How Saving Time Turned Into an Investment: a Case Study

With innovative technological tools, it is possible to manage rental property so that even the increase of property units does not mean a substantial rise in the time needed to manage it. Our customers know this from a first-hand experience.

Time is the only resource that has been distributed to us all in equal parts: no more and no less than twenty-four hours a day. Those who equate time with money know very well that as wealth increases, so does the value of time. Owners who deal with several rental property units at the same time recognize this particularly acutely.

Last year, one of Bidrento’s current customers found themselves in a situation where 24-hour days were simply no longer enough. Thus, the owner of 12 rental apartments had to admit that if they were to continue to manage the properties in the old way, they could no longer divide their attention to all units equally. Something had to change.

Late invoices and reminders

Due to the landlord’s constant lack of time, situations kept occurring in which some tenants did not get their rental invoice on time, the delays sometimes ranging up to three or four months. As invoicing used to be a manual activity for the property owner, it consumed a disproportionate amount of their time. This implied that these time-consuming, mundane activities tended to be set aside amid other more burning issues.

In addition to invoicing, a lot of energy was spent on checking bank statements for ensuring all tenants have made their payments on time. As a result, the landlord was often behind with sending tenants timely reminders about unpaid bills, and unresolved issues kept piling up.

Accumulating paperwork

Owners of several rental properties typically spend a lot of time on mundane paperwork, such as filling in contracts. Each arrival of a new tenant used to correspond to 10-15 minutes of manual paperwork for our customer before using the managing software. Their work didn’t end there. After filling them in, the contracts had to be checked manually to ensure that all the necessary fields were filled in and the information of the previous tenants was not accidentally left where it shouldn’t have been.

Monthly incidental expenses were another headache. These expense bills usually arrived separately. This means that if there were three or four of them per apartment, it added up to a substantial amount of work, as all the expenses had to be collected, put together and sent out as one invoice per unit. Just to illustrate what it used to mean for our customer: four invoices per apartment can be multiplied by 12 – in other words, he had to deal with about 50 expense bills received at different times each month, which had to be composed by units into 12 separate invoices.

The price of a new tenant

All property owners who have ever rented out their units know very well that entering a new rental cycle requires a lot of time and energy from both the landlord and the tenant. In addition to meeting tenant candidates, doing background checks and interacting with them, a lot of work goes into making appointments for property showings.

Our customer admits that whenever they were searching for a new tenant, 30-40% of their time would solely be spent finding suitable times for those interested in the apartment to come for a showing. Ensuring that all interested candidates could see the apartment used to take up a lot of the owner’s time.

Not all activities need to be done manually

Due to the time constraint caused by the accumulated actions, the property owner finally realized that he couldn’t keep on managing 12 objects on his own. Seven months ago, he decided to try Bidrento’s rental property management software, and according to him, the first results are already tangible.

“At present, monthly rent bills go out automatically. That means zero time spent on them and more money gained on the bank account on time,” reports the owner.

Additionally, our customer connected Bidrento’s software to his banking and accounting software so that unpaid invoice reminders now reach the tenants via automatic e-mails. Bidrento’s managing software also gives him a good overview of which tenants have problems paying their bills and who needs more attention.

Contracts in two clicks

Whereas in the past, it took the landlord tens of minutes to complete each contract manually, Bidrento’s software performs a background check on the tenants automatically and generates a smart lease contract that is ready in two clicks. The contract can then be sent directly to the tenant for digital signatures in the same system. All agreements and contracts are automatically saved to the software’s documentation folder. This way, you no longer need to scan through multiple e-mails to search for necessary documents.

Our customer admits that they have additionally saved a lot of time by not dealing with invoicing incidental costs manually. At present, they can forward all received bills to our system, and the software automatically completes the invoices.

Bidrento’s property showing booking system has also made it very easy to manage to find new tenants. Instead of manually filled calendars, appointments are booked automatically without wasting the owner’s precious time.

Automation has given a chance to grow

According to our customer, the introduction of Bidrento’s rental property management software to their business has automated activities that they did not even know to be a problem beforehand.

“Even interacting with an accountant has become easier and smoother,” they admit today. Our smart assistant has facilitated the various daily operations to such an extent that the property owner now spends four to five times less time on activities that previously had to be done manually.

All that time they have saved with automating their daily operations has created an opportunity for our customer to grow their real estate portfolio. In their recent feedback, the property owner said that the financial stability they have maintained with our software would allow them to make additional investments.

“I am about to acquire three more apartments because Bidrento’s software has simplified managing activities greatly and brought a much more stable cash-flow,” he praises.

If you want to learn more about how improving your time management could help you grow your portfolio, contact us at info@bidrento.com and find out more.