Resident in a managed building
Building, unit, reason, access and availability. The request opens under the right mandate, with a named contact and a status of received.
Rental property managers
A resident reports damage, the owner asks for an update, then the contractor calls back. You can find the unit, management agreement, responsible contact and request status. A forwarded request stays distinct from work a contractor has accepted or completed.
$45 CAD / month · 50 Standard calls · 1 local number
The right property, agreement and request status
The base opens the request under an owner's mandate and forwards it to the on-call contact: status forwarded. With the Maintenance and vendors option, the plumber called on accepts or declines, and the mandate ceiling decides what follows — replacement runs over the threshold, so the approval request goes out with photos and an estimate. At 8:05 a.m. the coordinator finds a complete file waiting for a signature instead of a voicemail to decode.
Read the full conversation
Thursday, 6:50 a.m. A resident calls about a leaking water heater, in a building managed for an owner.
ReceptionistGood morning. Let me take your name and a callback number. Which address and which unit?
ResidentKarim Belhaj, 450 555-0134. 78 Bergeron Avenue, unit 2. There is water on my laundry room floor.
ReceptionistIs water still running right now? Is a shut-off valve reachable near the appliance?
ResidentIt is seeping slowly. There is a valve, though I would rather leave it alone.
ReceptionistYou are right, and I will give you no technical instruction. I am flagging this urgent and forwarding it to the on-call contact for that building. You will get a message once someone confirms they are on it.
For the requests you receive
Owner calling in
Identity verified, purpose taken — approval, repair, vacancy, reporting — and routed to whoever runs that portfolio. Nothing from a different mandate leaves with it.
Vendor or contractor
Company, building, purpose: unit access, work order, invoice. With the Maintenance and vendors option, their acknowledgement moves the request to accepted, and not to completed.
Other requests you can delegate
Applicant and vacant unit
Pre-qualification against criteria configured for that building, a viewing offered, a file opened. Vacancy is what your client looks at first.
What she does for your mandates
The moves she makes on calls from your residents, your owners and your vendors, from tying the call to a unit through to the approval request, then what stays with the manager. Every line is a call your office gets.
When a resident calls about their unit
She takes the name and callback number, then the building and the unit, before asking what is going on.
The mandate follows from the unit; it decides which ceiling is read and who gets alerted, so she attaches before she qualifies.
She asks whether the caller is a resident, an owner under mandate, a vendor or an applicant for a vacant unit.
The role decides what follows: a resident opens a request, an owner is verified before any reporting, a vendor talks access or invoice.
She finds the request already open on that unit before creating a second one.
A resident calling back about the same water heater adds to their file; the owner does not see two requests for one leak.
She answers the building’s everyday questions from what you approved: elevator booking for a move, access notice, rental criteria.
Nothing from one mandate leaks into another; whatever is not configured for that building stays a forwarded request rather than an improvised answer.
When water is running or the heat is off
She has everyone leave the building and dial 911 for gas, smoke, a carbon monoxide alarm or somebody stuck in the elevator, before any other question.
The safety redirect in the property-management preset comes before the file; no technical instruction is given.
She dispatches on-call maintenance for that building for running water, a backup, no heat in cold weather, a building power failure or a front door that no longer locks.
The on-call rotation is that portfolio’s own; she applies the same rule by day, at night and on weekends, and she says the request is forwarded rather than quoting an arrival time.
She flags the request urgent and alerts the manager responsible for the portfolio, on top of the on-call contact.
Solo setting: your mobile rings, then the building, unit and problem summary lands by text if you do not pick up.
After hours, she opens the maintenance ticket for anything that is not a building emergency and leaves it for the morning.
A dripping tap at 11 p.m. does not wake the on-call contact; it waits for the manager with its description and the resident’s access availability.
The request under the right mandate
She opens the request under the mandate of that building’s owner, with a named contact and a status of received.
Two buildings can share one leak and one plumber; they keep two ceilings and two approvers.
She reads the mandate’s spending ceiling and prepares the approval request when the repair runs over it, committing nothing.
The named approver decides; she logs the answer and the delay, and a forwarded request is not a finished repair.
She places a viewing of a unit for rent, unit access or an elevator booking in the building’s calendar.
Unit viewing, mandate meeting, access with the 24-hour notice stated, elevator for a move: durations come from the preset, and the notice is stated, not judged.
She pre-qualifies an applicant against your criteria only: move-in date, occupants, pets, consent to a credit check.
No question about origin, religion, age, family situation or disability; the decision to rent stays with the manager.
She sends the resident the pickup message once on-call or the manager has confirmed.
The status announced is the one that exists: forwarded, accepted or completed; a vendor contacted is not a vendor who accepted.
Between calls, as your portfolio grows
Options added separately, when they are useful to you.
- Add-on
She contacts an authorised vendor for that kind of work, waits for their acceptance and moves the request to accepted rather than to completed.
Maintenance and vendors option: proof of work, invoice and traceable closure; with no reply from the vendor, the request stays pending and on-call gets the configured alert. Maintenance and vendors
- Add-on
She sends the owner the approval request with photos and estimate, and records their agreement.
Included in Maintenance and vendors; two owners using one plumber each keep their own ceiling, and a blanket approval is blocked. Maintenance and vendors
- Add-on
She collects the documents of an application file, checks it is complete and follows the manager’s decision.
Leasing and applications option: vacancy is what your client looks at first; no automatic decision, no implied rent collection. Leasing and applications
- Add-on
She prepares the report per mandate and the approved notices when an owner or a board enters the decision.
Mandates and governance option: reporting per mandate, deadlines and administrative comparison of proposals; the plain identity of owners stays in the base. Mandates and governance
When your owners write, and if you already run Buildium or Hopem
- Channel
She attaches owner, resident and vendor emails to the right mandate, respecting each party’s permissions.
Optional AI email inbox: draft by default, sending under your policy, and one mandate learns nothing from another.
- Software
With Buildium, she reads data from an eligible account; writing a maintenance request still has to be proven, and an interface subscription is required.
Until writing is qualified, her native register of units, mandates and requests serves as the log, and you post entries as needed. Buildium
- Software
With Hopem, Proprio Expert or a local system, access is qualified vendor by vendor before she writes anything there.
Documentation from one vendor does not establish access to another; an operation is confirmed once the write has been validated in the system of record. Hopem
What she does not do under your mandates
- She gives no legal opinion on a lease, a rent increase, a repossession, an eviction or a claim before the rental tribunal.
- She asks no discriminatory question of a rental applicant: origin, religion, age, family situation, disability, lawful source of income.
- She does not disclose a tenant’s presence, balance or contact details to a third party, nor one mandate’s information to the owner behind another.
- She states no rent balance or amount owing by text, and applies no pressure tied to payment.
- She gives no technical instruction: cutting power, handling gas, entering a mechanical room.
- She promises no arrival time and no repair delay: she says the request is forwarded, and to whom.
- She puts no figure on management fees: the manager presents them at the meeting.
- She commits no spending above a mandate’s ceiling and does not mark a request resolved because a vendor was contacted.
What you can ask her yourself
She answers from the requests, calls and mandates you are allowed to access. A question about an option only applies once you have switched it on.
The questionUnder which management agreement was this maintenance request opened?
She retrieves the building, property owner and responsible contact. Approving an expense remains a separate action.
Which of tonight’s requests were dispatched to on-call, and which are waiting for the morning?
She reads each request’s status and the person alerted. She does not say a repair is done until somebody has confirmed it.
Which vacant units got applicant calls this week?
She retrieves the pre-qualifications recorded against your criteria. She does not rank applicants and does not decide.
Which approval requests run over the ceiling and still have no answer from the owner?
Add-onWith Maintenance and vendors: the approval queue and the delay on each decision. Without the option, she tracks no spending approval.
What happens to the request
Your mandates become written rules
Per portfolio: buildings and units, the owner behind them, the spending ceiling, the approver, authorised vendors and the on-call rule. One building and one contact are enough to start; the rest of the portfolio follows.
She attaches before she qualifies
Name and callback number, then building and unit, then caller role. The mandate follows from the unit, and it decides which ceiling is read and who gets alerted.
The file closes, then it tells its story
The base opens and passes on the request under the right management agreement. With Maintenance and vendors, you follow contractor contact, spending approval, contractor acceptance and work evidence through to closure. Without acceptance or evidence, the record retains its actual status and owner.
What the Real estate base covers
A bilingual receptionist who identifies the person, the property and the reason, opens a request with a contact and a status, and passes priority situations along your procedure. No setup fee, and you keep your numbers.
- Calls answered in French and in English
- Every call tied to building, unit and caller role
- A request opened with a named contact and a visible status
- Priority situations passed on along your procedure
- A written summary after every call, readable in the app
She commits no spending above a mandate's ceiling: she prepares the approval request.
Decisions that stay with you
- She gives no legal opinion on a lease, an increase or a claim before the rental tribunal.
- She does not share information from one mandate with the owner behind a different mandate.
- She confirms an operation once the write has been validated in the system of record.
- She reports the confirmed request status and the person alerted. She does not promise contractor acceptance or a repair time that has not been confirmed.
Ask your receptionist, too
This is included in your base plan. She answers using the calls, requests and business information you are allowed to access.
Talk to your receptionistA question you can ask
Under which management agreement was this maintenance request opened?
She retrieves the building, property owner and responsible contact. Approving an expense remains a separate action.
What else you can hand to her
Beyond the base plan. Each one is added on purpose, separately from the base.
When your customers prefer to write
You can add a channel so she can continue the conversation with your customers. Any action she takes follows the same rules and the options you have chosen.
Optional customer channel
Your email inbox
Attach owner, resident and contractor emails to the correct agreement, respecting each party’s permissions.
The transactional messages provided by your base plan and your own questions to the receptionist remain included.
Keeping your current software?
Check the actions supported, connection requirements and how to work when your software cannot perform the requested action.
Open interface documented, self-service credentials on an eligible account; writing maintenance objects still has to be proven, and an interface subscription is a prerequisite.
Documentation from one vendor does not establish access to a second: to be qualified vendor by vendor.
What comes out of a call, and under which mandate
Every call comes back as a request: building and unit, the caller and their role, the reason, a named contact and a status. The base opens the request and forwards it; vendor acceptance and closure belong to the Maintenance and vendors option. Received, forwarded, accepted and completed stay four distinct states, because a forwarded request is not a finished repair.
Managing for third parties adds what a self-managing owner does not carry: the mandate. Two buildings can share one leak, one plumber and two different spending ceilings. The call is therefore tied to unit, owner and mandate before it is qualified, and that mandate's ceiling decides what follows: above the threshold, the receptionist prepares and logs the approval request rather than committing anything.
In the same section
The other lines of work in this section run on the same engine, with their own requests and their own rules.
Real estateOwnership and property management
Rental property managers — your questions
How does she avoid mixing up two mandates?
Attachment happens on the unit, ahead of any qualification. Two owners using one vendor keep two ceilings and two approvers, and each one sees the status of their own requests only.
Can she approve spending on my behalf?
The base opens and passes on the request under the right management agreement. With Maintenance and vendors, she contacts an approved contractor within the agreed spending limit. Above that limit, she prepares an approval request: the named approver decides and their agreement is recorded. Contacting a contractor does not mean they have accepted.
What if no vendor accepts, or the address is ambiguous?
The request stays open with its owner and status. An ambiguous address needs confirmation. With Maintenance and vendors, a contractor who has not replied remains pending and the on-call contact receives the configured alert. The base passes on the request; it does not mark it resolved or assume a contractor has accepted.
Does she write into my management software?
Where a connector has been qualified for the write in question, and after validation in the system of record. Otherwise her native register serves as the log and you post entries as needed.
What about emergencies at night and on weekends?
They follow your on-call rotation. The receptionist applies one urgency rule at any hour: danger to people goes to 911, and running water, no heat in cold weather, a building outage or an unsecured entrance go to the on-call contact.
Your rules, before the first call
Start your free trial with your email. Your website can help prepare your business information, but it is optional. Confirm the facts, choose a first task and test your receptionist. You can try options too, starting with the ones you need.
Keep my phone numberRental property managers