RentRoll Pro

Custom Software

Client:

Confidential (Independent Property Management Firm, Dubai)

Scope:

PropTech / Property Management

Year:

2025

OVERVIEW

We built a custom property management tool that replaced 3 spreadsheets, 2 WhatsApp groups, and a pile of PDF receipts, cutting monthly reporting time from 2 days to 20 minutes.

The Problem

The firm ran everything on Google Sheets and WhatsApp. It worked when they had 20 units. At 85, it had quietly become a crisis.

Three issues surfaced every month:

Revenue recognition was a guessing game. When a tenant paid 6 months of rent upfront via post dated cheques, the accountant had to manually calculate how much was earned each month. Mistakes were frequent.

Mid lease terminations broke everything. Pro rata refund calculations, security deposit adjustments, and unpaid utility reconciliations were done on calculators and memory.

Landlords asked questions nobody could answer fast. "What did my building earn last quarter?" required 3 hours of spreadsheet work every time.

Off the shelf tools (Yardi, Buildium, AppFolio) were either US focused, too expensive for 85 units, or required a 2 month onboarding the team could not spare.

What They Wanted

A simple tool that would:

  1. Track all tenants, units, and lease terms in one place.

  2. Handle cheque based payment schedules (standard in the UAE).

  3. Automate revenue recognition and pro rata calculations.

  4. Generate a clean monthly report per landlord on one click.

How We Approached It

We spent one day in their office watching them close out a month. That session produced more clarity than any brief document would have.

Three decisions shaped the build:

Cheque first, not payment first. Most property software assumes monthly bank transfers. UAE landlords deal in 1, 2, 4, or 12 cheque arrangements. We built the data model around cheque schedules, not idealized payment streams.

Revenue recognition baked in, not bolted on. Every cheque was automatically split across the months it covered, so revenue reports were always accurate without anyone touching a formula.

Landlord reports as a first class feature. Not an afterthought. We designed the monthly PDF report first and built the rest of the tool to feed it.

The Build

Stack: React, TypeScript, Tailwind, Supabase (Auth, Postgres, Storage), jsPDF for report generation.

Core features shipped:

  • Property, unit, and tenant management with full lease history

  • Cheque schedule tracking with automatic revenue recognition

  • Pro rata calculations for mid lease terminations and moves

  • Security deposit tracking with deduction logs

  • One click monthly landlord report (PDF) with rent collected, vacancy, deposits held, and upcoming renewals

  • Dashboard showing occupancy, upcoming cheque clearings, and lease expiries in the next 60 days

  • Role based access (director, property manager, accountant)

What we did not build:

  • No tenant facing portal (Phase 2)

  • No mobile app (team worked from desktop)

  • No payment gateway integration (cheque workflow did not need it)

Build time: 4 weeks, fixed price.

The Results

After 60 days of usage:

Monthly reporting time: 2 days → 20 minutes

Revenue recognition errors per month: 4 to 6 → 0

Time to answer a landlord question: 3 hours → under 2 minutes

Team capacity freed up: ~30 hours per month across the team

Build cost: $5,800 fixed price.

Payback period: Under 4 months, based on the accountant hours saved.

What the Client Said

"We almost hired another accountant last quarter. We did not need to. This tool does the job, and does it better than we did." — Director, [Client Confidential]