Managed App, a pioneer in rental market payments, has today launched a native (in-app) marketplace that connects property managers to licensed and insured tradespeople across the country.
Managed App director Thom Richards said this milestone development is a huge advancement for the property management platform and underpins its proposition as the engine behind Australia’s growth agencies.
“The release of the marketplace now positions Managed App as a unique and powerful resource for Australia’s property managers,” he said.
“Property managers can now send work orders and quote requests directly to their own tradespeople while seamlessly amplifying those requests to the thousands of tradespeople across our marketplace — all without having to leave the app either!
“This is a huge game changer for property managers and helps ensure a positive outcome for property investors who are seeking speed of service, competitive pricing for repairs and maintenance, and assurance the job will get done.”
There are currently 5,400 licensed and insured tradies on the platform, with plans to have tens of thousands connected and engaged over the coming years.
Mr Richards said the release of the marketplace was the culmination of a strategic objective to transform how property managers operate, ensuring the marriage between service and outcomes for clients, but with an eye on their bottom line.
It marks another milestone for the property management app, which has gained wide attention from the real estate industry for its ambitious vision for modernising antiquated processes within the property management sector.
In November 2020, Managed App revealed that over $400 million in transaction volumes had been processed via the platform since launching the product in late 2018.
According to Mr Richards, speed and efficiency were critically important to the design of the Managed App marketplace.
“Critically, it doesn’t interrupt regular maintenance workflows — this was a key philosophy in the architecture of the marketplace,” he said.
“Keeping property managers engaged with the platform and within the same ecosystem is a huge enabler for better efficiencies without changing the time-proven processes for issuing direct work orders to preferred, or potential, tradespeople.”
The Managed App team undertook expansive workshopping and fact-finding with property managers and tradespeople to design a marketplace that was an asset, rather than a hindrance.
“Property managers told us how disjointed using a marketplace can be if not directly built into the platform, and the impact of that,” Mr Richards said.
“They need to jump out of their property management platform, open a web browser, navigate another user interface and then finally copy information such as quotes from the respective marketplace back into their property management platform.”
According to the director, the Managed App marketplace offers a simple solution to what can be a complex workflow for property managers.
“We built the marketplace inside the property management platform,” he said.
“Within the same interconnected ecosystem, property managers can now create competitive tension between tradies for work orders, keeping the property investor connected and engaged across the entire process, all in one place.”
Managed App is an expansive property management platform that now offers not only a fully integrated tradie marketplace, but also automated payments, daily workflows, cloud document storage, a rent roll CRM, digital ingoing/outgoing and routine inspections, and in-app communications.
The new marketplace has been well received by tradespeople, who will also benefit from a single-source platform to support better workflow management, and potentially win more business.
“A thriving marketplace takes two to tango. Ensuring tradespeople were not just getting new work opportunities, but also enjoying the user experience, was critically important in structuring the marketplace,” Mr Richards said.
“We’ve created a portal that tradespeople can log into and see available work (both from agencies and marketplace), manage work in progress, store trading and licence details, communicate with property managers and report on past work (for tax purposes).”
Managed App’s unique payment infrastructure will also play a distinctive role in attracting tradespeople to the platform: “Managed App is built on the NPP (New Payments Platform), which means its users, including tradies, enjoy real-time payments — which is critical for underpinning cash flow.
“This means tradespeople will not have to wait around until the end of the month for the trust account to be emptied. Assuming the job has been signed off by the property manager, tradespeople can now be paid in a matter of seconds via the NPP.”
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