Assetsoft - Blog #e-sign

Top Real Estate Property Management Software Features to Help You Do More

Sun, 13 Jun 2021 22:01:09 -0500

How can you leverage more productivity for your real estate business with a good property management software? Popular real estate and investment management software like Yardi and MRI focus on automating tasks, streamlining business processes and above all - be flexible.

You can track leases, automate maintenance tasks as well as collect rent and manage finances the smarter way. With plenty of third-party integration options, it’s easy to continue what you’re doing now – with a much more structured, streamlined approach.

Get Started with the Right Software for Your Business!

Assetsoft helps you choose the right property management software for your business - taking into consideration the features you are looking for. We can help you:

Streamline all business resources for better productivity
Manage properties and leases including move-in, movie-outs and work order management

Rent collection and vendor payments made easy
Create robots to automate all mundane tasks
Provide a financial overview and valuable insights on how to increase profits
Track projects for on-time completion
Easy lease renewals and account insights

Integration with marketing tools
Budgeting, forecasting and CAM reconciliations
Secure data over the cloud

Real Estate Property Management Software: The Top Benefits

Sales

Major property management software companies like Yardi are making the transition to online marketing easier. Yardi’s RentCafe, for instance, integrates seamlessly with Yardi Voyager, making property listings simple and easy. Here is how your property management software can integrate with your sales team.

1. Online marketing integration

With products like Yardi’s RentCafe or MRI’s Market Connect, you can:

Increase visibility in search engine results
Bring more organic traffic

Generate more leads and build brand credibility
Increase your social media outreach

2. Property listing

Property listing feature allows you to list all the available properties on different platforms. Through listings, interested buyers can contact you for more details on the property.

Turbo Tenant Software allows you to list your properties on various sites including Rent Jungle and Apartment List. Automated Craigslist form filling, access to tenant databases and rent calculators makes property listing and lead generation much more easier.

It also allows tenants to apply for listed properties and alerts the users as applications come in.

3. Al-Assisted tenant onboarding

Manual tenant screening can be a tedious process and usually not yield the results you are looking for. Finding reliable tenants is important if you think long term.

You can use artificial intelligence for tenant screening, and complete background checks. The AI asks for basic information along with some images, which are run across a database for checking criminal and eviction history.

Data such as the credit history is collected through an AI interactive bot and uploaded to your account. This can reveal the lead’s current financial situation and their credit history. It tells you whether a tenant is known to pay their bills on time, reveal any debts and look for previous bankruptcy.

AI assisted tenant screening can achieve fewer evictions and increased financial performance. Assetsoft can also help you with back office accounting and lease abstraction.

After tenant approval, AI can also help in updating the availability and databases for new tenants. The software can also assist with self-guided tools, much needed keeping in mind the present pandemic.

You need a software that covers the three main aspects of tenant screening, that is, tenant background check, rental or eviction check and credit check. Assetsoft can help you find the right solution for you. With our ERP solutions, you can easily generate reports that and determine if a lead qualifies to be a tenant in your property.

Real Estate Property Management Software: The Top Benefits

1. Maintenance automation

With maintenance automation, you can easily track the maintenance requests submitted by the tenants. Through different tenant portals, you can ensure:

Quick submission of maintenance requests from tenants.
Increased tenant satisfaction levels, to improve occupancy.

Schedule different maintenance for recurring activities. The software will provide a reminder when property maintenance is due.
Easily order any service required for maintenance and transfer the costs to the accounting section.

You can also track how your team performs, your inventory, and your equipment to optimize your assets.

2. Tenant management

AI bots can complete tenant related functions to automate lease renewals, rent collection, and track payments. You can also collect work requests from tenants and supply them to the vendors. All records of requests and completed jobs are available in the data storage.

For example, Yardi and MRI have built-in tools that allow property managers to easily interact with potential or already existing tenants. Through the interactions, it allows you to store any relevant data and generate related reports. It also integrates with your CRM software to store leads into it.

3. Tenant and lease tracking

An important feature in most property management software, it lets you keep up with information about your tenants and lease agreements. It includes details like lease renewal dates, contact information and payments due if any.

4. Inspection

It’s time to replace manual inspections through several ways. Get a checklist of the properties needing inspection, quickly uploading any repairs needed, and online signature uploading of the inspecting officers.

5. Online portals

Tenant portals give tenants a channel to maintain contact with the landlords as well as other tenants. They can update their information, pay rents and renew leases through this portal.

Property managers can track applications, leases and payments. There are also several self-service features for tenants that lets them communicate with the owner, schedule inspections and request maintenance, all from the comfort of their homes.

Finances:

1. Data insights

Generate valuable insights that your sales and marketing team can use to predict high business months, suggest required changes, and provide easy-to-read visualizations of the data.

See areas in which you can improve and make necessary tweaks to increase sales and profitability. And make your online marketing better by using lead interaction data.

You will also be able to plan and manage the available spaces better.

2. Payments and accounting

Manual calculations and accounting can be a tedious job. Accounting features in the software can provide a holistic view of all your finances including forecasts. Report generation can be used to gain insights and make manual predictions for good investment.

With automated accounting features, the software easily handles all operations related to accounts payable and receivable.

If you want to keep track of your accounting data, you can also make financial modules and also gain software developed insights to increase cash flow. By having an accounting function, you can also minimize the errors in calculations and develop more accurate figures.

The Rent Manager is an excellent software to handle your accounting needs. For any company irrespective of the portfolio size, the software provides features such as budget creation, importing payrolls, generating reports and also bank reconciliations.

3. Budgeting and forecasting

Manual forecasting can be error-prone and involve lots of time and effort. By choosing AI budgeting and forecasting features you can integrate all the current financial data with the past lease information to predict future costs. By getting data from a centralized system, you can skip the hassle of collecting information from various systems and generating elaborate spreadsheets.

Computer-generated forecasts use relevant insights to produce customised predictions. These reports can be auto generated to be shared with other clients and stakeholders. Using these reports you can make data-backed investments, reduce risks and costs as well as improve overall returns on your properties.

The Yardi Breeze Budgeting and Forecasting software addresses all your forecasting needs. It gives accurate budget predictions for rents, charges, and concessions and helps with the calculation of future cash flow by analysing real-time data to determine NPV and IRR at a property level.

Others:

4. In-cloud data storage

Real time analytics: All the information is readily available, up-to-date and relevant.
Flexibility: Data stored can be accessible anywhere, with the right user permissions.
Lower costs: On premise data storage requires considerable investment. With the cloud, you can get similar data storage at reasonable prices, usually tailored to your company’s budget.
Scalability: Cloud data storage also scales your data to the appropriate size for any development stage.

5. Easy Collaboration and Better Security

Storing data over different applications carries with it an inherent security risk. Storing data over a property management software, on the other hand, is safe and requires no installation. Data can be stored either over cloud or on the application.

Many cloud property management software, for instance, need no installation. As a result, you can expect reduced costs, automatic backups and better security, making it a great choice for property managers and real estate agents.

The Top Benefits of Using a Property Management Software

Many popular choices like MRI, RealPage, or Yardi can help you streamline your business operations.

Automate complex calculations such as leases and taxes.
Make strategic changes in your property and move with current trends using information from the software.
Better staff coordination by having access to all departments in a centralized database
Better data protection through cloud-based storage and multiple security measures

Simplified tenant experience with AI bot assistance
Preservation of valuable time, money, and resources

Assetsoft can also help you with your Robotic Process Automation (RPA) needs, creating robots that automate all those mundane, time consuming tasks, from racing emails to processing invoices.

From Yardi consulting to MRI implementation, the Assetsoft team can help streamline your business work process. We can help you choose the right ERP, build RPA robots to increase work efficiency and take care of all your back office accounting needs.

Get Something More with GetSignature

Tired of all the paperwork? Want an easier way to get the signatures? You might want to try out this Melbourne-based e-signature startup. GetSignature helps you get digital signatures easily, and you can integrate the documents within your system sooner than you know it.

Your guide to Using Electronic Signatures Today

Wed, 12 May 2021 11:26:46 -0500

COVID has made every industry adapt to social distancing. That means working from home, paying your bills via the internet, and meeting on Skype and other platforms. You might wonder what that means for legal operations. If so, you’re not alone.

Electronic signatures seem to offer a solution for this problem. You can sign your documents without leaving your home. You can take different approaches to sign documents electronically, too. Dozens of apps are readily available to make the process easier. Many of them are free, too.

Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world. E-signatures are still a relatively new tool. That means some people don’t consider them viable for legal purposes. Several companies and documents still don’t allow for digital signatures.

That being said, we can’t overstate their usefulness during the pandemic. In this guide, we’ll cover what they are, why they’re good, how you can use them, and what you must keep in mind.

Are electronic signatures relevant?

Electronic signatures are a legal commodity. That means they make consent, agreements, and approvals a lot easier. They’re different from physical signatures in that they can be symbols, processes, and sounds associated with records.

That’s the definition from Adobe, yet it’s a commonly accepted explanation. They essentially replace your regular, handwritten signature. According to Adobe, electronic signatures are completely valid for legal agreements.

They’re legal in many countries right now. Keep Solid Sign has an intuitive infographic explaining the legality map.

Are electronic signatures relevant?

It’s easy to worry about e-signatures and their safety. After all, aren’t they easier to fake and replicate? That’s quite far from the truth, and some people would argue they can be safer than handwritten signatures.

Deltagon explains the process straightforwardly. The browser or desktop apps encrypt your connection so that no one can spy on the process. For websites, that means sticking to HTTPS sites.

More modern apps, like Yardi’s software, let you encrypt signature invitations and your documents. They offer additional security layers worth considering.

How do electronic signatures work?

Electronic signatures aren’t as limited as handwritten signatures. That might be one of the reasons they’re harder to accept legally. However, they’re still individual signatures exclusive to the signer.

Washington’s Health Care Authority has a simple but comprehensive document detailing their accepted e-signature methods. They do note that every method has its own authenticity, cost, security, and integrity.

Personal identification number

Most people are already familiar with PINs and passwords. The HCA accepts these as electronic signatures, but individuals must provide some sort of identification. In these circumstances, the PIN would pair with an ID number and name. That’s for the system to confirm the PIN code ties to someone for authentication.

Digitized signature

As the name implies, digitized signatures are simply handwritten signatures turned into digital. That’s done via images of the real signature, and these types of signature usually require special software to guarantee their authenticity.

Digital signature

On the other hand, digital signatures come from private keys. Individuals use these keys for creating personal marks, which function as hashes for electronic files and documents. Recipients use your public key to determine whether or not your private key corresponds to you. Therefore, it’s possible to spot altered documents.

Hybrid e-signatures

The hybrid approach is fairly self-explanatory. It combines different techniques for better security. They’re not an electronic signature by themselves, but they guarantee better security and authenticity.

Electronic signatures are more important than ever

We’re still going through a pandemic that’s making everyone stay as far away from each other as possible. That means every measure that can help us achieve that should be well received.

Electronic signatures were comfortable before the crisis. Today, they could become a necessity. In fact, experts, like The Law Society, have released educational resources for their clients.

We can attest to the growth for the demand of electronic signature solutions since the quarantines started. The same is true for legal and state authorities opening up to this approach.

We can see how electronic signatures could become a legal standard even after COVID is gone.

What are the best apps for electronic signatures?

As we mentioned, using specific apps to create and send your electronic signatures ensure security, authenticity, and verification possibilities.

Now, lots of people misunderstand the differences between digital signatures and e-signatures. Thankfully, Hubspot gathered a list of some of the best apps in the market. Their suggested solutions support both types of signatures, so don’t worry about picking.

Additionally, all of our picks for the best electronic signature apps adapt to different needs. It’s hard to go wrong with any of our recommendations. Our best tip is to check out their website, features, and pricing. That’ll help you pick the best one for your company.

PandaDoc

PandaDoc is a great pick if you’ve never used this type of software before. It offers a natural UI that’s easy to get used to. It offers electronic signatures for iOS and Android users, along with several other document management features.

Other features include electronic form creation, workflows, and integrations with third-party apps like CRM software. It might be somewhat too limited for property management companies, yet it offers an ideal solution for individuals.

You can pay either $20 or $40 monthly for the Professional and Business plan respectively. The latter has more advanced features, like automation and integrations for CRM. You can try both plans for two weeks.

HelloSign

HelloSign is another solid app for iOS and Android users. It offers a nicely customizable mobile app. Most noticeably, it’s the first free app for electronic signatures ever released as far as we can tell, but the free plan is limited.

You can also add branding to your documents thanks to its versatile API. However, it’s another app that’s better for individuals than companies. Smaller businesses could benefit from it, but PandaDoc is probably better for the latter.

The paid plans are $13 and $40 monthly for the Pro and Business accounts. Sadly, they’re limited in how many senders you may include. The free plan allows for only 3 monthly documents, too. All plans have a free trial month, and Enterprise accounts are available on-demand.

AdobeSign

We already mentioned AdobeSign, and they’re naturally one of the best software providers for electronic signatures. In fact, they’re actually one of the pioneers for e-signatures, and they’ve remained one of the best solutions.

It can integrate with many third-party software, like Microsoft Office and Salesforce, and it’s available for both iOS and Android besides the desktop version.

They’re somewhat of a premium service, with $25 monthly plans for small businesses. However, Business accounts have the same price as many of its competitors: $40 monthly. You can request Enterprise plans, and there’s a 2-week trial.

Yardi software

Yardi is one of the standards for real estate property management for a good reason. It brings countless features to help you monitor your assets and financial accounting. However, not many know that Yardi has been implementing electronic signatures for years now.

Their first integration of e-signatures to their platforms dates back to mid-2016. It came as an addition to Yardi Genesis 2 to make online applications simpler.

However, Yardi Breeze is easily the best option from their catalog. It has a huge list of features, so it can adapt to different company sizes, markets, and portfolios. The same is true for their pricing structure, with custom plans readily available.

Electronic signatures have been beneficial for a while now

As mentioned, Yardi is another pioneer for electronic signatures. Even before the pandemic turned them into a necessity, they already had resources on why e-signatures are advantageous.

That article we mentioned summarizes several advantages of using e-signatures. What’s interesting is that it’s from early 2019. Therefore, the insights it offers shed light into how useful this technology used to be.

Conveniency

One of the most obvious advantages of e-signatures is how convenient they are. You don’t have to make a date or move to an office to sign a document. That’s particularly useful if you’re relocating or have a busy week.

Additionally, e-signature apps, like Yardi Breeze, make it seamless to create and send your e-signatures. You can use these apps wherever you are, as many of them are readily available for mobile devices. They also send notifications to enable easier communications.

Options

Electronic signatures also enable property managers to find their ideal tenant more easily. You can list properties on online marketplaces, and electronic signatures let you close the deal a lot faster once you find the right applicant.

Additionally, advanced apps, like Yardi Breeze, come with additional features to help you market and manage your properties. As mentioned in other recommendations, you can also find apps offering electronic signatures and document management.

Organization

Storing files in your computer and cellphone is a lot easier and less messy than keeping paperwork. You can find your documents a lot quicker, and electronic signatures let you keep a paperless office.

Even if you can keep your documents in your hard drive, physical signatures still require you to print them. You can scan the signed papers and discard the page, but that’s unnecessary waste. This advantage becomes more noticeable when paired with management software.

Key considerations when using e-signatures

For all the benefits we can reap from using e-signatures, there are still several challenges to make them the standard. We already mentioned how they’ve been accepted in many states, but some entities and companies still don’t accept them.

Then, we have other challenges, like software implementation, paying subscriptions, and customer experience. The Web Integration blog has a great article on these pitfalls.

If you want to adopt e-signatures as your company’s standard, it’s a great choice. Just make sure to keep an eye out for these factors.

Wider changes

Electronic signatures are usually part of a larger process for digital integration and adoption. That means you need to consider how other departments, processes and methodologies might change with this implementation. You’re basically implementing a new process into your company, and that requires planning and onboarding.

Different experience

We also need to consider that not everyone is aware of electronic signatures and how they work. Customers who’ve never used an e-signature before could feel confused without the right guidance. The same is true for your resources, who need to understand how your e-signature system works and how to request and emit signatures.

Legal interpretation

Finally, not everyone accepts e-signatures as legally viable. Most arguments are irrelevant by now. Technology has advanced enough so that electronic signatures are usually better than handwritten ones in all regards. However, you still need to keep in mind their acceptance in your area.

Conclusion

Electronic signatures used to be an advantage, but they’re vital today, when physical distance is a safety measure. Luckily, we have dozens of great platforms available for all businesses, industries, and markets. Just assess your needs and most important features to have before making a choice.