This blog post is sponsored by TenantCloud.

I've always thought that managing rental properties was one of the hardest jobs in the real estate world.

When you're trying to maintain a growing portfolio of properties with tenants constantly moving around, submitting maintenance requests, missing payments, and dishing out a never-ending list of jobs, life can get stressful in a hurry.

Being a landlord can easily become a full-time job. If you don't have a good system to keep the chaos in order, you can quickly fall into the DIY landlord stereotype of overlooking details, losing track of emails, and missing deadlines.

Even though a landlord's job can be full of challenges, there are some pretty effective ways to eliminate the most common issues, so you can stop stressing out and start focusing on growing a healthier business that actually improves your life.

In this blog post, I will show you five ways TenantCloud can be a game-changer for landlords. If you're currently managing your properties (or considering jumping in as a new investor), the next few minutes could greatly impact how this experience goes for you!

1. Automate the Accounting

The biggest problem most DIY landlords wrestle with is their accounting.

If you want a successful long-term business, you cannot afford to ignore the numbers. Like it or not, your income and expenses will play a huge role in managing the health of your real estate business.

If you don't know how to track the progress of your rental properties and easily identify simple things like:

• Which expenses are coming in too high?
• Which properties have an unusually high vacancy rate?
• Which properties are performing the best and the worst in your portfolio?

…it's going to hurt your bottom line.

Since most rental property owners report the financial performance of their rental properties on Schedule E of their personal tax return, it's important to have a firm understanding of this document because it says A LOT about your business. For a rental property owner, it essentially is your business every year.

Unless you've been preparing for tax time all year long, it can take a lot of work to reproduce these numbers in your Schedule E at the end of the year (hundreds of hours in some cases)… UNLESS you're working with the free automation that comes with TenantCloud.

TenantCloud is the only property management software built to sync with your Quickbooks Online account (so you can sync transactions from TenantCloud directly into QB), which can save a lot of time in completing Schedule E.

Likewise, if a landlord doesn't use Quickbooks, it's just as easy to have Schedule E produced directly in TenantCloud without using Quickbooks.

2. Stop Late Payments for Good

If you've ever collected recurring payments for anything, you're probably familiar with customers who pay late (or stop paying altogether).

There's no good reason why a landlord or property manager should have to deal with this.

The bank doesn't tolerate late payments.

The IRS doesn't tolerate late payments.

You shouldn't tolerate them either.

If you're waiting for checks to arrive in the mail, you're doing it wrong. There's a MUCH easier way to get your money on time, every time, and you can do it with TenantCloud Autopay.

Whether you want to accept payment by credit card or ACH, TenantCloud can handle it.

Each payment gateway has fees, but these can easily be offset by bumping up the monthly rent amount so it easily covers this convenience fee (or a landlord can choose to have this cost out of their pocket).

TenantCloud offers the option of getting payment instantly (not waiting for 3 – 5 days) if you use TCPayments powered by Dwolla.

Getting paid is the whole reason why you bought rental properties, right? Don't let this be another pesky thing that gets in the way every month. Automate the heck out of your income with these easy autopay options!

3. Centralized Communication

Good communication is one of the many skills that go into good property management.

The problem with today's fragmented communications is that messages come in from all over the place, making it easier to lose track of what people are trying to tell you.

On the average week, most landlords have to respond to texts, emails, phone calls, and a handful of social media messages… so how on earth are they supposed to get everyone's messages coming in on the same platform?

It's easy to do with TenantCloud Messenger.

When all your tenants are signed up for a free TenantCloud account, they'll get access to a simple messaging platform where they can stay in contact with you as needed.

You can stop losing track of everything in your already-cluttered email inbox because TenantCloud can keep all of these conversations where they should be, seamlessly integrated with your property management software.

It's also worth noting that with TenantCloud's free mobile app, you and your tenants can have a user-friendly experience unlike anything else offered in the industry today.

This is a hugely important innovation! Check out this blog post for more info.

4. Massive Free Exposure for Listings

Every TenantCloud landlord and property manager benefits from a free listing site.

This doesn't just allow you to create beautiful property listings without managing your website and gets you massive exposure from a single platform.

TenantCloud listings are syndicated on Zillow, Trulia, Apartments.com, KW.com, HotPads, MSN, AOL Real Estate, MyNewPlace, Oodle, and Rentler.com.

This means you won't have to mess around with posting your listing on multiple websites; you can post it to ONE website, and the information will automatically appear on all these other platforms.

5. Managing Service Requests from One Place

If you've ever managed rentals, you know that ongoing maintenance and repairs are a fact of life.

Keeping track of these maintenance requests can spiral out of control quickly without a good system for keeping tabs on the details of each one.

TenantCloud has a beautiful Trello-like maintenance tracking system that allows landlords to stay organized and up-to-speed on every maintenance request in their pipeline.

If you're sophisticated enough to click-and-drag cards around on your screen, you'll be able to use this feature easily.

Each maintenance card allows you to store a TON of important data, including:

• Keeping track of where maintenance requests are at (New, In Progress, or Resolved).
• Assigning each task to a designated service pro.
• Uploading video and/or images to clarify which problems need to be addressed.
• Assigning a Category to each maintenance request so it seamlessly connects to the right expense in your accounting tab.
• Creating invoices from inside each maintenance request card.
• Specify details about the property's location, how to gain access and whether pets are present.

Seriously, this one feature solves so many problems that come up in the process of managing maintenance issues. The job of a landlord can be exponentially easier through this single tool.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

If you've ever read The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, you probably remember this question,

“What's the ONE thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

When it comes to property management, TenantCloud is a perfect example of this.

With the ability to solve so many problems in ONE piece of software, it's a simple way to make many things easier.

What software are you using to manage your rental properties, and how has it helped your business grow? Let us know in the forum!