How GMP Properties uses PayProp to grow and run its property management business effortlessly

They divide responsibilities equally between them – his brother takes care of the backend and Mike deals with the owners, tenants, and accounting with property management.

But not long after they started, Mike’s accounting workload threatened to slam the brakes on the Penny brothers’ business growth.

A paperwork nightmare

Mike typically processed payments manually using a daunting combination of spreadsheets, QuickBooks, and paper statements. He tried out a few different rental payment systems over the years but found them too difficult and frustrating to use, and the customer service to be unhelpful. Sometimes he wouldn’t even complete the onboarding process before canceling his account and going back to square one.

So when a PayProp salesperson got his attention, Mike was delighted to see how easy PayProp is to use in comparison.

With PayProp, property managers get all the information they need neatly laid out on a single convenient dashboard, accessible on any device, anywhere, which can be further queried down to individual properties or transactions. For those who want an even closer look at the figures, PayProp’s powerful management reporting feature gives them a signature real-time breakdown of their payments, tenants, properties and more – and even lets them benchmark their business against local competitors.

I didn’t even get to the end of the demo and I said, “Sign me up. This is exactly what we are looking for.” Mike Penny, Managing Partner

Real easy, real results

Unlike legacy property management systems, which frustrated Mike and team with their unnecessary complexity, PayProp is intuitive and straightforward.

Incoming payments are automatically collected and matched to the right tenant and property; amounts due to owners, contractors and the brothers are automatically calculated and set up for approval; and upon approval, those payments are automatically paid out according to rules set up by Mike at the start of a tenancy. All in a matter of minutes.

PayProp gives each tenant a unique reference that neatly ties their rent to the owner’s property, so payments can be accurately autoreconciled. Even with only a partial name or address, intelligent software matching makes reconciliation a cinch. As for the money being available in the first place (as a precondition for being reconciled), PayProp uniquely has a direct link to the Canadian banking system, so account balances on PayProp are bank-accurate without the need for running two systems or doing double entry.

This also helps Mike with recordkeeping. He used to have to spend great amounts of time manually sorting through bank accounts and emails to find and fix any transactional errors. With PayProp, he can be sure that every transaction is bank-driven and correctly logged.

Something that would take us days to reconcile before is now done in a matter of minutes. Mike Penny, Managing Partner

Part of a winning landlord pitch

As well as its core payment processing functionality, PayProp offers other value-added features loved by Mike, his landlords, and tenants.

For example, an online self-service Tenant portal makes it simple and convenient to submit maintenance tickets online, which can be managed and paid for on PayProp by Mike and team.  

In addition, tenants can use the portal to easily pay rent online and see their entire payment history. When Mike switched to PayProp, a comprehensive, friendly welcome letter with GMP branding was automatically sent to all their tenants as part of the onboarding process, seamlessly introducing them to a more convenient way to rent.

The PayProp Owner app is another major selling point for GMP Properties, because it allows owners to keep tabs on their portfolios at all times. They can see up-to-date balances, deposits, tax statements, and more, down to individual properties. And because the bank connectivity is live, Mike’s owners get their rent money faster than ever.

PayProp is absolutely part of our script. Our clients couldn’t be happier with how fast and transparent PayProp is. Mike Penny, Managing Partner

Unmatched customer service

Unlike the support offered by his previous system vendors, there’s no waiting for a response from PayProp’s local team of platform experts – they provide help reliably fast for as long as the client needs it, plus free, unlimited refresher and new-user training.

“The backend support is fantastic,” Mike says. “They always answer the phone, they help me fix the issue in two seconds, and the rare times I have to leave a message, they call right back. I can’t say enough good things about those guys.”

A well-oiled machine

Thanks to Mike and his brother’s ambition and vision, and PayProp’s powerful property management platform, GMP Properties is more efficient and productive than ever. Since joining PayProp in 2020, their portfolio has grown from about 30 rental properties to over 100.

With the accounting admin time saved by PayProp’s automation, Mike is able to attend to other important tasks, such as adding more properties, building partnerships, and better serving his clients.

PayProp is next-level because it’s made complicated things very easy to track. It is the backbone of our rent collection and payment process. Mike Penny, Managing Partner