Bespoke Property Management Platform for Gallagher Property Services

The Challenge

Gallagher Property Services managed a portfolio of residential and commercial properties across Glasgow and the surrounding area. Over the years, the business had accumulated three separate software tools to handle different parts of the operation: a maintenance tracking system for logging and managing repair requests, a tenancy management platform for renewals, inspections, and deposits, and a contractor scheduling tool for assigning jobs and coordinating tradespeople.

None of these tools talked to each other. When a tenant submitted a maintenance request, a property manager had to manually log it in the maintenance system, cross-reference it against the tenancy management platform to confirm the tenant's details and any relevant lease clauses, then use the contractor scheduling tool to assign a tradesperson. If a contractor updated their availability or job status, that information had to be manually copied across. If a tenancy was coming up for renewal, the relevant maintenance history was in a completely separate system.

Property managers were spending hours each week copying data between systems and chasing contractors by phone to get status updates. The director, Richard Gallagher, estimated that each property manager was losing at least half a day per week to manual data transfer and coordination. As the portfolio grew, the problem was getting worse, not better. The business needed to expand its capacity without simply adding headcount.

The Solution

We built a single bespoke property management platform that replaced all three tools. The platform was designed around how Gallagher's property managers and contractors actually worked, not around a generic property management template.

The core of the platform was a unified maintenance request portal. Tenants could submit requests online through a simple form, attaching photos if relevant. Requests were automatically routed to the correct property manager based on portfolio assignment. Property managers could see the full tenancy record, maintenance history, and contractor availability all in one view.

The contractor portal was a significant time-saver. Instead of property managers calling contractors to assign and chase jobs, contractors received jobs digitally, could accept or flag conflicts immediately, updated job status in real time, and submitted completion photos through the portal. Automated reminders went out 24 hours before a scheduled job and again on the morning of the appointment, dramatically reducing no-shows.

The tenancy lifecycle module handled renewals, inspections, and deposits. When a tenancy was approaching its renewal date, the system automatically flagged it, generated a renewal task, and tracked it through to completion. Inspection reports could be completed in the portal on mobile and automatically attached to the relevant tenancy record. Deposit deductions were logged against the maintenance history for reference if disputes arose.

The real-time dashboard gave Richard and his senior property managers a portfolio-wide view: how many open maintenance requests, what stage they were at, which contractors had outstanding jobs, and which tenancies were coming up for renewal. This was information that had previously required manually interrogating three separate systems.

The project took 14 weeks from initial discovery to full launch, including data migration from all three legacy systems. We provided 30 days of post-launch support while the team adapted to the new workflow.

The Results

The most significant impact was operational capacity. By eliminating the manual data transfer between systems and giving contractors a self-service portal, each property manager recovered close to half a day per week. That time was reinvested in managing a larger portfolio. The 35% increase in properties managed per head meant Gallagher could grow their portfolio without hiring additional property managers.

The contractor no-show rate dropped by 60% within the first two months. The automated reminder system, which sent a reminder 24 hours before a job and again on the day, combined with the digital job acceptance flow, meant contractors were confirming appointments rather than being chased. When a contractor did need to reschedule, they could do it in the portal rather than by phone, and the property manager was notified automatically.

Maintenance response time fell from an average of four days to under two. The improvement came from removing the friction in assigning jobs - when a request came in, the property manager could see contractor availability in the same interface and assign the job in seconds rather than making multiple calls to find an available tradesperson.

Technical Overview

The platform is a cloud-native web application with separate authenticated portals for property managers, administrators, and contractors. The tenant-facing maintenance submission form is public-facing with no login required for basic submissions, with optional account creation for tenants who want to track their request status.

The contractor portal is mobile-optimised for use on-site, with photo upload, job status updates, and digital sign-off all accessible on a smartphone. Automated notifications are handled via email and SMS for contractors and email for tenants and property managers.

Data was migrated from all three legacy systems over a single weekend cutover, with validation checks run against the source data before and after migration. Gallagher's team ran the old and new systems in parallel for two weeks before fully switching over, which meant any gaps in the migration could be identified with the safety net of the legacy data still accessible.

Gallagher owns the source code outright. The platform runs on their own cloud infrastructure with no ongoing licence fees or per-user charges.