Property compliance software for a portfolio: what to look for

Most compliance tools will store a certificate. The differences that matter show up later, on the morning a date passes, when a second person joins, and when you want your data back. These are the questions worth asking of any product, Verixad included, and a checklist at the end to take into a trial.

Four ways portfolios track compliance today

Portfolios of ten to a hundred properties commonly run on one of these, and each has a characteristic weak point. Knowing which one you are leaving tells you what to test first.

• The spreadsheet. One row per property, one column per certificate, a conditional-format rule that turns cells red. It works while the person who built it keeps it up, and it gets fragile when they are on holiday. Its failures are quiet: a date typed wrongly looks exactly like a date typed rightly, and an empty cell is flagged only if someone wrote a rule for blanks. We compare it with Verixad honestly, rows the sheet wins included.
• The shared calendar. Reminders set when each certificate arrives. Cheap and visible, but a calendar holds dates, not documents, so the evidence lives somewhere else, and a reminder that fires once and is dismissed leaves no trace of whether anything was done.
• The general task tool. A board or to-do app with a card per renewal. Better at “who is doing this”, worse at “what is the position across the portfolio”, because nothing in it knows that a gas check is annual or that an HMO needs a licence. Every rule lives in someone’s head.
• Dedicated compliance software. Documents filed against properties with expiry dates, status derived from those dates, and reminders driven by the record. This is the category the rest of this page is about, and the questions below are how to tell the products in it apart.

How is status worked out?

Ask whether “valid”, “expiring” and “expired” are derived from the expiry date you record, or typed by hand. A status someone has to update is a status that will be wrong. Ask too whether the product can say a document is missing, which is the gap with no date to expire and the one a spreadsheet shows only if someone built a rule for it.

What happens on the day a date passes?

• Does anyone get told, and how? A reminder that only lives inside the product is really just a report.
• Is there a summary for planning, as well as alerts for urgent items?
• Is there a record of what was sent and when, including the days nothing was due?

Does it understand your portfolio?

• Can you set which documents every property must hold, and different rules for HMOs?
• Do documents, tenancies, tasks and jobs sit with the property, so the context is on one page?
• Can it import what you already have, and show you the problems before saving?

What changes as the portfolio grows?

With a handful of properties most methods work, because one person can hold the whole picture. As the portfolio grows the dates fall on different days of different months and the question changes from “when is this due” to “what is due this month”. That needs either well-maintained formulas and filters or a system that works status out from the dates for you. Larger still, two more things matter: whether a second and third person can work in the same record without overwriting each other, and whether pricing scales with the portfolio in a way you can predict. Per-unit and percentage-of-rent pricing both grow with you; a flat plan with a property limit does not, until you cross the limit. Ask for the number at the size you expect to be in two years, not the size you are now.

Signs a portfolio has outgrown its spreadsheet

There is no fixed size at which a spreadsheet turns from a tool into a risk. The shift is gradual, which is why it is often noticed only when something goes wrong. These are the signs to watch for:

• More than one person edits the sheet, and you have had a “which version is right?” conversation.
• A date was missed because the sheet was not open that week.
• Documents live in inboxes, a shared drive and a filing cabinet, and finding one takes a search.
• The same information is typed in two places (the sheet and the landlord statement, or the sheet and the diary).
• A new starter cannot work from the sheet without someone sitting beside them.

A spreadsheet can be made to connect a certificate to its property, a job to its tenant and a date to a highlight rule, with lookups, links and conditional formatting. Each of those connections has to be built and then kept working by someone, and that knowledge tends to sit with whoever built it. Software built around the property keeps the records, dates, evidence and work connected without that upkeep. If two or more of the signs above apply, how to organise compliance documents without spreadsheets covers the model to move to and the order to move the data in.

Who can see what?

Ask how team roles work, whether two-factor sign-in is available, and how the product keeps one agency's records separate from another's. The honest answer names where that separation is enforced.

Does it stay in its lane?

Be cautious of tools that pronounce a property “compliant”. A record shows what is on file and when it expires; whether that satisfies the law for your situation is a judgement for you and, where needed, a professional. The same applies to referencing and Right to Rent: a logbook of who checked what is useful; software that claims to decide is a risk.

Could you leave?

Export in a standard format, clear pricing without per-property surprises, and no lock-in on the documents themselves.

The checklist to take into a trial

Run these against your own data, not the demo portfolio. A trial that imports your real spreadsheet and shows you your real gaps in the first hour is telling you more than any feature list.

1. Import your existing spreadsheet. Does the product show what it could not match before it saves anything?
2. Find a property with no EICR on file. Does the product say “missing”, or just show nothing?
3. Set a certificate to expire tomorrow. What arrives, where, and does the record show that it was sent?
4. Mark one property as an HMO. Can you require a licence for it and not for the others?
5. Invite a colleague with a narrower role. Can they see what they should, and nothing more?
6. Upload a certificate. If the product reads the expiry date for you, can you correct it before it is saved?
7. Open a property. Are its documents, tenancy, tasks and jobs on the same page, or four pages?
8. Look for the words “compliant” or “passed”. If the product says them about a property or a tenant, ask what it is basing that on.
9. Export a report. Is it a format you could open somewhere else?
10. Find the price for double your current portfolio. Is it on the pricing page, or does it need a call?
11. Cancel. Is it a button, or a conversation?
12. Ask how they handle the next legal change, such as the Renters’ Rights Act’s PRS Database. A dated answer is worth more than a confident one.

For how Verixad answers these questions, see the features page and pricing; the letting-agent page walks through a week in the product. The certificate checklist is a good test list for any product trial, and the free compliance audit checks the Gas Safety, EICR and EPC dates in your spreadsheet, blanks included, without an account.