Imagine this. It’s 2015. It’s Saturday night and you, your partner or your family are getting takeaway. You search through the drawer in your kitchen for all the menus you have. You pass the menus around and make a collective decision about which restaurant you’ll go to. Then you grab a notepad and pen and write down what you’re ordering. You dial the number for the takeaway. Engaged tone. You wait. You hit dial again. Engaged tone. You leave it five minutes. Still engaged. Do you jump in the car and go to the restaurant? It might be quicker. But you’ll need to pay by cash so you go to the ATM on the way.  If only they were on the just-eat app. It would all have been so much quicker and easier.

For property factors and block managers, organising repair and maintenance work is a bit like ordering a takeaway without an app. How do you reach contractors? You make a phone call, you send text messages or you send an email that you hope gets read. You make a note of everyone you contacted. And then you wait for replies. Replies can come in to your voicemail, to your email inbox or to your text message. So you need to keep an eye on all of these channels and collate the quotes as and when they come to you.

You may need to chase quotes down. You may need to follow up. And you will definitely need to distribute the quotes to your clients once you have them. And once you’ve done this, you need to appoint the contractor, wait on the work being completed, and finally arrange payment.

It’s a very labour intensive, manual and time consuming process. And it’s a never-ending cycle that has to be managed meticulously to avoid unhappy customers and contractors. When in fact, it could be so much easier with the right technology.

Contractors, Property Factors and Block Managers

For contractors, working with Property Factors and Block Managers can be a good way to build the business and get business. However, communicating and doing business together, isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

The same manual processes can make it difficult to manage paperwork, invoicing and organising workload. Staying on top of it all can cause Contractors – especially smaller firms – to reach for the headache tablets.

And this is also where technology can help.

Using technology to work better

We’ve recognised there is a better way to manage repairs and maintenance. And that is by harnessing technology and creating an app that will do everything you need it to. The new Blockworx app from CPL Software seamlessly integrates the entire repairs and maintenance process. We’ve made a little explainer video which you can watch.

Blockworx joins the dots of repairs and maintenance, closing the gaps that manual processes continue to create.

1. When a client in the community reports a repair, this job is added to Blockworx.
2. A job is created which appears on the app.
3. Contractors can set the app to receive push notifications so they never miss a job.
4. Quotes are submitted using the app and a notification will appear on the desktop or phone of Property Managers for every quote that comes in.
5. Once all quotes have been received, property factors and block managers can field this out to clients.
6. When a quote is accepted, the contractor is appointed via Blockworx.
7. Date of completion is set and once the job is done, the app will raise the invoice.

The Blockworx app automates what has traditionally been a very monotonous task for any property factor or block manager. Every step is integrated without any human interaction needed aside from inputting the necessary information at either side.  The app will update your business processes and make you more efficient and cost effective.

If you are a property factor or block manager and you would like to get started with Blockworx, please contact the team at hello@blockworx.co.uk. Contractors can sign up directly at Blockworx