The situation
Meet Helen, an illustrative example: she runs an independent letting agency with five people, managing 120 properties, where every maintenance request arrives by phone, email or text and gets logged and chased by hand. See why maintenance admin eats letting agents' evenings, and the fix for the full picture. This example picks up from there and covers the fuller project: a tenant and landlord portal, built on top of the CRM and automation that fix the day-to-day admin.
What we'd set up
- A CRM holding every property, tenancy and landlord in one place, so a repair request is linked automatically to the right property and landlord, rather than typed up separately each time.
- A tenant and landlord portal, where tenants log a repair with a photo and description, and landlords can see the status without ringing the office.
- Maintenance document automation, generating job instructions and completion records from information already in the system, instead of being typed fresh for every request.
- Contractor booking and reminders, so a contractor visit gets confirmed and a reminder sent automatically, rather than relying on a phone call and hoping it's remembered.
How the project would run
Weeks 1-2: a free call to map the current maintenance process end to end, followed by setting up the CRM structure around properties, tenancies and landlords, and importing existing records.
Weeks 3-6: the tenant and landlord portal is built, covering logging a repair, tracking its status and giving landlords visibility, tested against real, current maintenance requests rather than made-up examples.
Week 7: maintenance document automation is wired in, generating job instructions and completion paperwork from the request already logged in the portal.
Week 8: contractor booking and reminder automation is added, so visits are confirmed and reminded automatically.
Weeks 9-10: the portal runs alongside the existing email-based process for a short overlap, followed by training for the team and a written guide to the whole setup.
What changes day to day
A tenant with a leaking tap logs it through the portal with a photo, and it's automatically linked to the right property and landlord rather than sitting in a shared inbox waiting to be read. A landlord who wants to know what's happening checks the portal themselves instead of phoning the office. A contractor visit gets confirmed and reminded automatically, and when the job's done, a completion record exists rather than a vague memory of "I think that one was sorted." The agency doesn't manage any more properties than before. It manages them with far less of the process depending on someone remembering.
What you get back
Digging back through an inbox to answer "what's happening with the boiler at number 12" stops being necessary, because the status is visible to anyone on the team. Chasing a contractor by phone and hoping it's remembered stops being the only option, because visits get confirmed and reminded automatically. And updating landlords by hand stops being Helen's job alone, because landlords can check progress themselves without ringing the office.
If this sounds familiar, start my project like this.
Tools involved
A project like this typically sits alongside property management software Helen's agency may already use, such as Arthur, Fixflo or a general CRM, and the portal itself is built specifically around the agency's process rather than bought off the shelf. Maintenance documents are generated as straightforward PDFs, and contractor communication can go by SMS or email depending on what contractors actually respond to.
Related
If this sounds like your agency, see Admin eats our evenings and weekends and IT problems keep stopping work. Further reading: How much does a custom app cost for a small business? and 10 admin tasks small businesses can automate this month. For the wider picture on this sector, see property.