Rental Property Software

Feb, 19, 2012, by member Cindy Amato

When you have residences or businesses that you rent, having the right rental property software package will help you to keep everything organized and updated. It can also help you to manage your calendar, your banking, your payroll, and everything else needed to keep your business profitable. There are many features to today's rental property software packages that can be necessary and others that just make tasks easier, and it can be difficult to know which would work for your rental business. You can spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars getting a rental property software program written for your company in particular, or you can spend just a few hundred dollars for a more generic program. Because everyone is concerned with their budgets these days, it's important to make your decision carefully. Understanding the features offered by most rental property software programs will help you to decide which ones are right for you, or if you should have something created for your company specifically.

Calendaring Features

Using an automated calendar as provided by your rental property software can have many benefits. Obviously it's much easier to keep your calendar organized when you have it as part of the software program; some are just reluctant to change to this feature, and still use a paper calendar or their calendar connected to their email. However, when prospective tenants can make appointments online, they're more likely to show up and tour your properties. This is one benefit of having calendaring features on your rental property software. Often you can merge the calendar feature of your rental property software with the calendar of other programs so that you can manage your personal schedule as well as your professional one. And, you can have everyone on staff access the calendaring feature of your rental property software so that it's easier to ensure tenants are cared for and everyone's schedule is coordinated effectively.

Accounting and Bookkeeping

The right rental property software will handle many aspects of your bookkeeping and accounting, and with good reason. If you need to enter rent payments in one program to note that it's been paid, and then enter the amount in another program to add it to your bank account, this can lead to more risk of error. The more often you need to manually enter information, the more errors you'll encounter. The right rental property software will mean being able to enter information just once, and then it will update all your accounting facets for you. These bookkeeping features of a good rental property software program should also generate the reports you need to manage your business. You may want to compare properties when it comes to days vacant or the profit margin it's producing. Projections for your upcoming years can also be important to understand. It's always good to choose rental property software that allows you to generate the reports you need with the parameters you dictate so you can see your business at a glance.

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