Nabeel Al Nassir
November 4, 2026
8 Min read
Strata and commercial property management software runs buildings and leases that residential rent-roll systems were not built for. Strata managers need funds per scheme, levies by entitlement, meeting records and a clear split between common property and lots. Commercial managers need outgoings recovery, rent reviews, lease critical dates and state retail lease disclosure. When one agency manages all three portfolio types, a custom build or custom layer is often justified.
Strata management software supports the administration of a strata scheme, also called an owners corporation or body corporate depending on the state. It keeps the roll of lots and owners, raises and collects levies, manages the scheme's funds, records meetings and resolutions, handles insurance and maintenance, and produces financial statements for owners.
Commercial property management software supports the leasing and operation of offices, shops, industrial units and mixed-use buildings. It tracks leases and their terms, calculates and recovers outgoings, schedules rent reviews and option dates, manages tenant arrears and maintenance, and reports on vacancy and income to owners.
Both sit apart from residential property management, where the core relationship is one landlord, one tenant and a standard tenancy agreement. That difference is why agencies often find their residential platform stretched when they take on strata schemes or commercial buildings.
Most property management platforms are designed first for the largest market, residential leasing, and add strata or commercial features later. The added modules often work for simple cases and struggle as soon as the portfolio grows.
The underlying reason is the data model. A residential tenancy has one property, one owner and one tenancy at a time. A strata scheme has many lots, many owners, several funds, a committee and a meeting cycle. A commercial building has many tenancies, each with its own lease clauses, its share of outgoings and its own review dates. Representing those structures with custom fields on a residential model produces a system that stores the data but cannot calculate with it, so the real calculations move to spreadsheets.
That is the same workaround signal that drives any build-or-buy decision. Our guide to property management software: build or buy explains the general framework. Strata and commercial portfolios simply reach it sooner.
Strata law is set by each state, and the structures differ in ways software has to reflect.
In New South Wales, the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 requires an owners corporation to keep an administrative fund for day-to-day costs and a capital works fund for major repairs and replacements, supported by a 10-year capital works fund plan. In Queensland, the Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 uses an administrative fund and a sinking fund, with the sinking fund planned against forecast capital spending. In Victoria, the Owners Corporations Act 2006 requires an administrative fund, and larger owners corporations must prepare a maintenance plan, with a maintenance fund to pay for it.
Levies are usually apportioned by each lot's entitlement or liability, set in the scheme's registered documents, rather than split equally. Software needs to calculate levies per fund per lot, issue notices, receipt payments into the right fund, apply interest on arrears where the scheme allows, and report arrears by lot and by scheme.
Meetings and records are the next requirement. Annual general meetings, committee meetings and special resolutions all follow statutory notice periods and voting rules. The system should produce notices, record attendance, proxies and votes, and keep minutes and resolutions in a searchable record that owners and auditors can rely on.
Maintenance needs a clear split between common property, which the owners corporation maintains, and lot property, which is each owner's responsibility. A maintenance request system that cannot tell the difference sends the wrong invoices to the wrong people. For agencies managing several schemes, cross-scheme dashboards showing arrears, upcoming meetings, insurance renewals and open maintenance save a great deal of checking scheme by scheme.
Commercial leases carry more terms that affect money than residential tenancies do, and each needs to be modelled rather than noted.
Outgoings recovery is the largest. Many commercial leases pass a share of the building's operating costs, such as council rates, insurance, cleaning and maintenance, on to tenants. The system needs to hold each tenant's percentage or area-based share, estimate outgoings for the year, bill tenants in instalments and reconcile actual spending against estimates at year end.
Rent reviews come next. Leases may set reviews by CPI, by a fixed percentage, or to market, on specific dates, and some include ratchet clauses or caps. The system should schedule each review, calculate the new rent where the method allows, and record the outcome.
Retail leases add another layer. Each state has its own retail leasing legislation, including the Retail Leases Act 1994 in New South Wales, the Retail Leases Act 2003 in Victoria and the Retail Shop Leases Act 1994 in Queensland. These Acts set rules on matters such as disclosure statements before a lease is signed, how outgoings may be recovered and reported, and minimum terms. Software used for retail portfolios should prompt the right documents at the right time and keep the evidence they were provided.
Critical dates tie it together. Lease expiries, option exercise windows, make-good obligations, bank guarantee expiries and insurance certificates all have deadlines with real financial consequences if missed. A commercial system should surface them well in advance, by building and by portfolio.
Many Australian agencies manage more than one portfolio type, and many owners hold more than one kind of property. An investor might own a rental unit, a lot in a strata scheme and a share of a commercial building. When each portfolio type lives in a different system, that owner receives three statements from three systems, and the agency reconciles owner details across all three.
A platform that represents residential tenancies, strata schemes and commercial leases in one data model avoids that. The owner has one record and one portal showing their whole position. Staff log in once. Reporting across the business, such as income by portfolio type or arrears across all properties, comes from one database instead of three exports.
Custom software is not the answer for every strata or commercial portfolio. A specialist strata platform, or a commercial platform with strong outgoings and lease management, may fit a single-type portfolio well. The case for custom strengthens when an agency runs several portfolio types together, when state differences across multiple offices strain a single platform, when owners and investors need consolidated reporting, or when the same spreadsheets are rebuilt every month to do calculations the platform should do.
A middle path is often available. An agency can keep a specialist platform for one portfolio type and build a custom layer that combines data for owner reporting and management dashboards. Pixbit's unified property platform shows what bringing several property services into one system looks like.
Strata and commercial property management carry structures that residential platforms model poorly: funds and levies per scheme, meeting records, common property rules, outgoings recovery, rent reviews and retail lease obligations that differ by state. Agencies that manage these portfolios, especially alongside residential rent rolls, often benefit from a custom build or a custom layer that brings everything into one view. For how these portfolios sit within broader agency systems, see our guide to real estate software development in Australia.
Strata management software supports the administration of strata schemes, also called owners corporations or bodies corporate. It manages the roll of lots and owners, levies, the scheme's funds, meetings and resolutions, insurance, maintenance and financial reporting.
The administrative fund pays day-to-day costs such as cleaning, insurance and management fees. The capital works fund in New South Wales, or the sinking fund in Queensland, saves for major repairs and replacements. In Victoria, larger owners corporations use a maintenance plan and maintenance fund for the same purpose.
Yes, if it is built to represent all three. A single data model lets owners see their whole portfolio in one place and lets the agency report across all property types without combining exports from separate systems.
Outgoings recovery is the process of passing a tenant's agreed share of a building's operating costs, such as rates, insurance and maintenance, on to them under a commercial lease. It usually involves an annual estimate, instalment billing and a year-end reconciliation.
Yes. Each state has retail leasing legislation, such as the Retail Leases Act 1994 in New South Wales, the Retail Leases Act 2003 in Victoria and the Retail Shop Leases Act 1994 in Queensland, which set rules on disclosure, outgoings and lease terms.
Often not. A small, single-state strata portfolio is usually well served by a specialist platform. Custom work becomes worthwhile as schemes multiply, portfolio types mix and spreadsheet workarounds grow.
Pixbit builds property platforms that handle strata schemes, commercial leases and residential rent rolls in one system, or custom layers that connect the platforms an agency already uses. A reporting or integration layer sits at the lower end of the investment range and a complete multi-portfolio platform at the higher end. To work out which fits your portfolio, book a discovery session, because Pixbit scopes in a single discovery session.
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