We already know we can’t live without technology today. From smartphones, smart car keys, watches, and home assistants to mobile wallets, entertainment and streaming apps, video conferencing and work collaboration apps, etc., are like second skin to us now. But when it comes to running a housing society, managing committee residents struggle to fit the right technology to the right purpose.
The good news is that society management has legitimately become an arena that enterprise scale technology can solve and simplify. If you’re using traditional methods to run your society, such as ‘Register-based visitor entry’, physical accounting ledgers or door to door collection of monthly maintenance bills, the only logical progression is moving to an Enterprise Resource Planning app.
What’s a Society ERP app?
It’s an intelligent app that automates all the routine, periodical administrative, security, financial management and communication activities of the society.
How does it do that?
By making everything virtual as opposed to physical, thereby creating ease, speed and transparency in society’s workings.
Password-verification based entry
A society ERP, MyGate works on Behavioural Intelligence Augmented Authentication (BIAA) technology.
Only a visitor with a passcode invite from the resident gets to enter the premises after the guard authenticates the password on his app. Frequent visitors like domestic staff and regular vendors are given a unique passcode for daily entry. Other manned gatekeeping activities can also be digitised through the use of features like Group pass, Materials/package pass, ‘Move in/ move out at the gate’ Procedure for tenants, Overstay Alert for delivery boys, new visitors, cab drivers, child safety protocol, and panic alert system.
Digitise and streamline all incoming/outgoing payment
Society apps can preconfigure monthly maintenance calculation types (like flat, sq ft, hybrid) and target the bill as per flats and towers.
In-app text and email reminders can be sent to residents to ensure maintenance payments are not delayed. Residents can pay on the app through integration of mobile wallets, net and mobile banking. A workflow for vendor payment approval streamlines outgoing payments, while domestic help and maintenance staff can also be paid directly from the app.
Admin Dashboard for Managing Committee
Access holders can handle owners, tenants and their family management, Flats, Towers, Gates, Parking (Resident & Visitors) management, maintain staff attendance, tenant management and Visitor Log View & download, get reports on Vehicle Movement Log, Gatepass Log, Investigation Page, Empty Flats Visit Log, etc, and take selfie-based attendance of the security guards (via Facial Recognition Technology) as well as send unlimited emails and SMS through the app.
Accounting suite embedded with personalised features
Get advanced in-built digital accounting features in society ERP apps such as:
Configuring and charging fines to defaulters
Monthly collection and defaulters reports
Advance, arrears reports with credit/debit notes per residence
Auto reconciliation of dues and payments
General ledger, cash books, vendor payment approval system all within the accounting section
GST calculations, and uploadable and downloadable reports like BS, P&L, GST Report, TDS Report, etc.
Amenities management simplified
An intelligent society planning app comes with an editable and transparent amenities booking calendar through which the residents can book their preferred slots for gym, clubhouse, swimming pool, and others. Admin can set a preconfigured limit per household per month so that everyone gets their fair share.
Complaint management digitally transformed
Residents can raise a ticket in-app when there are problems like broken pipes, electrical malfunction or any maintenance issues and track the status of the complaint (solved, pending, escalated, etc.) and re-raise the complaint if dissatisfied. This ERP feature saves the maintenance staff from being overloaded with random requests piling up due to lack of coordination and residents getting irate.
Parking problems controlled
Society apps like MyGate have an integrated Auto Number Plate Reader for Vehicle identification and notifications so if a vehicle is parked in the wrong place, its owner can be retrieved. It can also solve visitor parking hustle by updating the security guard on the available spots left in-app through entry/exit of vehicles.
Communication made real time and inclusive
Society MC can create polls, surveys and publish digital notices, meeting schedules on a group communication channel to make sure everyone’s on the same page.
Third party integrations for ease of living
Apps like MyGate have tie ups with vendors like Zomato, Swiggy, Grofers for contactless deliveries, Portea and Nightingales to help societies manage COVID emergencies with proper medical assistance, StanPlus for emergency ambulance services, as well as latest Covid-19 news from their cities. The app can also notify residents of quarantined apartments and containment zones within the premises.
Society ERP apps are completely safe as the data is encrypted and hosted on a private cloud. They are available in affordable and customisable packages as per the society’s requirements. They are the future of digitised society management quite definitively with the boost of 5G and a greater wave of interoperable devices and artificial intelligence, they will become even more impressively efficient in function and ubiquity.
