Five directors, five inboxes, one property manager
Each resident management company has its own board, and most have at least one director who is very engaged. They want to know if the gutter job has been booked, why the electricity bill went up, how much is owed in arrears and when the fire alarm was last serviced. They email. Then another director emails about the same thing, not knowing the first one already asked.
A property manager with thirty blocks can end up spending a large part of the week writing individual updates. None of it is difficult. It is just constant.
Why directors keep asking
Directors ask because they cannot see anything for themselves. The information exists in your block management system, your works tracker and your document store, but they have no window into it. The only way to find out is to ask a person.
Monthly reports would help, but producing them by hand for every block is exactly the job nobody has time for, so they happen sporadically or not at all. The gaps between reports are filled with emails.
What the constant updates cost
The obvious cost is the property manager's time. The less visible one is that directors who feel uninformed are the ones who start comparing managing agents. Retention of management contracts is often less about price than about whether the board feels looked after.
Repeated one-off updates also produce inconsistent information, where two directors receive slightly different answers and then compare notes.
The director portal and reports we build
We build a read-only view for each block's directors and a monthly report that writes itself from your data, with the property manager adding a short commentary.
- Data feeds: we read budget and actual spend, arrears totals, open works orders and upcoming checks from your block management system and trackers on a schedule.
- Director portal: each director logs in to see their block only. Open jobs with status, spend by heading against budget, arrears totals without individual names unless your policy allows, and key documents such as insurance and the latest accounts.
- Monthly report: a short PDF or email per block is generated with the same figures, plus a draft summary of the month written by a language model from the job and spend data.
- Manager commentary: the property manager edits the draft summary and approves it before it goes out, so the voice is theirs.
- Question log: directors can raise questions in the portal. They go to the property manager's queue and the answers stay visible to the whole board.
| Directors ask about | Where they see it now |
|---|---|
| Has the job been booked? | Open works list with current status |
| Why has a cost gone up? | Spend against budget by heading, with notes |
| How much is owed? | Arrears summary for the block |
| When is the next check due? | Upcoming checks and servicing |
| Where is the insurance schedule? | Documents section |
The week after launch
Directors look things up rather than write in. When they do ask, the question and answer are shared across the board, so the same question does not arrive five times. The monthly report goes out on the same day each month without anyone building it from scratch.
Property managers spend their time on the questions that need them, and the relationship with the board improves because the board can see the work being done.
Is this your inbox?
- Several directors of the same block email the same question.
- Monthly reports to directors happen sometimes, not reliably.
- Directors complain they do not know what is going on.
- You have lost management contracts where service, not price, was the reason.
- Property managers spend hours a week writing individual updates.