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3 AM emergency calls
Burst pipes, lockouts, and heating failures don't wait for office hours. Your property managers are burned out from being the 24/7 on-call team.
For Property Management businesses
Property management software that also answers your tenants
Owners, buildings, units and leases in one place, for Canadian property managers. Perbene answers every tenant call, text and message, tracks rent and e-Transfers, and prepares each owner's monthly statement.
Where work gets lost
The challenges Property Management businesses face
The expensive moments are usually ordinary: a ringing phone, an unfinished follow-up, an emergency that reaches the wrong person.
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Rent kept in a spreadsheet
Who paid, who is late, which receipt went out. Chasing it by hand eats the first days of every month.
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Owners who want numbers
Each owner expects a statement with your fee worked out. Building them takes an evening every month.
The Perbene difference
Built for Property Management teams
It knows the calls that matter in your trade, keeps the details together and asks you before the important move.
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Owners, properties, units and leases in one place
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Rent charged each month, payments recorded, a receipt for each
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Polite rent reminders by text or email, when you turn them on
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A monthly statement for each owner, your fee worked out
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Repair requests by phone, text or chat, with urgent ones sent to your on-call person
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Vacancies with photos and a public ad, and a tenant page with lease and receipts
A day with Perbene
How Property Management businesses use Perbene
Handled / 01
After-hours maintenance triage
A tenant reports a water leak at midnight. Perbene identifies the emergency, captures the unit number and details, and alerts your on-call maintenance team immediately.
Handled / 02
Rent and receipts
A tenant pays on the first. You record the payment, a receipt goes out with the next number in sequence, and the balance updates.
Handled / 03
Owner statements
At month end each owner gets a statement of rent collected and your management fee worked out, ready to send.
Handled / 04
Vacancies
A unit comes free. You add photos and publish a public ad with its own link, and callers asking about it get the details.
How it works
What happens when a tenant calls about a leak at midnight
The same four steps run on every tenant call, whether it is water through a ceiling on a Saturday night or a question about parking on a Tuesday.
The call is answered on the first ring
No queue and no voicemail. Perbene picks up on your number, greets the tenant with your company name, and speaks English, French or Spanish depending on the caller. Then it asks which building and which unit, and checks them against your records.
It sorts the emergency from the routine
A fire or a gas smell gets one instruction: call the emergency number now. A burst pipe, no heat or a power outage becomes an emergency for your on-call contractor. A dripping tap becomes a repair request with the unit, the problem, the urgency and the access instructions.
The right person hears about it
An emergency reaches your on-call contractor by text with the unit, the problem and the callback number, and you get an urgent alert. Everything else waits on your list, written up, so nobody is woken for a loose cupboard door.
You get the whole call back in writing
Each call leaves a recording, a transcript and a short summary on that tenant's record. When you call back in the morning, you already know what broke, what the tenant was told, and what was promised.
Why property managers need more than an answering service
A property management answering service solves one problem: the phone at night. It takes a message and passes it on. The rest of the month stays in a spreadsheet, a bank app and a folder of old leases, and somebody still has to type up what the operator wrote down.
Property management software solves the other half. It holds the units, the leases and the rent, but it waits for you to open it. A tenant who phones at 11 PM reaches voicemail, and the software knows nothing about the call until you enter it the next day.
Perbene does both from one record. The tenant who calls about a leak is the same tenant with the lease, the balance and the receipts. Whoever answers can see the unit, and whoever does the books can see the call. There is no second system to keep in step with the first.
Rent, e-Transfers and receipts for Canadian landlords
Most Canadian tenants pay by Interac e-Transfer, and most rent software was not built for it. Perbene reads the deposit notice from Interac in your mailbox, checks that it really came from Interac, and matches it to the right charge by the code on the tenant's account page, or by the tenant's name and the exact amount. The payment is recorded with Interac's reference number. If it can't match a deposit to one charge, it records nothing and tells you.
Tenants can also pay online from their own account page, by card or by Canadian pre-authorized debit, which costs far less than a card on a full month's rent. Each payment gets the next receipt number in sequence, and the tenant's balance updates by itself.
Rent charges are created from each lease five days before they are due. Turn reminders on and tenants hear from you three days before the due date, then once a week while the rent is late, three times at most, by WhatsApp when you have connected it, otherwise by text or email. You can stop the reminders on any charge. They are polite nudges, not legal notices: an Ontario N4, or any other formal step, stays with you.
Owners, vacancies and notices to a whole building
Each owner has a commission rate, and each building can carry its own. At the end of the month Perbene prepares a statement for every owner with the rent collected and your fee worked out, so the evening you used to spend on them goes back to you.
When a unit comes free, add the photos and publish it. The ad gets its own public link and appears on your business page. Callers asking what is available hear the published units and can book a viewing during the call, with their details saved as a lead.
When the water will be shut off on Thursday, write one notice and pick the buildings. Every tenant with an active lease there gets it by WhatsApp or text, or by email, with a link to a page that shows the same notice. No phone tree, and no taped paper in the lobby as your only proof.
Perbene, or an answering service plus separate software
What a month looks like with one system, and with two that never talk to each other.
| A month of property management | Perbene | Answering service plus rent software |
|---|---|---|
| The tenant's call at midnight | Answered at once, in your company name | An operator takes a message |
| A burst pipe | Texts your on-call contractor the unit and the problem | Calls a list, often the office first |
| Who sees the call | It lands on the tenant's record, with lease and balance | A message you retype into the software |
| Interac e-Transfers | Matched to the charge from Interac's notice | Matched by hand, or not supported |
| Rent reminders | Sent on schedule when you turn them on | Depends on the software |
| Owner statements | Prepared each month with your fee worked out | Depends on the software |
| Languages | English, French and Spanish on the same line | Depends on who is staffing the shift |
| Cost | $99 a month with 20 units included, then $3 a unit | Per minute or per call, plus a software subscription |
Property management software and answering service: questions
How much does it cost?
$99 a month with 20 units included, then $3 a unit a month, in Canadian dollars. 8,000 credits a month are included, about 350 calls, and showings and repairs are not billed per booking. So 50 units cost $189 a month. You can try it free for 14 days.
Is this property management software or an answering service?
Both. Perbene keeps your owners, buildings, units, leases, rent and receipts, and it answers your tenants by phone, text, WhatsApp, chat and email. Because it is one system, a tenant's call lands on the same record as their lease and balance.
Does it work for Canadian landlords?
Yes. It is built in London, Ontario. It charges in Canadian dollars, keeps a deposit as last month's rent, matches Interac e-Transfers, takes Canadian pre-authorized debit and works in English and French.
How does it decide what is an emergency?
It asks. Where the water is coming from, whether the heat is out, whether anyone is in danger. A fire or gas smell gets told to call the emergency number at once. Flooding, no heat or a power outage goes to whoever you have on call, by text. A routine repair becomes a request on your list.
Does it replace my on-call person?
No. It stands in front of them. Your on-call contractor still does the work, but they only get woken for a real emergency, and they get the unit, the problem and the callback number in the first text.
How do e-Transfers get matched?
You give Perbene the address that receives your transfers, with Autodeposit on. Tenants see that address and a short code on their account page and write the code in the transfer's message. When Interac's deposit notice arrives, Perbene checks it is genuine, records the payment and issues a numbered receipt. No match means nothing is recorded, and you are told.
Can tenants see their own lease and receipts?
Yes. Each tenant has a private account page with their lease, balance and receipts, a way to pay, and a chat that can answer what they owe. They don't need a password or an app.
Can I keep my current phone number?
Yes. Forward the number tenants already call and keep it. You can also take a new number from Perbene, which lets you try it without touching your line.
Straightforward pricing
Simple pricing for Property Management businesses
$99 a month with 20 units included, then $3 a unit a month. Showings and repairs are not billed per booking. Prices in Canadian dollars.