Remember that it’s important to vet all vendors who do work at your properties!
Nothing should occupy more space in your mind than property maintenance.
And how you manage it often makes the difference between contented tenants and constant complainers, between praising your team and yelling at them. The good news is that you can avoid most of the hassles and headaches by simply taking full advantage of our property management vendors.
If you’re still handling maintenance with sticky notes, business cards taped to walls and numbers stored in your cell phone, there’s a lot you can do quickly and easily to improve not only your team’s enjoyment of their jobs, but also the loyalty and satisfaction of your tenants and maintenance providers. Here are some suggestions.
Organize Your Contractor Database
Pull together all those business cards and scribbled notes, and get ready to collect names and numbers from your cell phones, laptops and the Internet. Your first job is to consolidate and organize every vendor your people use in your property management system so all are instantly accessible. It won’t take long, and will deliver huge benefits.
If you are in need of finding the right companies that work with the Management industry – Try using our Vendor Directory
In the typical property management business, the same vendors are usually called on: the same plumbing company for plumbing jobs, the same painters for paint jobs. But this isn’t always the case. Some drop out, and new ones arrive on the scene who can provide quotes and perhaps get costs down. Often there are vendors you or your co-workers have contacted for quotes who simply haven’t been used yet, and you don’t want to overlook them for future jobs. At any rate, it’s important that everyone get all vendors into this central database. As a member of SFPMA you and your team can select Favorites (Approved Vendors) and keep them safely on your membership page for swiftly finding the companies you will use.
This is your chance to create an “approved vendor” list and eliminate the rogue hiring of vendors who don’t meet your standards, have performed poorly in the past, are uninsured, or are too expensive or unreliable. They don’t make the approved list, so your people won’t be calling them for quotes. You can add references, skill sets, history with your company and background checks along with insurance information to their records. Remember that it’s important to vet all vendors who do work at your properties!
Once all approved vendors are selected, they’re instantly accessible to everyone on your team.
Initiate, Schedule and Track Jobs
you probably use phone calls and emails to schedule and track property management inspections, maintenance projects and repair jobs. There are too many opportunities for confusion and misunderstandings. Using the right property maintenance system or jobs system can reduce the time tracking all the jobs you have open. It is a beautiful thing to see in action. Jobs are systematically logged, quoted on where necessary, dispatched, and tracked to their conclusion. You can integrate your schedules for regular maintenance at each property (such as lawn care and HVAC checkups and plumbing services) into your software as well, so you won’t have to stay on top of the schedules yourself. Finally, this fully mobile platform can cut your companies time spent on this frequent task in half while allowing you to easily initiate any necessary maintenance.
If you implement this into your maintenance system, you’ll eliminate all those time-wasting phone calls, emails and walk-ins to check on status of your jobs. Owners and residents will know how each project is coming along without having to bother you or your vendors.
Don’t let your business be restricted by out-dated technology. The S³ OMS is designed to streamline communication between the office and your technicians and enhance your customer service. Access your workflow anywhere you go through our cloud based platform.
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Vendor Payment and Oversight Made Easy
Keeping up with paper invoices is a hassle and can lead to lost or late payments, which can compromise your relationships with your all-important clients. A great way to streamline your vendor relationships is to automate your work order and payments into one system. In addition to achieving increased consistency in paying vendors, you’ll have a superb way to track maintenance expenses and work orders at every property.
A Complete Maintenance History, At Your Fingertips
In integrating maintenance with your property management company, you’re automatically creating an online record of all maintenance expenses at every property. This will save you untold hours and headaches when owners come to you looking for information about what was done at their properties, and the costs involved. No more digging through file cabinets or folders on your computer searching for the information you need. Once it’s in a central database you’ll be able to locate what you’re looking for instantly.
While good software can make your life easier in almost every area of your business, it would be hard to find an example more dramatic than maintenance. This core part of your job can be either routine and even rewarding or truly painful, depending on how you manage your client relationships. Experts at S³ Service Software Solutions are standing by to help you accomplish the improvements listed here with ease – and make your life a lot easier while you’re at it.
Learn how S³ Service Software Solutions – Online Management System, Can help your business grow!
Tags: Building Maintenance
