Your roadmap

Chapter 226 minutes to read

This page tells you what to do first, what to do next, and what will not work until it is done. It has four stages: your first day, your first week, your first month and your first year.

The first week decides whether everything afterwards works. Demands, arrears, the compliance register, the portals and the year end all read what you enter in that week. If a property's shares are wrong, every demand is wrong. If a leaseholder has no correspondence address, nothing can be served on them. If a building's questions are not answered, the checks it needs are not on the register, and nothing chases them. Most problems people ring about later started as a gap in week one.

Each step ends with the names of the tasks in this guide that show you how to do it, in italics.

Your first day

What you do: sign in, look around, and learn how SynkroTech sees your work. Nothing is set up yet and nothing needs to be.

How long it takes: about an hour.

What it opens up: you will know where things are, and you will have read the list of what to set up in week one.

Sign in with the email address and the one-time password you were sent. SynkroTech asks you to choose your own password straight away. It must be at least 12 characters, and the screen counts down how many are left.

Then you set up two-factor authentication (a second check at sign-in, as well as your password). You need an authenticator app on your phone. You scan the code on screen, or type the setup key, and enter the six-digit code the app shows. Codes change every 30 seconds, so if one is refused, wait for the next.

Have your phone with you before you start. You cannot reach any page until both steps are done.

Signing in for the first time

2. Find your way around

The menu down the left is the same for everyone: Home, Properties, Work, Compliance, Finance, Contacts, Comms, Reports and Settings. You only see what your role allows. If a section is missing, an administrator can give you access.

Press Ctrl+K (or ⌘K on a Mac) on any page to search for a screen, a property or a person. The Create button at the top starts a new record from wherever you are. The bell shows what has been passed to you.

The Getting Started panel opens over the page the first time. Close it with the × in its corner when you have read it. Help, in the menu behind your initials at the top right, has this guide, a page for each job, with its chapters down the left. On most pages, Help with This Page at the top right opens the guide's page for that screen.

Finding your way around

3. Learn how SynkroTech sees a portfolio

SynkroTech arranges your work in this order:

A portfolio is a group of properties. You might group them by manager or by client. You do not need one to start.
A property is what you manage and invoice: the block or the estate. Almost everything hangs off a property.
A building is a physical structure inside a property. A property with three blocks has three buildings. Height and storeys belong to the building, because fire safety rules depend on them.
A unit is one flat, house or shop. A leaseholder holds a lease on a unit. The portals call it a flat.
An asset is a piece of equipment, such as a lift or a boiler. Each asset brings its own safety checks.

Two more words matter from the start:

A schedule is a group of costs shared by the same set of units, such as General, Lift or Car Park.
A share is one unit's part of one schedule, as a percentage. It is the figure the lease states.

4. Read the Setup Checklist

Go to Settings → Setup Checklist. Do not do anything yet. Read it. It is the list of everything in your first week, in order, and it says for each step what goes wrong if you skip it ("Without it: …" or "If skipped: …").

Steps marked Required cannot be skipped. A step that depends on another shows Waiting and says what it is waiting for. The checklist works out for itself what is Done from what you have entered, so you will see it fill in as you go.

Working through the Setup Checklist

5. Look at the example properties, if you have them

If your property list shows properties marked Demo, they are example records. Open one and look at its tabs: Overview, Units, Compliance, Finance and the rest. They show what a fully set-up property looks like. Letters made from example records go to nobody.

Seeing how the whole portfolio is doing · Finding a leaseholder and their account

6. Know where to ask

Get Help, at the top of Help, sends a question to SynkroTech, with a screenshot if you add one. Your questions and the answers are kept under My Help Requests, in the same menu.

Asking SynkroTech for help

What will not work until today is done

Nothing, until you have set your own password and set up two-factor authentication. SynkroTech will not open any other page.
If you lose the one-time password before you use it, it cannot be read back. Ask for a new one.

Your first week

What you do: get your office, your people, your properties, your leaseholders, your money and your buildings' safety checks into SynkroTech, in that order.

How long it takes: roughly two to five working days. It depends on how many properties you have and whether you load them from spreadsheets (Settings → Bulk Import) or enter them by hand. By hand, a small block takes about an hour once you know the steps.

What it opens up: your first demands, your first work orders, a compliance register that chases what each building needs, and logins for your colleagues.

This is the stage that decides whether everything afterwards works. Do the steps in this order, because each one depends on the one before.

1. Your office

Check your organisation's details before anything is sent in your name.

In Settings → Organisation Settings, check Organisation Details, Branding (logo, colour, signature) and Print and Post (the return address for letters that cannot be delivered).
Check the address of your main office under Branches. It is printed on your demands as the address where leaseholders can serve notices on the landlord. The law requires one.

Setting up your organisation's details and letterhead

If you skip this: letters, demands and the portals go out under the details typed when the account was opened, which nobody has checked.

2. Your people

Give each colleague a login, a role and, if they approve spending, a limit.

Check Staff Email Domains first (on the Users page). Only addresses at these domains can sign in as staff. A colleague with any other address is refused, and the screen says why.
Add each colleague in Users. No email is sent: the link to set a password is shown once, and you pass it on yourself.
Check what each role may do in Roles & Permissions.
Set who may approve supplier invoices, and up to what amount, in Supplier Invoice Authorisation. Nobody can approve an invoice they recorded themselves.
Choose how long a signed-in session lasts on a shared machine (Security and Sign-In → Sign Out After Inactivity).
Set up a team channel or two in Comms → Team Channels, so questions between colleagues stay in SynkroTech.

Adding colleagues and giving them a login · Deciding what each colleague can do · Setting approval limits for supplier invoices · Setting how colleagues sign in, and how long a session lasts · Talking to colleagues in team channels

If you skip this: every task, approval and alert lands on one person, and nobody else can cover for them.

3. Your properties, their year ends and their units

Add your properties first. Flats, leases, funds and the compliance register all belong to a property, so nothing else can be loaded until the property is there.

Add each property. Use Properties → Add Property, or load them all from a spreadsheet in Settings → Bulk Import. SynkroTech warns you if the name is already on the register, so you do not add the same block twice.
Set its service charge year end. On the property's Overview, under Financial Year, press Set Service Charge Year End. To set many properties at once, use the Year Ends page, opened from its step on the Setup Checklist. Copy it exactly from the lease. In the same box, check the Country (England or Wales), because demands carry the legal wording for that country. If you took the property over from another agent, enter the Conversion Date (the day its money became yours).
Add its units. On the property's Units tab, use Add Units to add a run of flats at once ("Flat 1 to Flat 24", with any numbers to skip). You see a preview before anything is saved.
Add its buildings, if the property has more than one.
Record its parking, if it has any, on the Parking card on the property's Overview.
Record the lease terms in Properties → Lease Terms: what each lease says about service charges, repairs and the rest, so you can answer questions without opening the lease.
Group properties into portfolios in Settings → Portfolios, if you split the work by manager or by client.

Taking on a new block by hand · Loading your portfolio from spreadsheets · Setting a property's service charge year end · Recording a building's parking bays · Recording the lease terms (lease abstract) · Grouping properties into portfolios

Set the year end before you create a budget, because every budget year, demand period and accounts deadline counts forward from it. When it is set, the budget form shows "Year ends 24 March (set on the property)" and proposes the right dates. When it is not set, the budget takes whatever dates you type, and the accounts deadline is worked out from that budget's own end date instead of the lease's.

4. Your leaseholders, their shares and your client

This is the step that most often stops demands later. Do the first four parts for every property.

Add the leaseholder to each unit. On the unit, press Add Person, choose Leaseholder, then pick them from the register or Create Person. Add a second holder the same way with Add Person, choosing Joint Leaseholder, or choose Company Leaseholder for a company. Both joint holders are named on every demand.
Choose each leaseholder's correspondence address. It is either The Unit or Another Address. SynkroTech never assumes one. Where many leaseholders live in their own flat, Set to The Unit does them together.
Set the shares. On the property's Units tab, create a schedule for each group of shared costs (Add Schedule), then press Edit Shares and enter each unit's percentage from its lease. Each schedule must add up to exactly 100% on its own. The schedule shows Adds Up or Does Not Add Up.
Add your client and record the appointment. Go to Contacts → Clients & Companies → Add Client. Enter their Registered Address: it is printed on every demand as the landlord's address, and the law does not accept your office's address instead. Then open the client and press Add Appointment to say which property they appoint you on, and from when.
Record who lives in flats they do not own. Tenants and other occupiers go on Contacts → People → Residents & Tenants, with the dates of their tenancy, so their access ends on time.

Adding a leaseholder, a joint leaseholder or a company to a unit · Setting where a leaseholder's post goes · Setting each unit's share of the service charge (apportionment) · Adding a client and appointing yourselves to their property · Recording residents and tenancies

5. Your money

Set up where each property's money sits, and bring across what the last agent held.

Add each property's bank accounts and funds in Finance → Funds. A demand prints the bank details of the fund it is paid into.
Check the nominal codes your budgets and invoices will use in Finance → Chart of Accounts.
If you took the property over, load the fund balances and each leaseholder's opening balance (Settings → Bulk Import → Fund Balances and Opening Balances). Then approve the property's Opening Position on its Overview.
Compare your figures with the old system in Migration Verification and confirm each property matches.

Setting up bank accounts and funds · Keeping your chart of accounts · Recording the outgoing agent's handover and opening position · Checking your figures against the old system

If you skip the opening balances: every leaseholder starts at £0.00. Arrears brought across are not chased, and credits are not repaid.

6. Your buildings' safety checks

A property with nothing on its register looks compliant on every screen. The property page says so in its own words: "Empty means nothing recorded, not nothing due." This step puts the checks each building needs on the register, so that SynkroTech counts them down and chases them.

Answer the building questions. On the property, open More → Building Knowledge. Each question says which checks a Yes brings with it.
Add the equipment. For lifts, boilers, tanks, pumps and other plant, add each item on the property's Assets tab. That is how Building Knowledge learns the building has it. Adding an asset puts its checks straight onto the register, and the screen lists them.
Check the register against the answers. The property's Compliance tab shows Required Duties: any check the answers call for that is missing has Add to Register beside it.
Record each building's height and storeys (Record Height on the Compliance tab), because the fire safety duties depend on them.
Add the buildings insurance in Compliance → Buildings Insurance.
Upload the certificates and documents you have from the last agent (Compliance → Documents & Certificates). From 2027 a leaseholder can ask for six years of building information.
Add the contractors you use in Contacts → Contractors, with their insurance documents.

Answering the building questions so the right checks appear · Recording an asset (plant) and its servicing · Adding or removing a duty from a property's register · Managing fire safety for a building (heights, duty-holders, fire duties) · Keeping documents and certificates in one place · Adding a contractor to your approved list

If you skip this: no check falls due, so nothing chases a lapsed gas, fire or lift inspection.

7. How things leave the office

Connect your mailbox in Comms → Mail. Until you do, emails in a sent mailing wait in the Outbox and are not sent.
Check Settings → Organisation Settings → Sign-In Pages. Each portal should show its address, with Copy Link and Print Poster. If a portal shows No Address Set, ask SynkroTech, because the address is set on SynkroTech's side.
Set the Inspection Schedule (in Organisation Settings): when your inspection year starts and how many visits each property gets. Visits a Year starts at None, and nothing is scheduled until you choose a number.
Choose who is told when a duty or a work order runs late, in Chasing and Escalation.
Check how long personal data is kept, in Data Retention.

Connecting your mailbox · Putting the sign-in addresses and posters in front of people · Setting up the inspection schedule and checklists · Choosing what gets escalated and chased automatically · Setting how long personal data is kept

What will not work until this week is done

These are the stops SynkroTech puts in your way. Each one is shown on screen with the reason.

Issuing service charge demands needs every one of these:

A budget with lines in it. A budget with no lines cannot be approved: "A budget with no expenditure cannot be approved."
A client appointed to the property, and chosen as landlord on the budget. Until then Approve Budget stays greyed with "Choose the landlord for this budget before approving it", and the budget says No Client Appointed. The landlord is chosen on the budget itself, from the client appointed at the time.
Every budget line on a schedule. Otherwise Create Demands stays greyed, and the budget says how much "is not assigned to any schedule, so there is nobody to bill it to".
Every schedule at exactly 100%. The budget says, for example, "Schedule "General" accounts for 90.00% of its units, not 100%", and "Demands cannot be created until every schedule adds up to exactly 100%."
A leaseholder on every unit that has a share. A unit with a share and no lease is named: "Flat 1 is on the "General" schedule but has no active lease, so £800.00 cannot be demanded."
The client's registered address. Without it, pressing Issue is refused: "No registered address is held for … LTA 1987 s.47 requires the landlord's own address … Until it is given, the charge is treated as not due."
A correspondence address for every leaseholder. A demand to someone with none is issued but cannot be sent, so it is not served. They are listed under No Correspondence Address on Demands & Arrears, and in the Outbox with "No correspondence address chosen for … Set it to The Unit or Another Address on their record."
A bank account for the property's fund. This one is a warning, not a stop. The demand still goes, but tells the leaseholder to contact you for how to pay.

Other things that wait on week one:

Colleagues cannot sign in until their email address is at one of your Staff Email Domains.
No work order can be sent, and no supplier invoice entered, until the supplier is on your contractor list. A contractor whose insurance has lapsed can be given a draft work order, but the work cannot be released to them.
No check is chased until it is on the compliance register.
No inspection visit is planned until Visits a Year is set.
Emails are not sent until a mailbox is connected. Letters by post are printed and posted by your office.
Portal invitations cannot be printed until the portal's address is set.
An opening position cannot be approved as final while any fund has no opening balance. Load 0.00 for a fund that held nothing.

Your first month

What you do: start using SynkroTech for the real work. Your first demands, your first repairs and work orders, your first certificates filed, and your first portal logins.

How long it takes: the month itself. Your first mailing of demands takes longest, roughly half a day for the first property while you check each figure. After that each property is quicker.

What it opens up: money starts arriving against demands that were properly served, repairs have a record from report to invoice, and the compliance register starts to show what is really in date.

1. Your first budget and demands

Create the budget for the property's year in Finance → Budgets & Apportionment → Create Budget. Enter the lines, and put each line on a schedule.
Approve it once your client has agreed it. SynkroTech asks you to confirm. After that its lines are locked; Reopen Budget undoes it while nothing has been demanded.
Create the demands with Create Demands. SynkroTech asks you to confirm, and makes them as drafts. Check the Apportionment panel on the budget: the total apportioned should match the budget and read reconciles.
Issue them from Finance → Demands & Arrears, under Not Yet Served.
Send the mailing from Comms → Outbox. A demand is not served until it has been sent or posted. Sent out is not the same as delivered: check that each one shows Sent, and print and post the letters the Outbox lists.
Put right a wrong demand by cancelling it and raising it again. A demand is never edited.
Raise one-off charges outside the budget when they come up: an administration charge to one flat, a recharge, or a cost shared by several.

Setting next year's budget · Getting a budget approved · Issuing your service charge demands · Checking what letters and emails went out, and to whom · Correcting or cancelling a wrong demand · Raising a one-off charge (an administration charge, a recharge or a shared cost)

2. Repairs and contractors

Log each repair as a ticket when someone reports it, and reply to the resident from the ticket.
Instruct a contractor with a work order, or ask for quotes first.
Invite the contractors you use most onto SynkroTech Trade, so they see their jobs and the access details there.
Chase a contractor whose work order has passed its date.
Switch on Auto-Chase, so firms are asked for the invoices they have not sent on finished work.

Logging a repair someone has reported (raising a ticket) · Keeping on top of open tickets and their due dates · Replying to a resident about their ticket, or adding an internal note · Instructing a contractor (raising a work order) · Getting quotes and choosing one · Inviting a contractor onto SynkroTech Trade · Letting a contractor into the building (access details, keys and fobs) · Chasing a contractor who is late · Asking a contractor for an invoice they haven't sent (Auto-Chase)

3. Certificates and checks

Start each day from what is overdue across every building, on Home and the Compliance Register.
File each certificate as it arrives, with the date the work was done.
Book visits for the checks that are Due Soon or Overdue.
Set up planned maintenance for anything serviced on a cycle.
Keep the buildings insurance in force.
When a notice needs the law's exact words, take them from Compliance → Statutory Wording.

Seeing what is overdue across every building · Recording that a check was done (filing a certificate) · Booking a contractor's visit for a duty · Setting up planned maintenance (servicing schedules) · Keeping buildings insurance in force · Following up an overdue duty that has been escalated to you · Finding the exact statutory wording for a notice

4. Money in and money out

Match the money that comes in to the leaseholder it belongs to.
Reconcile each bank account against its statement.
Approve and pay supplier invoices. Approving does not pay anyone: you approve, schedule, then confirm, and only the last of those pays.
Raise the fees for parking bays held under a licence.

Recording money that has come in (matching receipts) · Reconciling the bank account · Paying a supplier's invoice · Charging a fee for a parking bay

5. Leaseholders, residents and directors

Give portal logins to the people who want them. Staff decide who gets one; a person can stay a contact only.
Before you send people to a portal, use Sign In as Leaseholder (or Resident, or Director) to see exactly what they will see. It is read-only, lasts 15 minutes and is recorded.
Post notices to a building, answer messages, and log phone calls against the property.
If a building has a front desk, record the concierge's appointment and give them a desk login.
Send statements when leaseholders ask, and record each sale as it completes, so the right person is served from the right day.

Giving a leaseholder, resident or director a portal login · Helping someone sign in to their portal for the first time · Seeing a portal exactly as a leaseholder, resident or director sees it · Talking a leaseholder through their portal · Posting a notice for a building · Answering a message from a resident or leaseholder · Writing to everyone in a building (group email) · Logging a phone call · Setting up a concierge desk for a building · Sending a leaseholder their statement · Recording a sale or other change of owner

6. Your first inspections

Book or start an inspection from Compliance → Inspections → Create Inspection, answer the checklist on a computer or a phone, raise tickets for what you find, and sign it off.

Booking or starting a building inspection · Doing the inspection: answering the checklist, recording findings and photos · Raising a repair from something found on an inspection · Signing off an inspection

What will not work until this month's steps are done

Credit control has nothing to chase until demands have been issued, served and have passed their due date. Even then, nothing is sent until a person presses Send.
A wrong demand cannot be edited. It is cancelled and raised again. It cannot be cancelled while money is matched against it; move or refund that money first.
An inspection cannot be started until you choose the property, and cannot be signed off until every required question is answered. The To Finish list names each one.
A director's or leaseholder's portal shows nothing useful until their buildings have demands, certificates and notices on record.
Group emails hold back anyone whose merge fields cannot be filled.

Your first year

What you do: the full cycle. Next year's budget, a Section 20 consultation if you have major works, inspections on their schedule, arrears chased properly, the year end to the accountants, and reporting to your clients.

How long it takes: the year. Most of these jobs come round once a year per property, at a time set by that property's year end.

What it opens up: a complete year on record for each property, from budget to signed accounts, with every notice, payment and decision kept where a tribunal or an auditor would look for it.

1. Next year's budget

Open this year's budget and press Create Next Year. Its dates follow the property's year end, and you can copy this year's lines as a starting point. Each figure needs this year's reason. Then approve it and issue the demands as you did in month one.

Setting next year's budget · Getting a budget approved · Issuing your service charge demands

2. Major works and Section 20

When works will cost any leaseholder more than £250, the law requires a consultation (a Section 20 consultation) before you agree the contract. Create the project in Work → Major Works & s.20. It needs the leaseholders and their shares from week one, and at least two quotes. While leaseholders still have time to comment, SynkroTech greys the next step and gives the legal reason.

Running a Section 20 consultation for major works

3. Inspections on a schedule

Compliance → Inspections → Visits This Year shows each property's planned visits, which have been done and which are Overdue. Produce the report for the client after each one is signed off.

Seeing this year's inspection visits and what is due · Producing an inspection report for the client · Looking at inspection trends

4. Arrears, refunds and late costs

Chase arrears in stages from Finance → Credit Control: first reminder, second reminder, letter before action. When a leaseholder agrees to pay by instalments, move the case to Payment Plan and record the terms; when the debt goes to solicitors, move it to Referred.
Tell leaseholders about costs you have incurred but not yet demanded, before 18 months pass. After 18 months, costs that were never notified may not be recoverable.
Repay leaseholders who are in credit.

Chasing someone who hasn't paid · Agreeing a payment plan · Recording that leaseholders were told about costs inside the 18 months (s.20B notice) · Refunding a leaseholder who is in credit

5. Year end

When a property's year ends, close it in Finance → Year End and send the pack to the accountants. When the signed accounts come back, publish them to the leaseholder and director portals. Pay ground rent over to the landlord, and charge your management fees. Check what each reserve fund took in and paid out over the year.

Closing the year and sending it to the accountants (year end) · Publishing the signed year-end accounts to leaseholders and directors · Paying ground rent over to the landlord · Charging your management fees · Moving money between a property's funds · Seeing what a reserve or ground rent fund holds, and what was paid out

6. Your clients and your own office

Show directors how their building is doing through the Director Portal, and look at the whole portfolio in Reports.
Keep the residents' company's filings, meetings and register of members up to date.
Keep the record of what each client has asked you to do.
Change letter and email templates as your practice changes, and take away access when a colleague leaves.
Look up who did what in the Decision Record.
Waive a duty that does not apply to a building, with the reason, rather than leaving it overdue.
Take portal access away when someone sells, moves out or stops being a director.
Take any register out to a spreadsheet when someone asks for the figures.
Check what your plan includes, and let SynkroTech support look at your account when you ask them for help.
When a client ends your appointment, hand the property back with its records.

Showing directors how their building is doing · Seeing how the whole portfolio is doing · Running the residents' company: filings, AGMs, directors and members · Logging what a client has asked you to do · Changing a letter or email template · Removing a colleague's access or moving their work to someone else · Finding out who did what (the Decision Record) · Waiving a duty that does not apply · Removing or resetting someone's portal access · Exporting a register to a spreadsheet · Seeing what your plan includes and how much you have used · Letting SynkroTech support look at your account · Handing a property back when you stop managing it

What will not work until the year has run

Year end cannot be done until the property's year has ended. Finance → Year End shows nothing until you choose a property.
A Section 20 contract cannot be awarded while leaseholders still have time to comment. A scheme whose notices have been served cannot be deleted.
Next year's dates are only right if the property's year end was set in week one.
Arrears letters, s.20 notices and demands reach every joint leaseholder only if each has a correspondence address. The ones who do not are listed, and are not served.