How to Select Property Management Software

January 04, 2023

Select the Software You Need

Smart landlords and property managers know how important technology is to their businesses. It’s being applied in every area of rental property management resulting in higher performing portfolios.

Now in 2024, SaaS-based solutions are the gold standard. And while we’re on the topic of Software as a Service, landlords can leverage SaaS too to automate payments and give self-service options to tenants who want them.

Additionally, landlords can adopt SaaS to offer new digital services (digital amenities) to build new revenue streams.

The adoption of a modern SaaS property management software opens up doors to lower costs, better services and higher revenues.

But how will choose the best property management software for you?

The Holy Grail: Efficiency and Mastery

New, updated, managed applications provide worry-free performance and better service for tenants. The ultimate goal of your software is grow profit margins. The accent on revenue growth and cost reduction keeps your businesses’ outlook positive — just like your cash flow.

The benefits are clear to taking time to choose well: easier workloads for your tired staff, fewer errors and rework, smoother automated processes, automated payments, insightful reports, improved operations, and simplified accounting.

Focus: Your Top 5 Pain Points

We urge you right now to write down on paper, the top 5 work problems you’re suffering. Then you can work backwards to the reasons why they keep happening. It might not be apparent as to why your staff are overworked, why bottlenecks happen, lack skills/motivation, why tenant communications are poor, why margins are falling, or how your budget is being eaten up mysteriously.

Clarifying the Features that Solve Business Pain

In this post, we help you establish your key problems out of the many you may have.

To find your 5 BIG Pains, consider:

what are your top 5 costs?
which manual tasks are repeated?
how much time do you spend with tenant communications?
which types of tasks have low completion rates?
what is your legacy software not doing?
what’s at the root cause of tenant complaints?
why do your tenants always seem uninformed and disinterested?
why do you keep processing payments manually?
why do you struggle to acquire good information to make smart decisions?

Don’t move on until you’ve committed to writing down your top 5 pain points. This is how you’ll gain clarity, so you can move forward.

The Most in Demand Software Features

If you review ManageCasa’s service features, you’ll learn what most rental property managers are struggling with. The software responds to your key pain points, giving you inspiration and confidence that you can finally get these problems rectified.

simplified user interface requiring less training and personal expertise (staff are overworked and finding tasks too complicated)
integrated dashboard helps staff get more accomplished (too many tools not integrated)
powerful, dedicated property accounting module with smart automation (serious accounting power which property accountants love)
online rent payment and bill payment functionality (automated payments eliminate low-value admin work)
vacancy listing ad syndication (automated listings for better tenant acquisition)
leasing management tools to improve turnover costs (easing tenant changeups and the work involved)
easy management of online maintenance requests and scheduling (automating and helping tenants provide essential information)
online portal to enable tenant self-managed-services (tenants love self-service and it saves managers time)

What Do Property Managers Not Like about their Software?

Landlords and PM’s often speak of how solutions didn’t meet their needs:

too difficult for staff to learn – intimidating, frustrating, deflating
not integrated with your other software (payments/accounting)
lacking essential features
promising much but not delivering real-time and money-saving results
software oversteps its true core competencies and thus creates more problems
time-consuming migration and adoption process
staff, tenants, investors, and contractors not liking it

While software buyers want bells & whistles features, it’s the core services that get business done well.

As you can see ManageCasa has each aspect of your work covered and simplicity is a theme of our brand.

A 6 Step Review Process:

establish what you need the software to do for your business such as specific tasks that are mission critical and other services you’re not doing well now – lease management, double-entry accounting, lease-based accounting, automation for bills, disbursements and reconciliation, online rent payment, and flexible insightful reporting, along with effective tenant communications
determine whether it will work with your current software, partners, etc. and if it’s scalable for growth
assess whether it’s easy to use, intuitive, and determine whether your staff will like it
ascertain whether and how it helps you meet your state regulatory compliance and financial requirements
determine its accounting capabilities and whether it can help you manage your expenses well for each individual property
determine whether it will reduce your administration time or if it’s built to nickel and dime you out of money with escalating charges

Major Property Management Platforms

Let’s review a few of the most obvious products, some designed for large enterprise space or mid-sized property management companies.

Key Software Features to compare and evaluate:

	ManageCasa	Buildium	Appfolio	Propertyware
Platform
All-in-One Property Management Software	✔	✔	✔	✔
Multi-Language	✔	X	X	X
Multi-Currency	✔	X	X	X
Global Time-Zone support	✔	X	X	X
Property
Unlimited Properties	✔ (average $1 per unit. No monthly minimum)	✔(average $ 1.8 per unit. Minimum $ 48 per month)	✔ (average $ 1.25 per unit. Minimum $ 250 per month)	✔ (average $ 1.5 per unit. Average minimum $ 350 per month)
Single Unit Properties	✔	✔	✔	✔
Multi-Unit Properties	✔	✔	✔	✔
Multi-Purpose Property	✔	X teilweise	✔	X
Residential Properties	✔	✔	✔	✔
Commercial Properties	✔	X	✔	X
Mixed-use Properties	✔	X	✔	X
Property Relationships	✔	X	X	X
Lease Management
Capture core lease dates	✔	✔	✔	✔
Lease history tracking/management	✔	✔	✔	X
Lease relationship based on lease terms	✔	X	X	X
Automatic lease expiration	✔	X	X	X
Contacts
Contact Management	✔	✔	✔	✔
Contact Management All Users	✔	X	X	X
Contact related data points	✔	X	X	X
Maintenance
Maintenance Dashboard	✔	✔	✔	✔
Logging/tracking maintenance issues	✔	✔	✔	✔
Notification of maintenance status	✔	✔	✔	X
Integrated communication	✔	X	X	X
Dedicated discussion around maintenance	✔	X	X	X
Historic tracking of status changes	✔	✔	X	X
Multi-media rich maintenance tickets	✔	X	X	X
Accounting & Reports
Accounting Dashboard	✔	X	✔	X
Full double-entry bookkeeping	✔	✔	✔	✔
Default and customizable charts	✔	X	✔	X
Record invoice/Expenses(bills)	✔	✔	✔	✔
Support for Cash and accrual based accounting	✔	✔	✔	✔
Support for files & images in accounting	✔	X	X	X
1099 fillings	X	Extra Fees	Extra Fees	X
Online wire	From Fall 2018	Extra Fees	Extra Fees	Extra Fees
Discussion
Multiple user types	✔	X	X	X
Discussion framework for:	✔	X	X	X
– Standalone	✔	X	X	✔
– One-on-one	✔	X	X	✔
– One-to-many	✔	X	X	X
– Property related	✔	X	X	X
– Multi-unit announcements	✔	X	X	X
– Multi-building related	✔	X	X	X
– Maintenance related	✔	X	X	X
– Lease related	✔	X	X	X
Ability to add/remove users at any time in the discussion	✔	X	X	X
Files
File Management System	✔	✔	X	X
Organize Files by property	✔	X	X	X
Organize by default folders	✔	X	X	X
Create folders and sub-folders	✔	X	X	X
Share/Unshare Files	✔	X	X	X
Share/Unshare Folders	✔	X	X	X
Drag & Drop capability	✔	X	X	X
All files stored encrypted	✔	X	X	X

*Competitive Data as of Dec 2017

Upgrade to a Complete Digital Platform

Rest assured ManageCasa™ is engineered for property managers with the payment, accounting, maintenance scheduling, and tenant communications power a professional expects. Property management is digital in 2024, and ManageCasa is the right platform.

We’d be delighted to hear your questions about property management property management software features and productivity.

Call our Sales Team now to chat about ManageCasa at 415 800-1245. One conversation to make your business successful in 2024.

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