If you self-manage rental properties, you know how much work goes into maintaining your business. Between record keeping, accounting, tenant communication, maintenance, and rent collection, your business upkeep likely keeps you busy.
Fortunately for landlords, technology makes managing rentals much easier. Property management software is a cost-efficient resource for all landlords, whether you manage a few properties or many.
While entrusting the success of your business to technology may seem scary, don’t fear. Property management software is designed specifically for landlords and is fully equipped to help you manage your tenants.
Here are five benefits of property management software.
- Convenience
Property management software is, above all, convenient. It is designed to make everyday landlord tools easily accessible, even on the go.
Online rent collection is one of the most convenient features of property management software. With this feature, tenants make payments with debit, credit, or ACH transfers, which deliver funds directly from a tenant’s bank account to yours. Online payments eliminate the need to make monthly trips to the bank or manage unsecured cash and check payments.
Most property management software companies also offer a mobile app, a helpful secondary feature aimed toward convenience. Mobile apps typically offer landlords access to all the software’s core features, including online rent collection, tenant screening, lease signing, maintenance management, and tenant communication.
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Accountability
Has a tenant ever asked you to waive a late fee or extend a rent deadline? If you’ve been in this situation, you know how difficult it can be to say no.
Property management software can help keep your tenants accountable without any awkward conversations.
Software solves this problem by allowing you to push automated late fees to any tenants who haven’t paid their rent by a specific date. This means there’s no question about whether or not a tenant got their rent in on time—your software automatically records and timestamps all payments.
You can also configure your software to prohibit tenants from making future rent payments until they’ve paid all late fees and previous months’ rent in full. This means renters absolutely can’t get away with side-stepping a late payment. What’s more, the software ensures that rent and late fee policies are equally enforced across all tenants.
Property management software holds both you and your tenants accountable to the original terms of the lease.
Efficiency
For most landlords, efficiency is one of the biggest draws of property management software. Software helps you accomplish your rental goals much faster than you’d be able to with manual management.
One way that property management software increases efficiency is through automation. For instance, software can partly or fully automate record-keeping and routine communication. Automatically generated, accurate payment records are a lifesaver for landlords tired of rifling through cluttered file cabinets or hard drives to find important files.
Tenant communication can also be automated. If you send monthly rent reminders, office closing notifications, or other regular messages, the software can automatically send them.
Finally, tenants can benefit from automation too. If tenants set up AutoPay, they won’t have to worry about missing a rent payment at all—the software will automatically withdraw funds from a designated bank account each month when rent is due. This means fewer late fees and saved time.
Security
Property management software is highly secure compared to manual management systems.
When signing a lease, for instance, eSignatures offer more security than traditional “wet” signatures. Wet signatures retain no data about the time, place, or actual signer, but eSignatures record the signer’s email, IP address (physical location), and timestamp. This makes eSignatures much harder to forge.
If you’re concerned about the digital security of your information, rest easy. Sensitive information like bank accounts or routing numbers are encrypted and protected from digital theft. You can be confident that you and your tenants’ data is safe.
Sustainability
Sustainability is a final benefit of property management software. Manual business management wastes resources like paper and gas. And those resource costs increase the more tenants and properties you have. Buying reams of paper to print long lease documents and other records adds unnecessary strain on your bank account—not to mention the environment.
Property management software presents an entirely paperless approach to managing rental properties. And because your documents are stored in the cloud, they’re also safe from misplacement, theft, clutter, or destruction.
Property Management Software: A Worthy Investment
If you’re still managing your properties manually, it’s time for an upgrade. Property management software is the convenient, efficient, secure, sustainable solution to all your daily landlord challenges. Invest in property management software and watch your rental business benefit.