Buildium vs Rentec Direct Comparison

This software allows us to handle money with tenants in a streamlined and direct way. Many younger tenants don't have check books; Buildium is direct and easy for us and for our tenants.

Some items are not intuitive; there are too many ways to access the same information.

I returned to Buildium after being away because the financial reporting is more accurate. I told my onboarding specialist that it was like putting on my favorite pair of pajamas. I also prefer the texting app to Rentec's, the design and view, as well as the availability on my cell phone and tablet through the app.

I would love to be able to text applicants about their application. Also, Management Fee collection is a bit more complicated in Buildium. I am not sure how to streamline this, however, I started out doing it the way I did in Rentec and not the recommended way Buildium suggests. I will be using their way and see if things are less complicated.

This program is extremely user friendly. Our tenants and homeowners also love the online access as well as online payment and direct deposit options.

My only concern is that most all of my support calls are not able to be answered right away and I have to wait for a call back but it is usually within the hour.

Does most of what I need done, and most of the everyday things are easy to navigate.

There are a few things that could be more direct and easier to access than doing work arounds to make specific types of entries.

Easy to learn to use the software. Outstanding balance view, lease ledger, lease expirations are very useful.

The direct deposit bank statements does not reflect which unit/tenant paid the rent. there should be a way to add this option in the system.

It's online with individual tenant web pages for reviewing rent status and direct payments. It handles most things very competently. The vendor is always ready to respond when help is needed.

There's less flexibility in extracting data on exactly what was spent to vendors, in categories, over specific time periods, etc., than my older system that's been running since 1986. It is also a double entry system, which is overkill for my small operation. The vendor is slow to implement simple changes. They make a lot of noise about some additional set of features that they added but take years to address awkward aspects of old features. I still can't pay part of an invoice, withhold money on a job, make partial payments, etc.

Easy to use and can cope with multiple properties. Reports can be generated for variations in financial year reporting of different counties. You can set up recurring bills so they appear on your list of things to do which reminds you and you don't have to re-enter all the data each time you have a bill to pay.

This is an American based program and for American users, it offers the ability to pay bills direct from your bank account etc. For me in Australia, this facility is unavailable.

The team is always available to help with any concerns and they are always making new improvements.

The notes under each tenant account don't connect to the other tenants that are added to the lease.

How easy it is to sign a lease, process payments, and move someone in is. I love the online ledger. Very easy to view and understand.

Sometimes it’s difficilt to find what I’m looking for if it’s not something I do daily on the program, however customer service is always able to direct me to where I need to go.

Web based software allows access wherever a PC and Internet are available. Handles most of the day-to-day work that any investor or property manager would come across. PDF reports based on building performance, picture and image attachments to buildings or tenants, individual sign ins for owners/tenants/managers/maintenance, etc. Full of features and abilities to make your business better. The customer service and support is absolutely TOP NOTCH. They are constantly asking for feedback and you can see they take customer suggestions and implement them. They want to become a standard in the industry and will do anything to make a customer happy and get them the answers they're looking for.

Mobile apps for Android still in the works. iPhone app not as feature-rich as it could be. Some tasks can be tedious, but new update this summer may help that. Direct import/export to QuickBooks not available.

1. Tenant portal simplifies maintenance requests dramatically. Easy to use for tenants. Eliminates direct phones calls/emails/texts to owners and staff. Maintains records of all maintenance requests. Simplifies assignment of work orders to contractors. Overall a significant impact on increased productivity and increased tenant satisfaction.

Would be nice to have a search feature that would allow me to search for a transaction using a keyword or dollar amount. Would be good to allow larger attachments than 1 MB for invoices.

Thanks for your thoughtful review, David. It's great to see how Resident Center has been such a helpful aspect of the software. You also offer up some good suggestions to improve the search feature. Have you submitted these through the "Suggest a feature" page in your Help & Support menu? That's the best way to get your idea in front of the best possible teams. - Charlie

I like that I can upload and save data that I need while out of the office, and have current information at my fingertips as this is an online based system. No need to run back to the office and dig through a filing cabinet. I love it when tenants pay online and Owners sign up for direct deposit, ePay is a must!

I do not like that I don't get a warning message if I attempt to double charge a management fee for the same period.

Hi Angelica, Thanks for taking the time to write a review! We will take your feedback around a warning for management fees back to our product team. All the best, The Buildium Team

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-Properties are easy to set up -Communication to tenants are easy -Resident portal is a nice feature as well as app -Listings are made super easy -Fluidic page navigation

- Cannot Bill/Invoice Scan from App (Receipts) - Cannot Set Custom Date Range in all areas (Bills) - Cannot assign Mileage for a receipt or Bill - Cannot Pay Rent/Direct Deposit to NON Business Bank accounts (Many of us don't have Business accounts to ACH straight from APP to Bank. Very Frustrating.) - Reports could be worked on. Please provide Custom Date Ranges to allow to pull data when needed not just set frequencies.

Pretty good support. Sometimes a long wait time for support but I always got good advice on how to use the product to my advantage. Great for my small business that I hope to grow. You don't need to hire a property manager at 6% plus fees with Buildium support.

A little bit of a learning curve but it has a lot of content and different ways to do your book keeping. Need a learning video for small users on how to do it the simple way, like direct check recording so you don't have to put a bill in first. The software is set up for both small and large users but they may want to do those as separate platforms.

I love the ease of use of this program. Everything is so easy to navigate and if you make a mistake, it is easy to correct. The customer service is PHENOMENAL! I have never had a hard time getting a hold of anyone and the hold time is usually less than 1 minute as the phone tree is truly only to direct you to the right department. No matter what, Customer Support has always been able to help me customize the system to fit my needs. I LOVE Buildium! My tenants also have not had ANY complaints, it is easy to use for the owners and tenants as well!

I do not have any leasts....every function is wonderful!

I like the Buildium Academy. I like the accounting and leasing capabilities.

Set-up was really tough. The issue I have now is when a tenant pays through the porthole and the check doesn't clear. The support company for Buildium, Forte, can pull the money back out of our Trust account UPTO 90 DAYS LATER!!!!!! This is insane and has caused significant difficulties. First, the Trust account is a shared account with many owners. When we get the rent, we pay it out to the required entities. If later Forte can't collect they pull it out of the TRUST account, thereby taking another owner's money. This is a direct DRE violation!Q!!!!!!! I want the tenant's money to clear first, and then get the deposit. This is the correct way to do business.

back grounds, cost, mostly it came recommended from a colleague

I was recommended this product by another property manager. At first it was mostly used to background tenants etc. As time went on and we took on more and more properties I/we began to use more features. These features include the accounting and banking, direct deposit (ACH), and more. What started as a great idea has now become a nightmare. It took almost 3 weeks to have accounts moved from one LLC to another, checks have now been written by Forte to another business that is no longer and they refuse to re-issue them, I have numerous emails with Forte about account verification etc. Forte has even emailed you for hep on this and NO RESPONSE!!!!---- needless to say I am no longer a fan

Flow, several automated functions, tenant communications

Accounting (and money flow) from property to business. What should be seamless requires 3 different reports, cross-referencing, and manual entry. This creates great potential for error within a function that is highly critical to managing any business.

Hi Lee, Thank you for your honest review. I understand Jay Wilson, our manager of Customer Success has been in touch and working with you regarding some of the issues you brought up in this review. We appreciate you taking the time to leave your feedback! Best, The Buildium Team

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It's easy and quick to get setup and started. The vendor response to questions are relatively good. I love the communications aspect of the product as well. It makes scheduling maintenance and other notices easy to post all in basically one step.

Getting the vendor-supplied website presented that way I would like is not working for me at this moment. But I am sure that I will figure it out, as I did with the rest of the functionality of the program. Also, there should be more interfacing with other rental posting sites like Postlets, Zillow, etc., as well as social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. There should also be more choices...

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I have a few minor quibbles with Jim’s review, but he’s mostly right. While you can invoice an owner for repairs, it’s not as easy as it should be. Jim’s also right about our reports; we provide most of the reports people expect, but you can’t customize them and trying to manipulate them in Excel is a pain. That’s something we plan to tackle in a future release. It’s also way too hard to find what you’re looking for in the current release, but that’s changing with the new global search feature due out in the next few weeks. You still won’t be able to search for a missing check, but that’s on our roadmap too.

Colorful buttons lead you along. Lots of options to enter contact information, ie address, phone number and email. Nice to be able to email work orders directly to the vendors.

Really have to think about how to get back to where you were before and just getting around in general does not flow well.

We use the property setup screens, the rental website portal, and syndication. We love that we can list a rental property and either syndicate it to listing services or just advertise it without syndicating it. This has helped us greatly in our marketing, especially for properties that we will only lease and not manage.

Rentec has accounting built-in but we were never able to make a go of it as it didn't have all of the functionality that we needed so we stayed with Quickbooks Premium for years until deciding to jump to Buildium for accounting and leasing.

Thanks for the review, Rick! We're so happy you've been with us for six years and that you're enjoying all the marketing features. So many enhancements have happened since you came on board. I'll reach out to you to see if you might be missing out on new features, especially related to accounting. Cheers!

I had done an obscene amount of research on software options for my small landlord operation (18 units so far) since I was outgrowing the excel spreadsheets that had at one point kept me somewhat organized. Honestly, I thought my mind was made up on Buildium, but once I did an overview with Kathryn over the phone, I was hooked. I told her exactly what I wanted from the software and where my trouble...

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I wish that when filing out a work order, it could be an SMS notification, rather than just an email.

Reasonable price for a small startup, easy to learn, good accounting piece, website is included, customer service is very responsive to inquiries.

On-line application limited to 5 custom fields, included website could use a bit more functionality, nothing more at this time.