportunities for tenant engagement, mitigate risk, and anticipate problems and concerns. How does this work? We’ll take you through a typical day in the life when leveraging property management software.
To begin, we need to point out that there are many types of software that can be useful to property managers and property management companies. There are online property management software products, which are affordable and easy to access remotely. Your data is stored in the cloud, so it can be accessed easily from the field. There is also desktop property management software that is downloaded to your company’s server and accessible only via your in-house devices. This has the reputation of being somewhat more secure, but information is stored in-house and not available remotely. Lastly, there is open source property management software that can be used for free and adapted for your own specific needs by your IT department.
A typical day with your property management software might include processing payments, paying bills, personalizing and sending lease agreements, and logging maintenance completed at specific properties. Savvy property managers will also be looking at their software to oversee property security, write RFPs for renovation work, check occupancy rates, and track tenant complaints and concerns. With the many types of cloud-based property management software products, you can accomplish all of these tasks efficiently, wherever you are, and through various mediums. Creating exceptional experiences for your tenants is also now easier than ever, as you can use your property management software to analyze important building metrics to discover what spaces tenants are using, what amenities they like, and where to improve.
Discover the Best Property Solutions
With so many use cases for commercial property management software for landlords, where do you begin when looking for trusted solutions? According to updated lists, there are several property management software companies to look out for. Many can even be found in our growing ecosystem of technology partners in HqOS™. In no particular order, here are a few of the top contenders:
- Building Engines: Building Engines’ product offers Prism, one of the most innovative building operations platforms for commercial real estate. Their property management software for landlords, tenants, engineers, and CRE executives offers several core capabilities that make operating a building an easier experience for all. Through their online property management software, clients can file work orders, optimize building communications, carry out inspections, as well as address insurance, space management, and visitor access needs. (Building Engines is a trusted HqOS Marketplace Partner)
- Angus Systems: Angus System’s product offers mobile and cloud-based work order and operations management solutions for commercial real estate teams. Their core capabilities involve maintenance management and service management software, which include detailed and optimized work order lifecycle tracking. (Angus Systems is a trusted HqOS Marketplace Partner)
- Jones: Jones’ product provides property owners with complete visibility into the state of compliance of each party operating on their property — from collecting and auditing insurance certificates to providing tenants with pre-compliant vendors for their service needs — Jones offers the insurance tracking system needed to simplify compliance for every use case. (Jones is a trusted HqOS Marketplace Partner)
- AppFolio: AppFolio’s product is cloud-based software, complemented by an app, that allows all of its features to be used on mobile devices. Its specialties include: commercial properties, multifamily properties, single-family properties, student housing, condominiums, and homeowner associations. Their features cover rent collection, accounting software, maintenance requests, marketing tools, tenant screening services, utility billing, customizable online leases, and more.
- Buildium: Buildium’s product is a cloud-based software and app, and specializes in landlords or property managers with 50 or more units, residential properties, student housing, and affordable housing communities. They can provide solutions for rent collection, accounting software, property inspection tools, marketing tools, renters insurance, leasing tools, and tenant screening services.
To learn more about property management software and to find the product that will work best for your business, check out our Marketplace of technology partners.
