Today: every call routes through you
Tenant⇄You⇄Contractor
"When can he come?" · "Is 2pm okay?" · "He's asking for the door code." Three
calls per repair, and none of them are your actual job.
In RQ200: they coordinate, you direct
You
↓ assign · direct · approve the work
Contractor⇄Tenant
The job carries the unit and the tenant's contact, so the visit gets arranged
without you in the middle.
The thread is where jobs go to blur together
If you coordinate your own contractors, odds are the whole operation lives in text and
WhatsApp threads. It works, barely, because you hold it together personally: you take the
tenant's call, text the contractor, relay the tenant's schedule back, ask for a price, ask
again, get a photo of something, and type "done" in a spreadsheet.
Then the questions the thread can't answer start landing:
- Did he ever see the message about unit 4B, or is it three days unread?
- What did we agree this would cost? Scroll. Was that this job or the last one?
- Which of the five ceiling photos in the thread is this repair?
- What has this contractor actually done for us this year, and what did each job cost?
The day someone asks about that repair, you have nothing.
Not because the work wasn't done, but because the record is a scroll.
How RQ200 runs the coordination
- Every job is separate and trackable. One repair, one record: description,
priority, unit, contractor, cost, photos, history. Three repairs at one building are three
jobs, not one blurred thread.
- The job carries the unit and the tenant's contact. So the contractor arranges the
visit with the tenant directly. The single biggest time-drain (you relaying
schedules between two people who could just talk) is gone. You direct and approve; you
don't play telephone.
- Acknowledgment tracking. When a contractor is assigned, they acknowledge the job,
so "did they even see it?" has an answer on the record, and you chase only the ones who
haven't.
- Photo and video updates while the work happens. You see what they found and direct
the job from wherever you are. No drive-by needed. It's
verified
photo proof, tied to the job.
- Submit-for-review: you approve every job. Contractors don't mark their own work
complete. They submit it with photos, and you approve or send it back with a note. Done
means you said done.
- A permanent per-contractor work log. Every job a contractor has done (what, where,
when, with proof) accumulates into a record. Who's fast, who needs
send-backs, which buildings they know: it's written down.
What your contractors see
Contractors get their own accounts. They sign in from an invite on their phone: no app-store
download, and they can add it to their home screen like an app. What they see is deliberately
small: their assigned jobs, each with the unit, the tenant's contact, the description,
and the photo history in one place. Not your portfolio, not other contractors' work.
That's an easier day than scrolling a thread for the address and calling you to ask which
apartment. If you're wondering how to get a crew that lives in WhatsApp to switch, we wrote
about it: how to get contractors to actually use software.
Side by side
Coordinating by text
You are the system
- All jobs blur into one thread
- You relay between tenant and contractor
- "Seen" is a guess
- Prices agreed verbally, argued later
- Photos in someone's camera roll
- History leaves when the phone does
Coordinating in RQ200
The system carries the detail
- Every job separate, trackable, on a unit
- Contractor talks to the tenant directly
- Acknowledgment on the record
- Photo/video proof reviewed by you
- A permanent work log per contractor
Runs beside your books, not instead of them
By design, RQ200 doesn't do rent, leases, accounting, or screening. If AppFolio or Buildium
holds your books, keep it there;
RQ200 runs the
work beside it, and AppFolio work orders file themselves in with the
work-order number, priority, tenant, and unit included. The
work-order
loop and the
photo-proof closing step cover the rest of the
system. Comparing against a maintenance-coordination platform? See
RQ200 vs
Property Meld.
Common questions
How is this different from just texting my contractors?
Texting works until you need to find anything. In RQ200 every job is its own record
(acknowledged, photographed, and approved) and the contractor coordinates the visit
with the tenant directly instead of through you. The thread has none of that: no per-job
history, no proof, and you in the middle of every message.
Will my contractors actually use it?
It's built for exactly that: phone-first, no app-store download. They sign in from an
invite and can add it to their home screen. They see only their assigned jobs, with the
unit, the tenant's contact, and the history in one place. Most contractors prefer that to
scrolling a thread for the address.
Do contractors see my whole portfolio?
No. Contractors have their own accounts and see the buildings and jobs assigned to
them, and nothing else.
Does RQ200 replace AppFolio or Buildium?
No, it runs beside them. They keep rent, leases, and accounting; RQ200 runs the
contractor coordination and field work. AppFolio work orders even file
themselves into RQ200 automatically.
Become a founding partner
Free while we build it with you. The founder sets it up on your real buildings, and you help
shape what gets built next.
See the product
Read the blog
Free for founding partners · walk anytime, with all your records · info@rq200.com