Guide / real estate, honestly
Inventory management for real estate: the honest version
An agency's "inventory" is listings, not stock. But around property there is real inventory — maintenance supplies, FF&E for furnished lets, staging furniture — and that is the part a stock record can hold.
The key facts
- Agencies do not hold product stock — their "inventory" is listings and contracts, which CRM and trust accounting own, not BSimple.
- Real inventory exists around property: maintenance and trade supplies, FF&E for furnished and holiday lets, staging furniture, signage.
- What that record needs: quantities per location or per property, asset history per site, purchasing from reorder levels, invoicing to Xero/MYOB.
- BSimple is not a property CRM: it runs the stock and asset layer — from $180/month (AUD), free to trial.
- Where it fits: this page is one branch of the inventory management guide.
- 01The key facts
- 02What "inventory" means in real estate
- 03What the record looks like around property
- 04Where BSimple fits — and does not
What "inventory" means in real estate
Start with the honest boundary: sales and leasing agencies manage listings, buyers and trust accounts — software for that is property CRM and trust-accounting territory, and BSimple does not claim it. If that is the whole requirement, the right software is property software.
The word inventory is still real in and around property, just narrower: maintenance supplies a property management team buys and issues repeatedly; furniture, fixtures and equipment in furnished rentals and short-stay apartments, where each property holds assets with a service life; staging furniture that moves between properties for sale campaigns; signage and keys that vanish in ways worth recording. All of it is stock and assets — exactly what an inventory record is for.
What the record looks like around property
- Quantities per location — where a location is a store room, a depot, or a property address holding FF&E.
- Asset lifetime per property — what was installed or placed there, when, and its maintenance history; BSimple's projects pattern (reserve, install, consume on invoice) fits furnished-let fitouts and staging moves.
- Purchasing from demand — maintenance consumables reorder-driven rather than ad hoc, with price variance caught before payment.
- Invoicing where money changes — chargebacks to owners for done work, invoiced and pushed to Xero or MYOB.
- Audit trail — who took the hot water system keys and the spare part, and when.
How trade businesses run jobs is the closest pattern — property maintenance is trade work with addresses. The design of the record explains how locations and items are modelled.
Where BSimple fits — and does not
We build BSimple, so weigh that. If you run maintenance teams, furnished lets with real FF&E, or a staging/hire operation, BSimple carries the stock and asset layer on one record — live quantities, purchasing, projects for per-property work, invoicing with the accounting handoff — from $180/month (AUD), with a free trial on one property's worth of assets.
It does not replace property CRM, trust accounting or inspections software, and we do not claim integrations with them. The honest composition: property software for listings and trusts, BSimple for everything physical behind the doors it manages. The development-side view covers how the record adapts to non-retail uses, and the hospitality pattern — par-level stock across many small rooms — is the nearest cousin to furnished-let inventory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do real estate agencies need inventory management software?
The agency itself usually needs property CRM, not inventory software — listings and trust accounts are a different domain. The need becomes real when the business holds physical stock: maintenance supplies, FF&E in furnished lets, staging furniture or trade materials.
Is BSimple a property management system?
No. BSimple does not manage listings, tenants, trust accounts or inspections. It manages stock, assets, purchasing and invoicing — the physical layer behind property operations, from $180/month (AUD).
Can we track furniture and appliances per property?
Yes — properties work as locations and projects: items placed at a property are recorded against it with installation dates and maintenance history, so the FF&E register reads from the record instead of a spreadsheet per building.
How do we test it on our portfolio?
Run one property: record its FF&E, raise one maintenance purchase, invoice one chargeback to an owner. If that chain reads clean, the rest of the portfolio is repetition.
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