A free guide for management companies
How to know what’s happening at every property, without having to ask
In this free guide for management companies, we explain why work at a property is hard to see from head office, how to assess where your management company stands, and what to ask before you pay for any software.
Start with a two-minute self-assessment
Which of these are true at your management company?
This year, a board told you about a problem at a property before your own team did.
Each manager tracks their work in their own way, making it difficult to compare properties or see where work is piling up.
Your managers write each management report by hand, repeating updates they’ve already sent by email.
Boards ask for more transparency and frequent updates, despite processes your management company has put in place.
When a manager leaves, their knowledge of the property leaves with them.
When a complaint or a claim arrives months later, someone has to rebuild the timeline from email.
You’ve paid for accounting software and a resident portal, yet your managers still run their week from their inbox or a spreadsheet.
If you answered yes to two or more of the above statements, there is room to improve visibility into the status of work. And the problem rarely has to do with how good your managers are. In this guide, we explain why the issue persists despite processes that are put into place, how to examine the issue for yourself, and what your options are to improve visibility for both your board clients and your management team.
Why a good process still leaves you asking what the status is
All management companies have a way of keeping track of the work happening at their properties. It may be a whiteboard with a list of key deadlines, a list of due dates in a general project management tool like monday.com, a regular call with each manager or group of managers, or a requirement that management reports be reviewed by supervisors or operational leads before being presented at board meetings.
These processes help make sure certain work is completed, like preparing for an annual general meeting (AGM), filing forms required by regulators, and updating reserve fund studies or capital expenditure plans.
However, processes that are usually put in place don’t surface issues relating to day-to-day work. For example, if there’s a maintenance problem that has gone unaddressed for several months, or a contracted service that’s about to unexpectedly expire or renew, regular check-ins or high-level deadline charts fail to surface these issues. To see the status of work at this level, someone has to ask the manager, and the manager has to reply back. Moreover, the manager then has to remember to provide the same update into their management report for their next board meeting, so that the entire board is updated.
Below are the common ways the work is tracked today, at head office and by each manager.
A whiteboard or chart of general deadlines
What it does well
Shows at a glance which properties have completed their annual work, such as AGM notices and insurance renewals.
Where it can fall short
It only covers work that’s the same at every property. Repairs, projects and board requests aren’t on it, plus boards don’t have access.
A list of tasks with due dates in a tool such as monday.com
What it does well
Tracks key dates that are important to a management company across its portfolio, such as when the next reserve fund study is required or an insurance renewal.
Where it can fall short
Someone at head office still has to ask each manager whether the work was done. It’s also hard to collaborate because generic project management tools contain information from all properties, leaving boards out of the loop.
A regular call with each manager
What it does well
Gives the manager support, and brings up the problems they choose to raise.
Where it can fall short
The discussion and next steps are not easily shared with boards and other stakeholders. A regional manager supervising 15 to 20 managers doesn’t have enough time to work this way.
A review of the management report before a board meeting
What it does well
Confirms work is proceeding at a good pace and the updates are framed in a way that is helpful for the board.
Where it can fall short
It happens infrequently and just before a board meeting, after weeks have passed since the last meeting, which doesn’t give the manager time to address any gaps. The review and approval process doesn’t scale well as the management company grows.
A manager’s own inbox, spreadsheet or notebook
What it does well
Helps one person stay organized.
Where it can fall short
Nobody else can see the status of the work, so it’s hard to assign work to a colleague or hand a property to an incoming manager. Management reports have to be written by hand from memory or notes, which duplicates effort and leads to mistakes.
The request module in a resident portal
What it does well
Gives residents and staff the ability to track requests, which are an important category of work.
Where it can fall short
Resident portals are built for service requests. A reserve fund project or an action item from a board meeting has to be forced into that format, and its status still has to be reported separately.
A management report kept open in Word as a running list
What it does well
Keeps the manager’s list and the board’s report in one place.
Where it can fall short
Only the manager sees it between meetings, and it’s rewritten by hand each time.
Each of these processes or techniques that are commonly used to track work can help provide visibility and can make sure at least some work is getting performed, when required. The problem is that none of these methods shows the work in progress at a property to the manager’s colleagues, to leadership and to the board, let alone the documents that relate to that work.
In each case, the records that relate to the work are stored somewhere else, which makes it hard to see the whole picture or to make a decision.
The cost of limited visibility and manual reporting
The cost is not always a missed deadline. The common processes discussed above are good at catching critical deadlines. However, the real cost of ad hoc work tracking shows up in four other places, as follows:
A board that loses confidence. When an issue drags on and the board hears nothing between meetings, and the issue is then deferred yet again to the next board meeting, the board starts to blame the management company, even when the manager has been working on it. This is how management companies lose the trust of their clients, who eventually move on to hire a different management company.
Liability exposure when something goes wrong. After property damage, a safety incident or an agreement of purchase and sale that falls through, the management company has to show that work was performed and information provided in the normal course. That’s hard to do if the answer is spread across email inboxes, spreadsheets, or stuck in someone’s memory.
Time. Managers share updates over the phone or in person with the board president, then again with the board via email, and with their regional manager or head office in another email or meeting, and then write that update again for a board meeting report. Regional managers spend part of every week asking for those updates. This is time that managers could better spend getting their work done, rather than on reporting the same information multiple times.
Growth. A management company that depends on asking for updates will find it hard to add properties without adding people to do the asking. These management companies will find it hard to offer a higher level of service.
Try these three tests to see where your management company stands
Pick two or three properties and try each of these exercises. These tests show how the work at a property would look to an incoming manager who is taking over responsibility for the property.
The lottery test. Imagine one of your managers won the lottery and left today. Step into their shoes. Can you see what they were working on, what’s coming up, what’s outstanding and what’s important, without wading through their email, sifting through files across several folders or asking the board? If you can’t, what that manager knows about the property leaves with them.
The planner test. Look at the annual planner for a few representative properties. Is each one accurate and up to date, or was it set up once and left? A planner that isn’t kept current won’t catch the work that’s due next month.
The report test. Ask two managers how long their last management report took to prepare, and what they built it from. Hours of work from email and memory mean they’re writing the same updates several times.
Three beliefs that keep the problem hidden
“My managers already report to me.” They do. But what’s harder to see from head office is the effort behind it. A manager who is doing the job well is often keeping a list in one place, answering the board by email in another, and typing the management report in a third. The report arrives on time, so from where you sit everything looks fine. These are often the managers who go looking for a better way on their own.
“Our portal already does that.” A resident portal tracks requests from residents and on-site staff, and it does that well. A manager’s work is broader. It includes reserve fund projects, contract renewals, board decisions and the follow-up on each. To track those in a request module, a manager has to change how they work to suit a tool that was built for something else. Even then, the status doesn’t reach the board or the management report unless the manager writes it out again.
“My managers won’t use another system.” This is often true, and for a good reason. What managers object to is entering the same information twice. A system that adds a step will be dropped. A system that replaces one, such as the update email after the work is done or the report built by hand, has a much better chance.
What your managers are concerned about, and what gets them to use it
When managers hear about new software, they tend to have three concerns.
Double entry. They already record their work somewhere, and they don’t want to record it again.
Sharing work before it’s ready. Not everything is ready for the board. Managers don’t want questions about an issue they’re still working through.
Looking bad. Some managers worry that they won’t be good with the technology, and that it will show.
These are reasonable concerns that effective solutions must address.
The solution has to replace something they already do. One status update should serve the board, head office and the management report, so individual email updates and hand-built reports are a thing of the past.
The manager decides what is shared, and when. Nothing should reach a board until the manager is ready to answer questions about it.
Fewer emails. Updates should go to directors together, at regular intervals, so there are fewer side conversations taking up the manager’s time, fewer individual emails and fewer replies to manage.
Questions stay with the work. A director’s question should be attached to the issue it’s about, not sent on a general email thread or group chat.
Their work must be visible. The board and leadership can see what a manager has done without the manager having to say so. This helps demonstrate the manager’s hard work and helps with prioritization.
Leadership uses it too. Managers keep a record current when leadership reads it. If leadership still phones for updates, managers will conclude that the record doesn’t matter.
Even with the best of systems, adoption will never be automatic. A new system still has to be rolled out in a thoughtful way, without disrupting the manager’s workflow, with adequate training, and with a knowledgeable support team to call with questions.
What a good Monday morning looks like
Monday is the busiest morning of a manager’s week. Things happen over the weekend, and they are waiting in the manager’s inbox first thing on Monday morning.
At a management company that knows what’s happening at every property, four things are true on a Monday morning.
Managers, their supervisors and leadership can each plan their week, because they can see the priorities at each property and who is responsible for what.
What came in over the weekend can be weighed against the work that was already scheduled, and assigned to someone on site or at head office.
If a manager is away, the person covering can see what’s due this week, without waiting for an email, a phone call or a visit to find out.
As the week goes on, directors can see that the work is moving in priority order, without standing at the manager’s door or booking a regular call that takes up the manager’s time.
None of this depends on a particular product. It depends on the work at each property being recorded in one place that the people involved can see.
The questions to ask before you pay for any software
Put these questions to vendors who want to help you with this problem.
Who answers when we need help? New managers and new directors join throughout the year. Ask who trains them and who they call.
Who gets it running again if it goes down? Ask about the team behind the product, not only the product.
Can you help with the unusual requests? Examples are moving records into a new account, running a custom report, or responding to litigation or an emergency. Ask whether they have the people to do it and what they charge.
Does it connect with the systems we already use? Nobody should have to enter the same information twice, or move it from one system to another by hand.
What will our managers do differently in the first week, and what will they stop doing? If the answer is only more work, expect it to be dropped.
Can each board see its own property, and only its own? Many general task tools can’t do this easily.
What happens to our records if we stop using it? Ask who owns them and how you get them out.
What doesn’t it do? A vendor who claims to replace your accounting system, your resident portal and everything else should be questioned.
How is it priced, and is there a long-term contract?
How to tell whether you need another solution
Management companies may not need or be ready for another software solution.
You probably don’t if none or only one of the seven self-assessment statements is true, and your properties pass the three tests. Your process is working.
You probably do if two or more of the self-assessment statements are true, if a manager leaving would leave a property underserved, or if your managers are writing the same updates twice.
It doesn’t have to be software. What’s needed is one place where the work at each property is recorded, that managers keep current, and that leadership and the board can see. You could build such a system yourself, but this gets harder as the portfolio grows. Accommodating records too isn’t easy, and giving secure access to directors comes with enterprise-level IT responsibilities.
Software built to share the work won’t suit every management company. Some would rather decide for themselves what a board sees between meetings, or aren’t confident a board will use the information well. If that describes your management company, a system designed to give boards that view is the wrong choice.
One more consideration is artificial intelligence. If you hope to use it to help your managers, it needs what leadership needs, which is the record of the work in one place. It can’t help with information that’s kept on paper, kept in someone’s memory, or scattered across inboxes you don’t have access to.
Where Managemate fits in
Managemate is software built for the problem this guide describes. A manager logs an update once. The same update is used to keep the board informed, to show leadership where work stands at every property, and to build the management report. Records can be saved with the work, and remain searchable by topic or keyword. The manager decides what is shared and when.
Managemate works alongside your accounting system and resident portal. It doesn’t replace them.
If you’d like to see it with your own properties in mind, you can book a demo.