Manual Package Management vs. Package Management Software

The Not-So-Obvious Tool That Can Save You Huge Amounts of Time and Money!

I f there’s one thing all property managers have in common, it’s that they all have to find ways to do a LOT more for a LOT less. That means when it comes to technology, it’s about prioritizing what tools can truly be game changers.

Package management software—usually a stealth expense that many don’t even have a line item in their budgets for—is a perfect example of one of those game changing tools that can save thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of your staff’s time.

Think about it, how quickly can you “manually” process a package? Start by determining how many staff hours are devoted to handling a single package. This includes manually receiving the package, logging its arrival, storing the package, notifying the recipient of its arrival, and finally making sure the recipient receives their delivery. In some cases, you may need to notify your recipient multiple times that they have delivered items waiting for pick up. Factor that into your time estimate. Now multiply that time by the hourly rate you pay your staff who handle package management. Now multiply that number by the number of packages that come to your property on a typical day.

Also consider that the world doesn’t work like clockwork. Things go wrong. Thinking back over the past year, how much time has your staff put towards tracking down packages that were lost or never delivered? Now multiply the hours spent dealing with problem packages by your hourly labor rate and add that to your package management expense.

In the end, it’s a pretty gut-wrenching number.

Now let’s examine the difference if you factor in a package management and tracking software solution:

• From the time UPS/FedEx drops off a package at your office until the time the recipient picks it up, on average, it takes your staff about 6.2 minutes to manually process each package

• Using a package management solution, it would only take about 1.6 minutes to process each package

• That's a savings of 4.6 minutes per package, or 74% less time using a package management solution

• In terms of the time specifically put towards logging packages in, package management solutions reduce what normally requires 2-3 minutes per package to just 20 seconds per package

• Said differently, if you get 50 packages a day, you can potentially reduce your overall package processing time by 4 hours a day simply by using a package management solution