The Official AppFolio Blog

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!

You have probably debated going paperless. Fear of change or perhaps fear of security has stopped you. Whatever it is, put your reasons aside. Web-based property management software empowers you to not only transform your workspace into a paperless office, but also to help your business save money and be more efficient. This leaves you more time to focus on activities that grow the business. It’s simple and easy to get started, so don’t be left in the office shuffling through papers. Here are five reasons your business should go paperless to keep up with today’s demands.

1. Stay Organized, Save Time
   Many property managers spend countless hours shuffling through paperwork, filing, and sending information to colleagues, residents, vendors and contractors. This wasted time should instead be spent on growing the business, by filling vacancies and keeping building owners and residents happy. With web-based property management software, everything is online and easily accessible. And since everyone in your office can have access to the platform, anyone can access data anytime.
2. Anywhere Access
   Have you ever become frustrated and angry while traveling, because you left the one thing you need back at the office? This stressful situation is eliminated with web-based property management software, because you can access the platform anywhere! On any device! This lends to a worry free, efficient, and more productive workplace.
3. Save Money
   Not only will your property managers be more productive (making money!) with this time saving, but your office will also save money in a myriad of other ways with web-based software. You will reduce the cost on paper you once used, the supplies you used, and the storage of these papers and supplies. Since communication to residents and vendors is possible via web-based property management, you also save money on mail costs and save time by emailing owner statements, mass communications and sending work orders.
4. Trusted Security
   Rely on a lock and key? Forget to lock your office? That anxiety can now be removed. Web-based property management software ensures your information remains safe. When you purchase a property management software solution for your office, just be sure that the package you select has an infrastructure that is bank-grade secure.
5. No Storage Limits
   Your files are important, and are associated with your residents and owners. You can refer to them to review prior communications. With web-based property management software your files can be stored as long as you need them, allowing you to retrieve any information you need at any time. You and your team will be kept organized and knowledgeable on everything you need to know about each property.

If you are fed up with the ever-growing mountains of paper in your office that keep screaming out for attention, implement a paperless property management software solution for your office and get ready for greater growth and success of your business. You’ll enjoy the lower levels of stress, the increased productivity of your team, and the significant cost savings you’ll achieve.

There are an increasing number of businesses that are choosing to abandon their brick-and-mortar locations and set up a virtual office instead. This means that each employee works from his or her own home, and the company comes together online. With today’s technology, it is simple to accomplish this, and can be beneficial to businesses, primarily due to the decreased operating costs.

So what do you need to set up a virtual property management office?

A Great Communications System
You eliminate the need and ability for any resident or property owner to drop by with a request by setting up a virtual property management office. So, a better communications tool is essential. Make sure that you’re accessible either by email or live chat, as well as by phone (for those that are still a bit more old-fashioned). To schedule maintenance on the property, you can simply use a property management system that allows you to communicate with owners and residents online (for example – let residents submit maintenance requests from your website).

Web-Based Software
When you’re operating a virtual business, you need computer systems that are stable and capable of handling the workload that they are responsible for. This might mean purchasing new hardware for your most integral employees, or requiring them to have a newer operating system when they are hired for the job.

Flexible Hours
Property management needs to be available in some format around the clock. Be prepared that just because you’re at home, it doesn’t mean that you won’t need to work on occasion!

A Network Of Contractors
Since you won’t physically be able to be on location at various property management sites if you take on properties that are outside of your local area, you need great contractors. Make sure that you have people that you can trust to go out and get the job done well for you. They are representing your business directly, especially when you’re not personally present!

In the property management industry, a virtual office can work, provided you properly prepare!

As a property manager, it is your job to ensure that everything runs smoothly. This means presenting all required information to the property owner in a timely fashion and also ensuring that all residents are kept happy. So what are some key management tips that all property managers should be familiar with?

1. Always have a contingency plan.
Do you have a complete plan outlined in advance should there be a flood in the property? How about the recovery process following a fire? These are circumstances where you need to act quickly and without hesitation. Having a plan in place ensures that everything runs as smoothly as possible even during a crisis. If you have more than one employee in a property management firm, ensure that all information is documented where each of them can find it.

2. Know what you’ll outsource.
Even if you have on-site maintenance, there still may be tasks that are better off outsourced depending upon the your staff’s specific skills. Be sure that you’re familiar with their strengths and weaknesses, and have a proficient person that you can call as soon as they’re needed, rather than fumbling through directories.

3. Minimize paperwork.
Too many hard-copy reports and papers can easily confuse the efficient functioning of any property management office. It also creates much more work to keep things organized. Property management software can help reduce the need for extensive paperwork, and allow reports to be submitted electronically.

4. Have a protocol for an unhappy resident.
If a resident is unhappy with the quality of their residence, responses to maintenance requests, or anything else, what do you do? If there is a legitimate issue, you need to respond or risk negative feedback.

5. Have a communications protocol with the property owner.
Agree upon a mutually beneficial method of communicating that sets a standard. To function efficiently, you can’t always be available to the owner. But remember, he/she is the one that you’re working for as a property manager.

Your goal as a property manager should be to minimize the complications and chaos involved with running one or more properties. It is easy to be pulled in five different directions at the same time and to become disorganized if you haven’t carefully planned and organized for a variety of situations that may occur.

We’ve written before about how greening your properties can give you a competitive advantage over your competition. But did you know that greening your property management office can also boost your business? Property managers who have gone green and paperless find that it saves them both time and money. And when you combine a green office with environmentally friendly changes to the properties you manage, you can market yourself more effectively as an eco-friendly business. A green image can be a big benefit in today’s market.

Here are seven tips on greening your property management office.

1. Go paperless.
   One of the most important green changes you can make to your office is to go paperless. Reducing the amount of paperwork you handle saves you time and money, gets rent money in the bank faster, frees up office space and saves trees. These days, you can conduct almost all your business via the Internet, email and fax. And using web-based property management software makes going paperless even easier. Email owners and residents, collect rent online, enter work orders and store digital documents, all right from AppFolio.
2. Say no to junk mail.
   Junk mail accounts for a ridiculous number of dead trees, and everyone hates it anyway. So dig yourself out from under the avalanche of ads and bogus offers. Check out the FTC’s instructions on how to opt out of junk mail. A few extra minutes spent now calling or emailing the appropriate agencies can save you the time and trouble required to sort through and discard junk mail in the future.
3. Buy rechargeable batteries.
   Rechargeable batteries will cost you a little extra money at the register, but are well worth it in the long run. One rechargeable battery can replace hundreds of single-use batteries. You’ll also reduce the amount of toxic metal waste put into landfills. Rechargeable batteries contain the same harmful materials as regular batteries, but you’ll use fewer of them. And remember, whether you use rechargeable or standard batteries, recycle them properly rather than just tossing them in the trash.
4. Replace incandescent bulbs.
   Replacing incandescent bulbs in your office with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) can save you money by reducing your electrical bills. And the less energy you use, the fewer of the Earth’s natural resources you’ll consume.
5. Hold meetings online.
   Consider conducting meetings over the Internet via Skype, Google+ Hangouts, GoToMeeting or another video chat service rather than having everyone drive to the office. Not only will you save people money on gas, you’ll preserve the world’s oil resources and cut down on air pollution from car exhaust.
6. Turn computers off.
   Computers use up a ton of energy, and leaving them on overnight is just wasteful. Make it a company policy for everyone to turn off their desktop computers before leaving work. And while you’re at it, make sure to turn off other major office equipment, such as printers, scanners and fax machines, when not in use.
7. Install a programmable thermostat.
   A programmable thermostat will quickly help you to cut down on your energy bills. Set it to a comfortable level during work hours and program it to reduce the temperature by a few degrees during the hours when no one’s in the building.

Our very own Houston recently presented at the NARPM Northwest Conference in Montana on the topic of how Property Managers are going ‘green’. Running a green and paperless property management business is a true competitive advantage – property managers find that a paperless office saves time and money and gives them an opportunity to market their ‘green’ attributes to stand out from the competition.

His presentation covered the following topics:

How To Go Paperless
What you need to do to get rid of expensive and time consuming paper!

Making Properties Green
Seven simple and cheap ways to make your properties more green to save money and make them more attractive to prospective renters.

Marketing Yourself As Green
Ideas on how to market your company as more ‘green’ so you stand out from the competition.

How fast can you turn around your vacancy and move in a new resident? Quick turn around for apartments and houses is so important in our industry. You will always need a few days in between move-out and move-in to clean and inspect but the shorter you can make that window, the more money you can make. We’ve made it pretty easy to minimize this window with AppFolio’s work order functionality.

Recurring Work Orders – Set It And Forget It
The nice thing about reccurring work orders is that you can set them up to trigger at certain times. For example, everyone inspects a unit after a move-out to make sure that there are no damages. You can set up a recurring work order for an inspection to occur right after the resident moves out. If you have other standard maintenance tasks like carpet cleaning, or even the monthly gardening service, you can add these too. These work orders will be triggered automatically – saving you the effort of scheduling them and also making this process much faster for you and your staff.

Once the work order is automatically created, you can email your vendor the work order right away, so you get the work done sooner. You can also pay vendors using ACH so you don’t even have to write them a check!

Easily Tie Work Orders to Invoices
When you enter a work order, you can tie it to a bill and generate an invoice. This invoice is always attached to the work order so it is easy to pass on the charges to the resident or property owner. For example, if a resident breaks a window, you can create a work order for the broken window, send it to your vendor, and charge the resident for it with just a couple of clicks.

Warnings That Help With Compliance
One of the things we’ve added recently to work orders helps our property management customers stay compliant. For example, you can enter into AppFolio the date of home warranty expiration – if that property is under a home warranty and you go to put in a work order, AppFolio will warn you. You can avoid the hassle and expense of accidentally spending money to repair an item that is already under warranty!

We also have fields in AppFolio that track the year a home was built. There are many EPA regulations (with expensive fines!) around the notification of lead-based paint in the home. When you generate a work order for a property that was built before 1978, AppFolio will warn you so that you can hand out the appropriate lead-based paint information pamphlets.

In addition, on the Vendors page in AppFolio you can track important details about each vendor:

• Worker’s Compensation Insurance Status
• Liability Insurance Expiration Date
• If the vendor is EPA Certified and if they have taken a special class regarding the lead-based paint laws.

When you create a work order and assign it to a vendor that has expired liability insurance AppFolio will alert you to this issue. This really helps avoid mistakes and provides safeguards that can help protect property managers from lawsuits.

Bottom line – make sure you’re taking advantage of all that AppFolio’s work order functionality has to offer.

AppFolio hosts two educational Websites as resources for property managers looking for new ideas and ways to improve your property management business: PropertyManager.com and GreenPropertyManagement.com. We have recently seen some great articles about property managers going “paper-free” and increasing the profitability of their property management business. Here are 3 that are worth your time to read (but don’t print them out!).

Your Paperless Office: Five Great Reasons to Move Payments Online
If you have made the commitment to run a greener business, eliminating the paper check will be a valuable way for you to save your customers and employees time and increase banking reliability. By investing in technology (like our online payment feature) your paperless property management office can collect resident rent payments online. You can use online payments to pay your owners too. Here’s an article to help you get motivated.
http://www.propertymanager.com/2010/04/paperless-office-five-reasons-to-move-payments-online/

5 Tips for Going Paper-Free
You may be like many property managers today and are considering a switch to a paperless work environment in order to save money, reduce office clutter and free up space. Using shared electronic files, designated office employees can reference items without stepping foot inside the office to pull out a piece of paper – no more wasted trips to the office. This article outlines key tips to get you going.
http://www.greenpropertymanagement.com/2010/11/5-tips-for-going-paper-free/

Achieving the Triple Bottom Line Through Paperless Office Management
This article breaks down how property managers are able to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively by managing a paperless office. By eliminating the paper trail you save valuable time and address what this article calls the triple bottom line: people, profit, and the planet.

http://www.greenpropertymanagement.com/2010/11/triple-bottom-line-through-paperless-office-management/