When is the best time to switch property management software?

Early in the month, a week or so after rent day, once rent is collected and owner statements have gone out. That gives you about three weeks to check everything before the next rent day. Avoid switching in the last days of a month or close to year end.

What data needs to move when switching property management software?

Properties, units, residents and their contact details, leases with their dates and rent amounts, current balances owed by each resident, security deposits held, owners and their bank details, vendors, open maintenance requests, and enough history to answer questions about the past year. Balances and deposits are the parts to check most carefully.

How long does it take to switch property management software?

For a small or medium company, usually four to eight weeks from deciding to switch to running fully on the new system, including moving data, checking it, setting up payments and training the team. The first month end on the new system is when most problems show up, so plan to give it extra attention.

Switching property management software without chaos

This guide is for property management companies in Canada and the US moving from one property management system to another. A switch goes smoothly when you pick a quiet date, move balances and deposits exactly and check them before anyone else sees them, keep residents’ payments working without a gap, and run your first month end with time to spare. When a switch goes badly, it’s usually because one of those was skipped.

It’s easier to see what to do by looking at a switch that went wrong. The company and the details are illustrative, but each mistake is one that happens in real switches.

The switch

A company managing about 300 homes decided to move to new software. Their contract with the old vendor ended on the 31st, so they planned to go live on the 28th, export everything on the 27th and be done before the new month.

Mistake one: going live just before rent day

Going live on the 28th left three days before rent was due. When residents started paying on the 1st, the team was still learning where things were, and every question about a payment became a search through two systems.

What would have prevented it: go live early in the month, around a week after rent day, once rent is in and owner statements are out. That gives three quiet weeks to find problems before the next rent day. If your old contract ends at a bad time, it’s usually cheaper to pay for one more month of the old system than to rush.

Mistake two: moving balances without checking them

The export carried each resident’s balance across, but a handful of partial payments and a few credits came over wrong. Residents who were paid up got late notices on the 2nd. Two residents who owed money showed as clear.

What would have prevented it: before going live, print a list of every resident’s balance from the old system and the new one, and compare them line by line. The totals should match to the cent, and so should every individual balance. The same goes for security deposits, owner balances and anything held in trust. This is the slowest part of a switch, and it’s the part that can’t be skipped.

Mistake three: a gap in rent payments

Residents who paid by pre-authorized debit had agreements set up with the old system’s payment provider. Nobody had moved them, and the new system had no permission to collect. Rent didn’t come out on the 1st for about a third of residents.

What would have prevented it: find out early how residents pay, and what each payment method needs to move. Pre-authorized debits can need a new agreement from each resident, depending on the payment providers involved, and collecting them takes weeks. Tell residents what’s changing, when and what they need to do, a month ahead, then remind them a week before.

Mistake four: training everyone the day before

The team had an hour of training on the 27th. On the 1st, with residents calling, nobody remembered how to record a cash payment or reissue a receipt.

What would have prevented it: train the team on the tasks they’ll do in the first week, using your own data in the new system, a week or two before go-live. Pick one person who knows the new system best and make them the person everyone asks.

Mistake five: a rushed first month end

At the end of the first month, owner statements were due, and nobody had produced one from the new system before. Several came out wrong, and owners noticed.

What would have prevented it: before the first real month end, produce a trial statement for a few owners and compare it with what the old system would have shown. Send the first real statements a day or two later than usual if you need to, and tell owners ahead of time that you’re moving to a new system and statements may look a little different.

How the switch should have looked

Done again, the same company would decide in the first week of a month, spend three or four weeks moving and checking data while the old system still runs, set up new payment agreements with residents along the way, train the team on real tasks, and go live a week after a rent day. They’d keep the old system read-only for a few months so past questions can still be answered.

I’d recommend choosing a vendor that moves your data across with you and checks it before you go live. That’s how we do it with Domus by Tuze: properties, leases, residents, balances and vendors are brought across and checked with you before your first rent day, and we’re there for your first month end and beyond.

Before you sign with the new vendor

Ask who moves the data and who checks it, how residents’ payments move, what training is included, and who you’ll talk to in the first month if something’s wrong. The answers tell you how much of this plan will fall on your team.