We run on a log book and a WhatsApp group. How do we switch?
4 min readUpdated 25 Aug 2026For managers, estate staff and gate teams
Short answer
Run both for one month and switch nothing off. Start with the gate, because it is the one change your residents will thank you for in the first week, and the log book stays on the table until you no longer reach for it.
Who are you?
This one reads the same whoever you are
The longer version
The estates that struggle with this are the ones that try to move rent, repairs and the gate in the same week, usually on the first of the month. Move one thing at a time and the objections stop arriving all at once.
Week one: the gate only
- Add the property and the units.
- Give your guard a seat and show him how to check a code. It takes about ten minutes.
- Tell residents they can send their visitor a code instead of calling the gate.
- Keep the log book on the table. The guard writes in it as well. Nobody is trusting anything yet.
Week two: the repairs
Ask residents to log the broken tap in the app instead of the group chat. Answer the ones that still come through the group chat, then say where it should have gone. Two weeks of that and the group chat goes quiet on its own, because people can see their own request moving.
Weeks three and four: the money
Raise the next cycle of bills in the app as well as however you do it now. Let the tenants who want to pay this way pay this way. You are comparing two records of the same month, which is the only thing that actually settles whether you trust it.
The month after that, stop raising bills the old way. Do not announce a cut-off in advance, because a deadline invites an argument. Just stop, and let the people who already switched carry the rest.
- What about the residents who will not use an app?
- They do not have to. You can record their cash payment against their bill yourself, and it lands in the same rent roll as everybody else. Their receipt is in the app whether or not they ever open it.
- Does the old log book history come across?
- No, and do not try. Draw a line at a month end. Everything before it lives in the book, everything after it lives here, and you never have to explain a half-migrated month at the AGM.
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