Top 5 Time-Saving Features to Look for in Property Management Software

Here's what to look for in property management software that can alleviate redundant tasks, reduce inefficiency, and put more productive hours into your workday.

“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important.” Stephen Covey, American educator, author, and businessperson

In the whirlwind of modern-day multifamily apartment management, it’s easy to allow your day, week, and entire work life to be consumed by an endless churn of urgent tasks. It requires discipline to carve out time for the work that is truly important. Here’s a trick to making space for that discipline: let your tools and technology do the clutter-clearing for you.

Consider, for example, your property management software. Is it adding to the chaos in your workday by causing you to complete redundant tasks? Or does it work behind the scenes like an invisible, hyper-efficient administrative assistant to improve your productivity and give you valuable time back into your workday?

Here are the top five features that we think your property management applications should be doing to help you reclaim your time and optimize apartment management—so you can slay every day.

Feature #1 – A resident management portal that provides community staff with quick and easy access to their most important tasks and metrics.

Managing multifamily apartments today involves wrangling a wide array of systems, technologies, and tools. A property management professional can find their productivity stripped away by the need to master multiple platforms—never mind keeping track of all those passwords. Remove the friction of using multiple time-consuming tools to manage your community.

Your property management software app can save you time and stress by putting your VIP—Very Important Processes—front and center. Avoid wrangling multiple systems and jump-start your productivity by tackling tasks directly from an easy-to-use app.

For example, the Livly Resident Mobile App puts these functions and more right at your fingertips with the following tools:

• Maintenance Manager: Quick and easy scheduling and communication between management, service teams, and residents.

• Rent Payment Tracker: Track payments in real-time and access convenient reporting dashboards.

• Amenity Booking Manager: Confirm when amenities are available to be reserved and manage use and occupancy.

• Visual Reporting Dashboard: View real-time analytics including rent payment, move-ins, occupancy, and more.

Eliminate aggravation, roadblocks, and disjointed tools by relying on your property management app to deliver the details you need with just a few clicks. Use the time you save to enhance your service offerings to your prospective and existing residents.

Feature #2 – Easy move-in management tools that make welcoming your newest community residents simple and stress-free.

Moving is hard work for residents—loading and unloading all those boxes, trying to remember which box has the dog’s bowl and kibble—but it doesn’t have to be similarly burdensome for the apartment community team. A well-designed property management app eliminates many of the hassles of moving residents in and provides an onboarding experience that’s smooth for both the customer and the management staff.

Livly’s Resident Onboarder tool uses a step-by-step process to simplify move-in-day for all parties. Putting everything right at your residents’ fingertips minimizes the countless questions from frazzled customers. Every detail has been thoughtfully designed, from an automatic, customizable welcome email message to the collection of rent and fees, inspection checklists, and important documentation.

The result? A move in day that exceeds residents’ expectations and lets the management team get on with business.

Feature #3 – A package management solution that provides a fast and simple way to unite deliveries with residents, with minimal involvement from the management team.

In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, Amazon will ship out 4,000 orders— and some them may be headed directly to your residents.

Managing the deluge of daily deliveries for residents has become one of the biggest logistical challenges multifamily managers have ever faced. It’s a critical customer service challenge, too, as residents care deeply about the efficient delivery of their orders. Without good systems in place, package management can consume a massive chunk of time and energy for an apartment community team.

Your choice of property management software can make or break this property management challenge for you. The right solution can save you hours; the wrong one can cause you time, frustration, and the anger of your dissatisfied residents.

For example, communities utilizing the Livly Resident Mobile App experience a 20% time reduction in package management. It takes less than 5 seconds for a team member to scan and intake a package. Residents love receiving real-time alerts when their inbound parcels arrive. And because notification is automatic and instant, residents stay informed while your team can get back to more important business.

Feature #4 – Streamlined resident communication tools so you can connect with customers and strengthen a sense of community.

Creating ongoing, positive touchpoints with your resident community helps you to build a sense of belonging, improve resident satisfaction, and increase the likelihood of renewal leases. But staying connected with residents once they’ve moved in can be both challenging and time-consuming.

Your property management app is your secret weapon for building engagement with your customers. When residents come to rely upon the mobile app as an all-in-one tool for apartment living, it opens the door for regular connections from the multifamily management team via the app.

With the Livly Resident Mobile App, you can customize your messaging yourself using simple, beautifully branded mass emails, community feed posts, polls and trivia questions, and new feature updates. Stop spending hours chasing down separate emails and text messages and centralize your resident communication in one convenient spot.

Need extra communications support? Let the Livly Experiential Management (XPM) team act as an extension of your team and handle your resident communications for you. Our experienced and professional communications personnel can create and execute your resident communications on your behalf—freeing up even more time in your overflowing workday.

Feature #5 – A vibrant online community feed that allows residents and staff to connect socially and nurtures relationship-based renewals.

Your apartment community can provide more than just housing for your residents. It can also be where they build valuable and lasting friendships with their neighbors and property staff. Make it easy and fun for neighbors to connect by encouraging them to be active on your property management app’s online community feed. Seed the conversation with lively updates and fun photos to get neighbors interacting. Share information and photos about your featured amenities, seasonal holidays and events, neighborhood promotions or discounts, resident photo contests, and staff member profiles.

Communities that utilize the Livly Resident Mobile App, for example, see outstanding resident engagement in the Livly Community Feed, which is a private apartment feed within the app where residents and staff can share photos, news, sell items, engage with each other socially, and much more. In fact, 95% of residents either post, comment, or like content on their community feed monthly. It’s like having a private social network just for your community; an invaluable tool for creating and sustaining friendships, improving resident satisfaction, and helping your residents plant their roots firmly in the soil of your apartment community—so they stick around.

Imagine the efficiencies you can create by driving up resident renewals and driving down resident turnover!

Need more time-saving ideas for busy property management professionals?

Are you curious about how other multifamily professionals juggle their numerous responsibilities while delivering for and delighting their residents every day? Visit our blog for more multifamily trends, insider property management tips, and inspiration.

Or get in touch with the Livly team today to see a free demo of the features mentioned above, including the Livly Resident Mobile App and Resident Onboarder.