As the student accommodation sector becomes a more dynamic and global business the strategic management of student accommodation facilities becomes even more important.

According to a recent article by University Business, a key strategy is the prioritisation of deferred maintenance. As budgets have to be more carefully managed, maintenance costs for replacing the likes of furniture and electrical components need to be balanced against more critical issues such as leaks and structural repairs.

There are three key factors which need to be harnessed; organisational oversight of staff and contractors and budget control.

The most important factor is to organise and prioritise the required maintenance works in order of importance and scheduled according to your business’ cash flow.

This is where the importance of a centralised, cloud-based management dashboard integrated with your Google, Office365 or Outlook calendar becomes essential.

The Re-Leased dashboard allows you to perform critical tasks from one screen, including the  scheduling of maintenance works and communication and quote requests between yourself and your preferred contractors.

The next factor is to make sure that your staff and contractors know what exactly needs doing, at what time and in what order. This requires a shared system that allows an unlimited number of users and decision maker(s) to view how the maintenance team is progressing and, in turn, the maintenance staff can gain access via their smartphones, tablets and computers to report works as ‘overdue’, ‘in progress’ or ‘finished’ from any location and device.

Below, is an example of a property that has been accessed through the Re-Leased calendar dashboard; Re-Leased automates the sending of quote request and allows you to oversee the progress on outstanding works and make payment via disbursements once the monies have cleared in your account from the tenant.

Re-Leased also offers real-time data analytics and instant access to reports from any location. Due to this live data, you can make informed and concise decisions on which maintenance repairs should be actioned now and which should be put on hold until a later stage.