A property manager chasing a plumber at four o'clock
Your product helps letting agencies manage repairs: tenants report issues, property managers raise jobs and send them to contractors, and everyone is supposed to see progress. In practice, a tenant reports a leak, the job goes to a plumber through your app, and then nothing. The plumber saw the notification, rang the tenant, fixed the leak on Tuesday and sent an invoice by email to the agency's accounts address on Friday. The app still says the job is waiting to be accepted.
The property manager spends the afternoon ringing contractors to find out what happened to open jobs, then updates your app by hand so the landlord can see progress. The agency starts to wonder what they are paying for.
Why trades will not play along
Contractors who work for letting agents are usually small businesses: a plumber, an electrician, a handyman with a van. They may work for a dozen agencies, each with its own system. They are not your customer, and your app is one more thing on their phone.
- Every agency asks them to install a different app and remember another password.
- Updating a job means several screens and fields, typed on a phone, on site.
- Their own job and invoicing tools, if they have any, do not talk to yours.
- Nobody pays them for the admin, and phoning the agency is quicker.
- Agencies accept updates by phone and email, so there is no reason to change.
What missing job updates cost
Your product's value depends on the job record being current. When it is not, landlords get no updates and ring the agency, tenants chase repairs that have already been booked, and property managers go back to spreadsheets. Invoices arrive by email with no link to a job, so matching them for approval is manual. Compliance-related jobs, such as a gas safety visit, are the worst case: if the certificate sits in the contractor's email rather than in your product, the agency's records have a gap.
It also caps your growth. A maintenance product that only works when contractors cooperate will always struggle at the agencies with the most contractors.
How we build updates contractors will actually send
What we build asks contractors for as little as possible, in the channel they already use.
- Job offers sent by text message with a link that opens a single page: job details, tenant access notes, and buttons to accept, decline or propose a time. No app to install and no account to create.
- One-tap status updates from the same link: booked, on site, completed, needs a return visit, with photos taken straight from the phone camera.
- Certificate and invoice capture: the contractor photographs or uploads the document on the job page, and we read the key details with extraction and attach it to the job for the property manager to check.
- An email and phone fallback: a reply to the job email, or a note the property manager types after a call, is turned into a status update on the right job.
- For contractors who use job management software such as Tradify or ServiceM8, an integration where their tool allows it, so they update once in their own system.
- Reminders to contractors only when a job is overdue for an update, not for every step.
| Contractor action | What they do | What the agency sees |
|---|---|---|
| Accept a job | Tap accept on the text link | Job accepted, with proposed time |
| Finish a job | Tap completed, add photos | Completed with before and after photos |
| Send invoice | Photograph or upload it on the job page | Invoice attached and ready to approve |
| Upload a certificate | Upload on the job page | Certificate linked to the property |
| Update by phone | Nothing new | Property manager's call note becomes an update |
We keep the contractor side deliberately plain. It is a page, not a product, and it should take less time than a phone call.
The leak, handled with the new flow
The plumber gets a text with the job, taps accept and picks Tuesday morning. On Tuesday, they tap on site, then completed, and take two photos of the new pipe. On Friday, they photograph the invoice on the same page. The property manager sees each step as it happens, the landlord gets an automatic update, and the invoice is waiting on the approval screen with the job attached. The property manager's afternoon is spent on the jobs that actually need a person.
Checklist: contractor updates
- Most job updates in your product are typed by the agency, not the contractor.
- Contractors need an app and an account to respond to a job.
- Invoices arrive by email and are matched to jobs by hand.
- Certificates from contractor visits are not always attached to the property.
- Agencies report spending hours chasing contractors for status.