Workflows and the Path to Property Management Automation

First things first, you need to document your processes! This can be done with a team, with a property management consultant, or by leadership—but it is usually a best practice to involve your team at some point, if only to learn what exactly it is they are doing. This can often help you spot inefficiencies you didn't even know existed.

From there, you need to outline (and flesh out) the process:

• Who is accountable?
• How long should it take?
• What triggers will set a workflow into action?
• What property management tools are needed?

It can be fun to think of it as taking your business from what seems like a Rube Goldberg machine to a simple flipping of a switch.

Part of getting started is deciding what you should automate.

Repetitive communication, the rent collection process, move-out emails, renewals—anything that doesn't require customized details specifically for that reader is a great candidate for property management process automation. Add in notifications, monthly reporting, cash flow analysis—the sky is the limit after a basic implementation is set up!

You should also automate as much of the marketing and sales processes as you can so you can measure the results of small changes to the process and how they improve—or don't improve—your results. This enables you to turn the sales process into a nearly exact science.

Using one integrated solution like HubSpot allows you to do all of this seamlessly, from marketing to sales to operations with all your records in one place.

If you've built your workflows and started to create your automations, it's time to think about how you can take them to the next level. Automating renewals communications is great—but coming away with a signed contract from that automation is always going to be better!

Some tools you can use to take your automations to the next level are:

• E-sign
• Chat features
• Call tracking and transcription
• Meeting scheduling 
• Sending and getting sign-offs on quotes.

Once you build your workflows, chances are there are property management tools out there to help you make your everyday operations even more efficient. We've found that if our clients can dream it, we can do it!