A property management software is not a few-month trial but a multi-year decision: all your financial history, unit-owner records and contracts go into it. The cost of the wrong choice is not the license fee but the cost of switching back. The ten points below should always be tested in a demo call.
1. Is billing flexible?
Maintenance fees are not one-size-fits-all. Does it support the legal distinction between equal shares and land shares, plus keys such as m² or custom ratios? Can different expense items use different allocation keys? This is the foundation of maintenance-fee calculation.
2. Is the bank integration real?
“We have bank integration” doesn't say much. The question is: are transactions pulled automatically, or do you upload statements? Which banks are supported? Does it suggest matches, and does it flag unmatched items as alerts?
3. What do residents see?
When residents can see their own balance, payment history and community announcements on their phone, the volume of questions reaching the property manager drops noticeably. Be sure to ask whether the resident app is billed separately.
4. Are utility meters and consumption allocation included?
If there is central heating or a shared water supply, meter readings must be posted automatically to each unit. Manually calculated consumption creates both errors and disputes.
5. Does it support multi-building properties?
You may have a single community today; if a second portfolio is added tomorrow, can the system handle it with separate cash accounts and separate accounting? If branching out is a possibility, ask about multi-community support from the start.
6. Are the reports audit-ready?
Are there reports such as the trial balance, current account statements and aged debt? Can they be exported to PDF and Excel? Auditors and unit owners want a document, not a screenshot.
7. Is authorization granular?
Accountants, cashiers, auditors and field staff should not all see the same screen. Can permissions be assigned per user, and is there an audit trail showing who did what?
8. Whose job is data migration?
This is the most frequently overlooked cost item. Who will migrate your existing service charges, debts, units and people data? Is this service included in the price, or charged separately?
9. Is your data yours?
If you decide to leave, can you export your data? How are backups handled? How is KVKK compliance ensured for the processing of personal data?
10. What is the total cost?
Don't look at the monthly fee alone. Ask about each of these line items individually: setup, data migration, training, additional users, SMS and email credits, collection commission, mobile app and support. Whether a commission is charged on collections matters in particular; a small percentage of turnover can end up costing more than the licence fee by year end.
Short checklist for a demo call
- Can we do a demo with my own community's data?
- How many different allocation keys can I use for maintenance fees?
- Do bank transactions come in automatically?
- Is the resident app an extra charge?
- Is data migration included in the price?
- Do you charge a commission on collections?
- If I terminate the contract, how do I get my data back?
Request written answers to these questions. Verbal commitments turn into details nobody remembers six months later.