Field notes for building managers

Practical writing on tickets, tenant communication, fixer routing, and scaling a property management business - without hiring three more people.

Finances · 9 min read

The building accounting year: from budget to year-end statement

The annual statement panic every spring is a symptom. The statement is the output of a loop that runs all year: budget, advances, bookkeeping, statement, settlement. Run the loop and year-end becomes arithmetic.

Finances · 9 min read

E-invoicing for building managers: the EU standard, without the jargon

E-invoicing mandates are arriving across the EU on one shared standard. Building managers handle more supplier invoices than almost anyone. Here is what actually changed, and the workflow that makes it a gift instead of a burden.

Operations · 8 min read

Property management reports that write themselves

Every manager owes the building a report and nobody pays for the evening it takes to write one. The fix is not writing faster. It is having records good enough that the report is generated, not written.

Finances · 9 min read

Bank statement import in Serbia: every bank, zero retyping

Serbian building money already runs on modern rails: dedicated accounts, mobile banking, IPS QR. The manager's records do not. Statement import closes the gap: izvodi from any bank in, matched payments and live statuses out.

Operations · 9 min read

Why your AGM minutes shouldn't live in email

Ten years of building decisions live in three ex-managers' inboxes as protocol_final_v3.docx. Here is what a resolution register looks like, and why append-only is the whole point.

Finances · 9 min read

SEPA direct debit for building managers: a practical guide

Direct debit flips the monthly collection from chasing forty transfers to uploading one file. Here is the whole machinery: mandates, creditor ID, pre-notification, pain.008.

Finances · 9 min read

How to run building finances without a spreadsheet

The spreadsheet is wrong the moment you close it. Here is the system that replaces it: unique payment references, imported bank statements, and payment statuses that update themselves.

Operations · 7 min read

Why group chats are killing your property management business

Viber, WhatsApp, Telegram: the unofficial OS of building management. Here is why every manager hits a wall around the fourth building, and what to do about it.

Scaling · 8 min read

How many buildings can one property manager realistically handle?

The honest math behind manager capacity. Most managers cap out at 3–5 buildings even though the spreadsheet says 12.

Workflow · 9 min read

What a structured ticket system looks like for building managers

If you have never used Jira, Zendesk, or anything similar, here is what a 'ticket' actually is, and the four pieces of metadata that turn complaints into a workflow.

Workflow · 6 min read

The 5-step tenant complaint workflow every property manager needs

From 'the lift is broken' to closed ticket: the canonical lifecycle of a complaint, and where 80% of managers lose information.

Software · 10 min read

Choosing property management software: a manager's field guide

Hausverwaltung, managing agent, profesionalni upravnik: different names, same shopping list. The eight features that actually matter, and the ones that look impressive but you will never use.