Last modified on March 15th, 2019
By Aimee Miller

Property management can get a bit stressful in wintertime, especially in colder climates. Broken boilers, snow removal, frozen pipes…the list goes on and on. So during this stressful time of year, you deserve a break.

But you’re probably asking yourself: if this the busiest time of the year, how could I possibly find the time to hit the slopes or take a trip down to warmer climes? The answer is simple: property management software. With property management software you can increase your productivity, saving you time and money. With the extra time, even the extra stress of winter can become a breeze and you can finally find the time to take a well-deserved break.

One of the main benefits of property management software is the ability to transform your working space into a paperless office. Printing, copying and keeping paper files takes up your time and that of your staff. Keep in mind that if it takes five minutes to retrieve and replace a paper file, and if an employee works with ten paper files each day, that’s five weeks of time over the course of a year just walking files around the office! If you have 10 employees, that’s a full year’s worth of wasted time, merely walking files here and there in your office!

Property management software also effectively streamlines the process of finding and signing new tenants. For instance, with AppFolio’s own software solution, AppFolio Property Manager, vacancies will automatically be posted to a variety of online marketing outlets, reducing the time the vacancy will stay open and preventing you having to take the time to make a new post every time there is a turnover. Your units are already on the market, attracting new tenants before the last ones even move out.

Once you attract new tenants faster and more efficiently with automated listings, signing them is also easier. Background and credit checks, legal information, and down-payment collection are all integrated into property management software like AppFolio Property Manager, so the process of signing a tenant is faster, easier and more streamlined. This efficient, tech-savvy approach is not only attractive to tenants, it’s becoming the norm. In order to succeed in this new era of online-everything, getting property management software is a must.

Even when all your units are filled and everything is business as usual, property management software increases efficiency and saves you time. Tenants can pay rent online, eliminating check-collecting time and the need to chase down late payments. If someone is running late, simply send them a reminder through email. Best of all, your accounting information is all integrated into the software, putting every aspect of your business together in one place.

In addition, property management software enables you to search for just about any type of information (a name, phone number, address, vendor or customized label) quickly and easily. Compare that with the time-consuming process of searching for paper documents among the thousands or tens of thousand documents in your office, and you can see how universal search functionality truly streamlines your workflow and saves you time.

So what are you waiting for? Get property management software, save time, and hit the slopes!