UGANDA, Kampala | Real Muloodi News | Commercial and residential rental properties can be a lucrative investment, if managed correctly. However, it can take a lot of work to do it successfully. Landlords and property managers need to be very organised, particularly as their portfolio of rentals begins to grow.
It can be challenging to keep track of everything across multiple properties; maintenance requests, repairs, vendors, invoices, vacant properties while looking for new tenants and chasing rent payments, etc. If you’re not careful, something can easily slip through the cracks.
Property management software allows landlords and property managers to work more efficiently. It makes managing properties easier thus, frequently increasing the value of the investment.
Broll Property Group is arguably Africa’s leader in PropTech (property technology). Real Muloodi News Network recently caught up with Moses Lutalo, Managing Director of Broll Uganda, to talk about what landlords and property managers should look for in software for managing their rental property investments.
According to Mr Lutalo, property management software is fundamentally shifting the way in which real estate is administered and serviced. Managing assets through log-books and spreadsheets is a thing of the past for anyone who is serious about property management, says Mr Lutalo.
Traditional real estate is being forced to innovate and embrace technology, particularly in the wake of COVID-19 which has curbed face-to-face interactions significantly, he says. PropTech is fast becoming a key component for real-estate businesses.
If you are serious about investing in superior property management software, here are some of the features Mr Lutalo says you should look for:
Accounting and Finance
A fully-fledged accounting system that includes debtors and creditors subsidiary ledgers should be the heart of any decent property management software, says Mr Lutalo. You also want to look for software that is able to scale and account for multiple legal entities across geographies and currencies so that your software can grow as your business grows.
Property and Lease Administration
Look for a software that can generate leases as well as offers directly from the system, based on owner templates. This will minimise the need for manual document creation and management, says Mr Lutalo.
The system should also be able to easily manage rates increases, municipal or service charges, as well as utilities fluctuations, and enable trend analysis reporting.
Facility Management
The ideal system will include a mobile app to empower building management teams to be mobile and on-site, while being guided digitally step by step through complex inspections. Whether it be for weekly inspections or monthly compliance, administrators should have the ability to configure and create checklists and assign these to staff, according to Mr Lutalo.
Prior to any maintenance work being executed, orders should follow a requisition and approval flow before being electronically routed to suppliers via a workflow driven procurement module. The mobile app should also enable users to attach photo evidence for job completion.
Operations Management
A system equipped with Configurable Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and e-mail readers can unlock efficiency and increase professionalism in all communications, says Mr Lutalo.
Mobility & Business Intelligence
The ideal system will also include a tenant mobile app to extend the platform seamlessly to bring tenants closer by providing a rich array of on-line mobile services, Mr Lutalo says.
Mr Lutalo explains that software development has been core to Broll’s business for over two decades, giving its clients and the industry a unique advantage in the technology and PropTech space.
Broll-Online™, an in-house solution providing comprehensive property services for property, financial and facility management, caters for all of the above features. The platform has been built from the ground up to cater for industry best practice in respect of property services. Architected using the latest Microsoft technology, it runs natively on the internet via private or public cloud (SaaS), enabling a work anywhere and on any device workforce.
The solution is scalable to a large enterprise with multinational interests or large portfolios, catering for property managers, occupiers and owners, says Mr Lutalo.
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