Setting Up Your Account
How to setup your account and make the most of ASSIST
How will you run your Account?
ASSIST can be used as a fully standalone platform or integrated with an existing property management system (PMS), such as Buildium, Rent Manager, ResMan, or AppFolio.
Using ASSIST as a standalone PMS allows you to manage your entire business directly within the platform - including Pricing Analytics, Resident Support, Work Order Management, Lead Management, Tenant Screening, Lease Signing, Lease Renewals, Unit Turnovers, Rental Payments, Vendor Payments, Accounting, and more.
Using ASSIST as an integration allows you to continue operating within your existing PMS while leveraging ASSIST’s AI-powered features for Leasing, Maintenance, Pricing, and more.
Basic Setup (All Accounts)
To get the most out of the platform, Assist will need data on all your properties, units, and residents. For optimal performance, please provide the following information:
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Properties: Full address
- Units: Unit number, current rent price, square footage (required for pricing analysis)
- Residents: Full name, property & unit number, phone number, email address, lease end date
After the initial data import, properties and units can be enhanced with additional information, such as photos, amenities, square footage, and marketing descriptions. However, the information listed above is the minimum required to complete the basic setup.
Adding Your Property, Unit and Resident Data
You can get up and running quickly by using Assist's Import Tools. To learn how to bulk import your data, see this article
Importing your Property and Resident Data
You can also manually enter your data via the Property, Units, and Residents tools. You can also use these tools at any time to edit/add data.
Inviting Team Members
ApartmentAdvisor Assist is for use for your entire property management team. You can invite members of your team to use Assist and collaborate on tickets, pricing, and any other feature. There is no charge for adding users and there is no limit to the number that can be added. If you are using ASSIST as an external integration, this is not needed for maintenance ticket users since they will continue using your existing property management system.
Inviting Your Team to Use Assist
Standalone Setup
Bank Account Setup
If you are planning to use payment collection, your first step will be adding a bank account for ACH transactions. This process requires you to go through a basic KYC (Know Your Customer) verification process through our payment partner, Dwolla. A guide to this process can be found below:
Invite Residents to use the Resident Portal
Once you've imported your properties, units, and residents, and invited your team to use the system, you can begin onboarding residents. There are a couple of ways to do this - invites can be sent via email or text message, and invites can be sent individually or in bulk. We also provide an invite link that can be given to residents, allowing them to join the Resident Portal on their own. Creating a lease will also send a portal invite to the resident automatically.
See the below guide to inviting residents:
Inviting Residents to the Portal
Once you've invited your residents, you can begin collecting rent payments, configuring your maintenance AI, and automating more of your operation!
Integration Setup
Maintenance Integration
Running ASSIST as an integration for Maintenance means you will be using the Maintenance Assist AI features to respond to, triage, and attempt to resolve resident issues, but will be using a different property management system to track and resolve maintenance tickets. In this mode, Assist is sent notifications of new issues from your PMS system and reaches out to the residents via text message based on information in these notifications. The result of the AI's interactions will be put back into your PMS. Residents will not use the Assist Resident Portal to view, update, and enter new issues. To set up an external integration, please contact ApartmentAdvisor Support for details.
Leasing Integration
Running ASSIST as an integration for Leasing means you will process all leads through our system - allowing the Leasing AI to qualify renters and schedule tours and giving you access to the Leasing CRM & dashboard, but will be using a different property management system to sign leases and manage residents.
The way this works is that we provide you with an email address that can be used as the contact email for listings on listing sites like Zillow, and if an inquiry is submitted the lead will come directly to our system, where the AI Agent will reach out to the renter to qualify them and, if desired, set up a tour. For this work correctly, availability information will need to be kept consistent across both platforms. If the renter decides to apply, you can have them fill out our application link or provide your own application link. For more information on the leasing process, see the Leasing category or contact ApartmentAdvisor Support for help setting up an external integration.