Tuesday 18 October 2011

Property Management Software

By Eldridge Neigh


For the past decade, the property management industry has leveraged technology to be able to improve streamline workflows and processes as well as to gain better control of all aspects of property management. This has been achieved mainly through the introduction as well as the evolution of technology, basically built around property management software.

The first systems in the industry were mixes of DOS-based accounting and rent-roll systems which have often proved to be inflexible and difficult to learn and use. These systems were limited as well in their ability to import and export data and were laden with compatibility issues. The stricter reporting demands from investors have made ease of access to data a necessity and made broad compatibility.

The next one in the evolutionary chain of property management software was the so-called transition to the Windows-based software. This allowed for simpler deployment, greater ease of use, as well as increased functionality. The Windows platform also allows the developers to be able customize their applications for end users to a degree impractical on the DOS platform.

These Windows-based applications grew to include diverse components or modules covering all aspects of property management: accounting, marketing, payment and collections, lease management, financial management, maintenance management, financial modeling, and communications.

The advent of the Internet as well as its explosive growth as being a pervasive communications and e-commerce medium has lead to the migration of property management software to the Web, with the latest software which is developed on the Application Service Provider (ASP) platform. This would essentially mean that applications are hosted on the service provider's, or developers, servers and accessed over the Internet through the users' web browsers.

Application Services Providers and Web-based applications together offer a number of advantages as compared to traditional platforms. The software is said to be easier to learn and use and significantly easier to manage and maintain. Web-based applications and Application Service Providers (ASPs) together reduce the financial impact of technology as well as create a web-based solution as a service for rental property managers and owners.

It has been said that many of the first web-based property management systems to appear on the market were applications which are being ported from older platforms to the web. Finally, for the web built from the ground up, software companies developed property management software. These systems are accessed through a browser (Software as a Service) and run solely on the web.

Prior to the emergence of Software as a Service, small to medium-sized owners and managers were being locked out of the benefits of high-end property management software because of the cost and complexity. Software as a Service levels the playing field for property managers as well as owners which is giving them a competitive edge that is allowing greater control when it comes to their properties, access to real-time data, ability to respond more quickly to market changes, and, perhaps most importantly, gives them the most complete and current status of their property which are available.




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