EPMEPM: Productivity

PropertyTree: It’s about Time

We all have the same 24 hours each day, yet all too often it seems we just can’t fit everything in. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s in store for PropertyTree in the coming months and how new features will help you save time.

Time. Don’t you wish you had more of it?

Everyone’s time is limited. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do; we all have the same number of hours and minutes in our day, and it’s a constant battle against the clock to get everything done.

Unless you have PropertyTree. The team at Rockend is committed to helping property managers create efficiencies and, in so doing, save time.

“PropertyTree was launched back in 2012 and was Australia’s first true cloud property management software solution,” says Rockend CEO Alister Maple-Brown. “We now see PropertyTree as an ecosystem that combines new product innovation built and supported by Rockend, together with 13 integration partners and growing, based on our customers’ feedback. Today that commitment remains strong. We invest 10 per cent of revenue back into product development, and are constantly looking for new partners to join our ecosystem.”

INVOICE GENIUS BULK APPROVALS

When PropertyTree’s Invoice Genius was launched in late 2017, there were cheers from property managers across Australia and New Zealand.

“Manually entering invoices is an incredibly mundane and repetitive, albeit important, task – one that most property managers view with dread,” says Andrew Emanuelli, Product Owner of Invoice Genius.

“Manually entering invoices is an incredibly mundane and repetitive task – one that most property managers view with dread.”

“That all changed with Invoice Genius. Simultaneously automating the processing of creditor invoices and eliminating the laborious task of manual entry, Invoice Genius has seen agencies experience significant savings in terms of both time and costs.”

Property managers are now set to reap even more benefits with the introduction of Invoice Genius’ Bulk Approvals function.

“Our goal is to make it faster and easier for property managers to process their invoices, as well as provide them with a better understanding of the status of all invoices being processed,” Andrew says.

“The new Creditor Invoices Bulk Approvals function will save property managers more time by allowing to them to create invoices en masse. If all the fields required for validation have been prefilled by either a barcode or QR code, and all mandatory creditor information is correct, the invoice will be available for bulk approval.”

Andrew explains that the addition of the Bulk Approvals function in Invoice Genius means the feature now surpasses the functionality in Rockend’s legacy product, fileSMART, as well as any other document management software in the real estate space. This is because it provides users with upfront real-time alerts using machine intelligence – for example, when a duplicate invoice is entered or if an invoice can’t be processed via bulk approval.

“Beyond real-time notifications, enhancing process efficiency and saving time by being able to process hundreds of invoices in under 20 minutes, the Bulk Approvals function also brings one-click processing to users,” Andrew says.

“Rather than having to open and click to process each and every invoice, users are able to click once for the selection of all invoices and once more to process them all. It’s that simple.”

TENANT DOWNLOAD

Property managers know how tedious manually entering tenant funds can be. But it will be a thing of the past  with PropertyTree’s Tenant Download function.

“Designed specifically for funds directly deposited into the agency’s trust account, the Tenant Download function will automatically match transactions with a tenancy, allocate the funds and then receipt the matched transactions,” Tenant Download Product Owner Jasmina Cahill explains.

“Our goal with PropertyTree is to take tasks that are tedious and time consuming, and automate them. Tenant Download is just one of the steps we’re taking in the payments area to significantly reduce the amount of time users spend creating each receipt and reconciling every payment.”

According to Jasmina, with Tenant Download agencies can also say goodbye to human errors.

“With Tenant Download’s automation, the risk of transcription errors when creating a tenancy receipt is  significantly reduced. This in turn reduces the risk of funds being assigned incorrectly and the additional time and effort it takes to rectify any mistakes.”

PropertyTree’s Tenant Download feature will support the majority of its users by integrating with major banks, including Bank of New Zealand, CBA, NAB, ANZ, Westpac and Macquarie.

ONLINE ADVERTISING

If creating and managing online advertising for properties is a chore, then the new Online Advertising feature is for you.

“The Online Advertising feature will allow PropertyTree users to push ads to online portals such as domain.com.au, realestate.com.au, realestate.co.nz and trademe.co.nz,” Riasat Azim, the Online Advertising Product Owner, explains.

“By leveraging the information about a property already held in PropertyTree, many of the fields required by the portals can be prefilled. This means there is no duplication in data entry and, importantly, preserves PropertyTree as the ‘source of truth’ for any property-related information.”

Users can create a single ad through the Online Advertising feature and then push it to multiple portals, saving time and effort by not having to visit individual portals to manually upload each ad. Ads can also be saved for future use.

“Being able to manage all your property ads from a single interface has obvious benefits when it comes to time savings,” Riasat says. “The visibility the Online Advertising feature provides is where further value lies. PropertyTree users can see where and when each ad has appeared and its status.”

“Our goal with PropertyTree is to take tasks that are tedious and time consuming, and automate them.”

The new feature will inevitably give PropertyTree users a competitive edge, according to Riasat.

“No other property management cloud solution offers integration with online portals. This underlines our commitment to understanding the needs of property managers and creating solutions that are flexible and meet their specific needs,” he says.

MOBILE

These days property management is an ‘anywhere, any time’ business. Out of the office, out on the road and out of business hours, property managers need the right technology solutions at their fingertips to get the job done.

“Based on the valuable insights provided by our customers, we identified that that one of their biggest pain points was being out of the office for the majority of their working days and not being able to access and communicate with tenants and landlords efficiently and securely,” explains Product Owner Michael Momdjian.

“In order to create a fast and consistent customer experience on mobile, we are adapting our application to match the visual language of the user’s operating system – providing customers with a look and feel that’s natural and intuitive,” Michael says.

As new contacts are added to PropertyTree, this information will be immediately available to customers on the go. The mobile application currently in development will minimise the need to call the office to clarify contact details, and time spent manually adding contact details will increasingly become a thing of the past.

All applications Rockend builds from now on will be iOS and Android device-compatible to ensure they meet the needs of their customers today and in the future. Leveraging built-in components that are readily available on smartphones – such as face recognition, geolocation, touch-ID and more – will also be part of the Mobile feature’s development to ensure access is fast and secure.

Further details about the specifics of the mobile application will be available shortly – watch this space!

GIVING YOU MORE TIME

Property managers are experts at what they do. Landlords rely on them to manage one of their biggest investments. Tenants rely on them to keep a roof over their heads. There are a multitude of tasks and responsibilities that come with managing a residential property, which means the value of a property manager is significant.

That’s why using a comprehensive solution like PropertyTree is so important. It saves time.

New features like Invoice Genius Bulk Approvals, Tenant Download, Online Advertising and Mobile create efficiencies and save you time – freeing you up to spend it on what matters most.

Invoice Genius’ Bulk Approvals are available for PropertyTree users now. The other features outlined in this article will be available in the coming months.

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To contact the editorial team at Elite Agent email editor@eliteagent.com.