Introduction

For universities managing campus residential operations, having the right residential hall management software platform is quite essential. The market has seen an influx of powerful new solutions that aim to streamline management processes such as room assignments and maintenance. 

This article will explore the leading residential hall management software vendors including their core features and pricing structures.

Residential Hall Management

Residential Hall Management involves the oversight and operations of student housing facilities. These operations include a wide array of functions related to managing the building as well as the students. On the building side, these include tasks such as room assignments, handling maintenance requests, enforcing housing policies, and ensuring safety. For the students, it includes enhancing the residential experience through community building, programming events, and connecting students to important support services.

Overseeing these operations can become challenging, however residential hall management software solutions can help streamline and simplify these processes. These solutions typically offer a suite of tools and features designed to cater to the needs of various housing operations.

Current Residential Hall Management Software Solutions

1. Kinetic Software

Kinetic Software offers a comprehensive suite of tools for student accommodation management to efficiently manage the students’ journey from the initial application till departure. Here are the key features that their tools offer:

Bulk Assignment: Assign a large number of students in bulk to their room assignments while taking into consideration their preferences

Visual Representation: Generates visualizations to help managers quickly understand how bedroom stock is being occupied. In addition to this, it provides insightful data analysis and trends in the student lifecycle.

Student Portal: Provides every student with access to their student portal for housing contracts, charges, payments, requests, inductions, and guides.

Real-time Integration: Integrates with finance and other systems of the institution to ensure up-to-date data at all times.

Parcel Management: Helps teams manage student deliveries smoothly while maximizing storage space and effectively communicating with students for prompt collection of packages.

Kinetic Software’s pricing is not available online and a demo must be booked to receive a quote.

2. StarRez

StarRez provides a comprehensive, cloud-based platform to enhance residential life. Its intuitive and centralized system streamlines day-to-day tasks to improve the overall experience of students as well as the staff. Key features include:

Student Portal: Provides a self-service portal for students for various tasks like housing applications, room selection, reporting community concerns, logging maintenance queries, and making payments.

Roommate Matching: Provide students with potential roommate matches based on preferences and habits, while pointing out potential conflicts that may need to be addressed.

Package Tracking: Streamlines student package deliveries by automating the communication process, reducing costs, and increasing transparency.

Resident Engagement: Provides a set of tools to create and execute events for residents by allowing for real-time attendance tracking, easily printing name tags, online registrations, and tracking event expenditures.

StarRez’s pricing is not available online and a demo must be booked to receive a quotation.

3. PropertyBoss

PropertyBoss has been managing student housing since 1997 by providing highly customizable software features that cater to large student bodies. Some of the key features that it has to offer include:

Mass Move-Ins/Outs: Capable of handling the entire moving process for a large number of students.

Unit & Suite Tracking: Allows precise management of accommodations of different types of rooms.

Online Portals: Provides portals for students and parents to facilitate lease renewals, payments, and work orders.

Package Tracking: Streamlines package reception, notification, and delivery for students.

Self-Inspections: Allows students to submit their room inspections electronically.

Mass Messaging: Supports mass reminders and announcements via text and email to enhance communication.

Property Boss’ pricing is not available online and a demo must be booked to receive the quote.

4. Innago

Innago offers a user-friendly platform to help landlords of student housing property. Through its features, it aims to streamline the entire process for both landlords and students by providing a centralized system. These features include:

Automated Reminders: Keeps students and parents informed about due payments.

Electronic Payments: Facilitates online rent and bill payments.

Maintenance Management: Provides easy and detailed maintenance request submission through their mobile application.

Flexible Lease Management: To adapt to students’ constant change of location due to internship opportunities and roommate conflicts, Innago offers flexible subleases by beds or units to allow for early termination.

Most of Innago’s offerings are available for free, with no set-up cost. Additional features are priced as below:

5. Room Choice

Room Choice offers a student housing property management system through a suite of features that include:

AI and Machine Learning: Offers automation of various manual tasks through AI and ML However, further information is not available regarding what tasks are automated.

Roommate Matching: Provides an intuitive image-based personality quiz to students to determine their personality to match with other students with similar personalities.

Online Portal: Facilitates the entire leasing process that include selecting rooms, beds, roommates, filling applications, signing the lease, and making payments through an online portal. Further features include changing rooms easily, making maintenance requests, and providing online contracts.

Messaging: Enhances communication through mass emails to provide announcements in bulk according to residential halls.

Accounting: Built into the online portal, this feature updates contract rates in real-time, and provides students with quick access to their current and future balances at any time. Furthermore, it provides cash variance reports, balance reports, and payment reports through the click of a button.

Room Choice’s pricing is not available online and a demo must be booked in order to receive a quote.

6. Doorloop

Doorloop provides a comprehensive set of tools that are designed for residential management in any context. However, its features are equally useful for student housing management, which include:

Accounting: Makes the entire accounting process efficient and easier for landlords by introducing tools like automatic transaction matching, auto-categorization, and connecting bank accounts to the platform.

Reports: Provides quick filters for reports by date, accounting method, property, and lease. Furthermore, it is capable of generating financial statements to gain a detailed view of each transaction for real-time data that can be exported in various formats.

Mobile Application: Allows users access to every feature remotely through their smart devices.

Insurance: Allows tenants to purchase renters insurance directly from their portal.

Maintenance: Allows tenants to request, track work orders, and pay vendors in the same place.

Mass Communication: Allows managers to send mass announcements through email, phone, text, or tenant portal.

Online Services: Through their platform, Doorloop aims to go paperless by allowing tenants to fill out applications, make payments, and access their lease information digitally.

Doorloop offers pricing starting according to the number of units being managed and the subscription tier (Starter, Pro, and Premium). Here is a brief overview of their pricing:

For more information, visit their website.

Conclusion

Choosing the right residential hall management software solution is a critical decision for colleges aiming to streamline campus operations. This article has explored six vendors in the market, highlighting their core features and pricing structures. By carefully evaluating these solutions, institutions can enhance operational efficiency, improve communication, and further enhance the student’s experience.