Operations & vendor management

General information, not legal or tax advice. Landlord-tenant and tax rules vary by state, county, and city and change often. Confirm against current statute or a licensed professional in the relevant jurisdiction before acting.

For landlords Res + Com

Should my maintenance vendors have their own portal logins?

For any vendor you use regularly, yes — it removes you as the middleman on every job. Instead of relaying a tenant's request, forwarding photos, and chasing a quote by text, the vendor sees the request directly, schedules the visit, and submits their estimate in one place, with the whole thread documented. It also keeps the licensing and insurance paperwork you should verify and re-check at renewal attached to the vendor rather than scattered across email.

The payoff is routing: map each maintenance category to a default vendor and a tenant's 'plumbing' request can go straight to your plumber automatically. Collabrio gives vendors their own portal login (one account that works across the property managers they serve), routes categorized requests to the default vendor, drops their scheduled visit onto your calendar, and keeps every photo, bid, and approval on the work order — without exposing the rest of your portfolio.

For landlords Res + Com

How do I handle competitive bids for a maintenance job?

For anything beyond a routine repair, get multiple bids — it reveals the going local rate, stops you overpaying on a single high quote, and (especially when you answer to owners) gives you a decision you can defend. Send each vendor the same scope, evaluation criteria, and quality expectations so the bids are comparable. Cheapest isn't the goal: weigh price against responsiveness, licensing/insurance, and track record, and pick the best value you can explain to the owner.

Keep it organized and on the record. Collabrio lets you open a single request to several vendors at once — hand-pick them or invite every vendor mapped to that category — collect their line-item bids (with attached quotes) side by side, and award the one you choose with a click; the losing vendors are notified automatically and the winning bid becomes the work order. Reviewing your key vendors' pricing and performance once a quarter keeps that bench competitive over time.

Less guesswork, one system of record

Collabrio keeps the dated photos, ledgers, leases, and audit trail that turn these questions into a five-minute lookup.

Start your free trial