Tenants are the core of a successful commercial real estate business.
Without varied, strong businesses in your properties, your own business will struggle, so creating and maintaining good tenant relationships is crucial as a commercial real estate owner.
But creating good tenant relationships involves more than simply being friendly. It requires clear and frequent communication, accurate accounting and record-keeping, and user-friendly systems for tenants to use. If your business runs on QuickBooks, you may wonder how you are supposed to build all these systems out of an accounting-based software.
In this article, we’ll review what you need for the best tenant relationships, what QuickBooks can and can’t do to help, and where to go instead for the tenant-focused resources you need.
Most obviously, putting effort into your relationships with tenants is the polite thing to do. But the benefits of strong tenant relationships go far beyond basic courtesy. When tenants feel respected and heard, they are more likely to stay on your properties for longer, giving you a stable source of income that benefits both parties. They may even recommend your properties to others.
Additionally, tenants who know their concerns will be listened to are more likely to raise concerns in the first place. Their input can help you catch maintenance issues early and even plan ahead for renovations or upgrades that you know will be attractive to current and future tenants.
Not all tenant-owner relationships will look the same. For example, you may be directly involved with your tenants or may have property managers who handle much of the day-to-day work. However, regardless of your specific setup, there are a few major aspects of creating good tenant relationships that can be helpful for everyone.
Communication
Communication may be the most important aspect of successful tenant relationships. Without good communication, it’s impossible to learn about and solve problems or concerns on both sides.
Get off to a good start by communicating quickly and clearly when meeting with potential and new tenants, setting clear expectations and allowing tenants to ask plenty of questions. It’s also important to have accessible options for tenants to reach you. Make contact information easy to find and use, including phone numbers, emails, and tenant portals where they can submit maintenance requests or view information.
When lines of communication stay open, tenants trust that you are invested in their needs and willing to address issues.
Efficient Maintenance
Reliably receiving and taking care of tenant maintenance needs may seem like an obvious responsibility, but it remains extremely important. When tenants have to deal with maintenance issues for a long time, they may feel ignored, uncomfortable in their space, or even experience a business downturn if the problem affects their work or customers.
It’s a good idea to offer an easy-to-use tenant portal for tenants to submit maintenance requests and track their progress, making sure issues are solved efficiently. Of course, staying on top of routine upkeep can also help you avoid unexpected problems down the road.
Staying on top of leases is incredibly important to maintaining positive tenant relationships. For best results, use a software that tracks lease details including start date, end date, escalations, and even lease type (gross vs. triple-net). This way, there is always a document to refer back to in case of disagreement. It will also help ensure that you calculate common area maintenance fees quickly and correctly each year, decreasing the chances of disputes.
Using a tenant portal can allow tenants to see these key lease documents, as well as providing a convenient location to pay rent online.
QuickBooks is an excellent accounting option for small and mid-sized businesses. It offers well-known, accessible software that helps reliably handle a variety of financial tasks. However, QuickBooks is not specifically built for commercial real estate, which means it is also not built for tenants. As an accounting software, it doesn’t include property management features like a tenant portal or a place to store lease information. It also doesn’t include specialized documents and reports like rent roll, which form the basis of good tenant management.
That said, good accounting is also crucial and creates a base of accurate information that you can use when communicating with tenants, setting rent rates, and performing CAM reconciliation. So, while you shouldn’t give up on QuickBooks, you will likely need additional help to fully cover all your tenant’s needs.
The best option to find that additional help is to use property management software that integrates fully with QuickBooks. This way, you can keep all your financial records and simply add in necessary property management functions like tenant portals for maintenance and rent payments, as well document storage for leases and even certificates of insurance (COIs). When you choose property management software like STRATAFOLIO that integrates with QuickBooks, all your data syncs automatically between the two programs, so you never have to deal with lost or out-of-date information. To build the strongest tenant relationships while keeping your accounting program, implement integrated property management software.