Buildium Reviews

There are several items within Buildium that by far surpassed other property management companies. The ability to upload subcontractor paperwork and have all the information in one place securely online with reminders set up when expirations or missing information is needed. The ability for everyone with accounts set up to communicate, check on tasks, and proposals all in one place for easy referral. One of the easiest implementations and setups for property management software. But the absolute best thing about Buildium for me anyways is that you can list as much information from sales, tasks, proposals, selections, etc. I truly believe that all companies need to keep as much information as possible on file and with Buildium you can put as much information as you need, place tags for easy reporting, and this information is for authorized users to see. To me, you can never have too much information and it makes is so much easier if you have a person leave and the new hire to move it and look at the information to be brought up to date.

When I first started working with Buildium I wished that there had been a step by step workflow check sheet because at times I had to go and research if I was entering the data correctly. But that was quickly solved while speaking with Buidium's excellent customer support team members.
Finally, I would recommend a Buildium forum where all users can go on and if they have questions can post it to the forum as another user may have had the same problem.

I love that it has so many functions and is constantly being improved. The help sections and customer support are the best I've ever encountered. I love the lease renewal work flow which makes my job so much easier. The tenant and owner portals are a wonderful resource that allows clients to help themselves before contacting me.

This system is really set up to support people who use checks. We do not. We do everything by EFT and because of that we have to do a lot of work arounds to record things in Buildium. It's not ideal and sometimes becomes complicated.

The application as a whole has a user friendly UI.

The accounting features are not up to par.

ease of use, automation... continued upgrades

going from 1 account to the next, often have to exit back to the beginning vs hit one button

I really find the dashboard so helpful and interface is easy to navigate. It has a way to keep all tenants organized every across various properties.

I am still figuring out all of the features and how it can be used to it’s full capacity.

I use the ledger daily as well as the autopay feature; I handle the commercial leasing, so i appreciate the ease in creating new leases

the fact that 1 tenant can only have 1 auto pay set up; it would be helpful to be able to set up 2 diff bank accounts for same tenant

How versatile it is. There isn't a feature that we have come up with that we have needed that Buildium doesn't already provide or make available in their marketplace of apps, and most of them are free of any additional charge.

Some of the flow of the different pages isn't as streamlined as you would think it would be, in comparison to the rest of the system.

I like that it keeps up with everything that is expiring - all the rent - the late fees - it's great!

I would like more room to send out notices to tenants.

Incredibly easy to use. Learned this on the fly in a day. Much better than prior software.

Work order creation on mobile app is a bit cumbersome, but not bad by any means.

It is easy to use and allows us to download everything that we need on the program.

Learning the new system was hard but now that we have learned it, it is Easy.

I have been in the Property Management field for over 30 years and started with a DOS based accounting program for our rentals. When it became too outdated to use anymore, my Broker dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the new age of online property management programs. After trying a few of them and being terribly discouraged and disappointed, I found Buildium and have not looked back since. The accounting features allow me to give my Landlords exact and professional reports and access to their account information through the portal. Nearly ALL of my tenants are paying online now, which is a great time saver and perfect for my small business situation. I am able to track every penny, every vacancy, every lease renewal AND I have it linked to my website so all it takes to put a property on the market is the click of a button. But the very best part about Buildium is their customer service!!! I have tried to figure out problems for HOURS on my own, then given up and called customer service to have an answer within minutes!!! It is amazing how fantastic the staff is. And the program keeps getting new features and fine tuning too. They listen to their customers and their excellent developers respond to our needs quickly. I've never had a better experience with ANY program or company, across the board. Highly recommend them.

The ONLY complaint I have about Buildium is that my ESCROW account balances, which are the tenant's money being held in trust, only show the Property Owner names on my reports.

The ability for Boards to interact with management and for owners to be easily communicated with are some of the best features with this program. It's mostly all integrated!

Updates are usually bumpy when implemented, causing a slow down in service. Some features, which seem to be common sense are still in development stages. Tracking of tasks in infancy yet.
Can send emails but not receive them through the system, causing us to still have to use another program.

The set up process and assistance in doing it was quite seamless. The ongoing support is there if you need it and the tutorials, although not great or always up to date, do help you figure things out without having to call in.

The close-out of a tenant can be awkward and not intuitive. The return of security deposits with interest and charging of fees is clunky. Also, when a lease runs out, the system doesn't roll them over to month-to-month. It simply just closes out the lease on line and makes it look like the tenant doesn't live there anymore or owe any rent. This is both frustrating and stressful because if a tenant owes money and decides not to declare that, they could potentially get away without paying rent. There needs to be a change in the rollover of the leases in the system so we don't miss collecting rent.

epay. It's worth it for that. To be able to get paid online seemlessly is great. Communication being automated around payment is wonderful, too -- specifically, the lease ledger, automating late fees, and payment reminders.

We list properties for rent that do not have bed/baths on them - specifically, RV pad sites and commercial lots. Buildium does not allow us to list properties without the bed/bath requirement. This becomes confusing to prospective tenants when these listings are on our website and published elsewhere.

I like most it is user friendly but when I have an issue I can get online or telephone contact help. They are knowledgeable answer my questions and get me going.

I wanted to have two separate budgets with separate chart of accounts and was told not available. I have to download in excel and do some extra steps

Buildiun is a very easy to use software. New features are normally well received by my staff.

Missing some features. 3rd Party (FORTE) is not customer friendly.

We have been live for just over a year now. We use the applications, electronic rent collection (epay), accounting, Resident Center, and task tracking (maintenance) features of Buildium. Their automation has saved us so much time and money.

Wishlist rather than cons as the system is very good: 1) multiple applications would be good based on the type of property rather than being limited to just 1 application, 2) the ability to move a tenant out and move a new tenant in on the same day, 3) better tenant communications (emailing and messaging) above and beyond what is built-in, we adopted Follow-up Boss for this, 4) API should be open to Zapier

The added features and collaborations with other products such as Happy Co. Inspector and other features were a huge selling point.

On-boarding process was horrible, were given two options but the options we choose meant we never truly implemented the software, constantly we were pushed back month after month without being operational except for two properties. Balance and accounting sheet were never resolved. Repeatedly postponed and after months of not having the software work as suggested it would asked to be reimbursed for remaining months not even for a total refund which was denied under the condition that this is a 'self-service' software. If we had chosen month to month option we would of discontinued use of this product after two months. Unable to find an amicable resolution and thus will continue to use this product for the only two properties that were properly entered until the contract ends and discontinue service. The quality of their employees is very high and were easy to deal with but resolutions never truly came and sadly they didn't stand behind their product enough to understand that the on-boarding was never successful and meet a fair resolution. Was offered two months for free after 6 months of not being fully on-boarded.

Residents can pay their rent and management billed utilities on line. Even those residents who are not computer savy, we can set up their payments for them (with their written permission, of course).

Sometimes I feel the techs who write the instructions forget that not everyone is computer savy, so it takes time for the average user of the product some time to figure it out.

Ease of use. Tech support available by phone.

User training options at the start of use. Perhaps online classes could be considered?

Had all the features we wanted in a new property management software and the support software was very easy to use. As I dive in I keep finding more wonderful features that are very useful and simple to understand/navigate.

The customer service was just terrible, and is ultimately what lost our business. Online tenant payment are run through a third party software that needs to be applied for for each bank account (which they run employees credit check for as well as the business and the business owners credit... who bases a businesses future on an employees credit?).

The general format of the total program is good and maybe better than other programs used in the past. I really like the latest update of the status button for work orders

I do not like that Buildium doesn't have a feature where multiple windows with in Buildium can be open at the same time. (if it exists, forgive me for not knowing how to use it)
I do not like that Buildium doesn't have a back button feature, especially in the tasks and work order screens.
I do not like that Buildium will allow a partial online payment to be received. It should not receive a tenant online payment unless the full balance is being paid. This is a problem when tenants owe for late fees or maybe a repair expense.
I would like to have the auto email option to send a work order to a owner even if the vendor has no email. It only gives that choice if the vendor has an email set up in the system. Some of our vendors receive work orders by phone or text or in person but the owner still needs to know what work is being done.
It might be a nice feature for Buildium to store invoices in the system once a work order is completed. Not just the picture attachment spot within tasks and work orders. it it were a data base maybe or at least folders to store scanned copies.

The work orders feature to add in the vendor parts and labors costs and description still seems cumbersome especially when dollar amounts are entered and then the book keep tries to pay bills. It may be we need Builduim training in this area. it should be a really useful feature.

Sometimes Buildium seems to add double charges under tenants ledger info. Every now and then a random double charge pops up.

Buildium has been great for our resident managed HOA. We did a thorough vetting job in choosing our management software, and it has lived up to what we hoped for. The books are right there, and we can allow anyone to see all that is going on at any time. Board members and volunteers have different levels of access, and that has made it easy for reporting. Resident portals are great, and the communication is easy.

Size of documents/invoices you can is smaller than needed, so I often have to split documents into parts which is annoying. The email took doesn't allow cut and paste of a pdf into the body of text. I always have to send our newsletter as an attachment. Sometimes q & a does not answer my questions for simple things -- such as, I misspelled the name of a new owner, and it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to correct, because there was no answer provided in q & a. My biggest "complaint" would be that this is rental focused in some regard, and we have no tenants. We only have owners, and residents sometimes tell us they are confused by the things that say "tenants" or refer to rentals.

Easy to use
Quick and easy integration
Great back up team
Customer support is very effective
Great functionality
Effective and accurate financial reporting

HST Representation on the owner/tenant ledger is incorrect. We needed a work around which is not the most efficient way. The auto calculation of HST on charges is not available. Buildium understands the liability account charges on tenant/owner ledger as the liability to the respective owner/tenant. It could be a liability to government too like in the case of HST.
The rent roll and recurring charges list in tenant lease section should provide per sq ft rates for rental properties.
The automatic bank reconciliation has not worked at all as it was advertised during the sales calls.