Revela’s Role as a Software Provider
Revela is the software platform that management companies use to manage their day-to-day operations, including: leasing, accounting, maintenance, payments, and communication.
Note: it is important to understand that Revela is not a property management company itself. Revela does not:
-
Set rent amounts
-
Determine lease terms
-
Manage tenant balances
-
Make decisions about charges and fees
The above responsibilities belong entirely to the management company.
This distinction matters because tenants, owners, and vendors will occasionally have questions or concerns that fall squarely within the management company’s domain, rather than Revela’s. Understanding where that line falls helps ensure that inquiries are routed to the correct entity as efficiently as possible, which ultimately produces a better customer service experience for everyone involved.
Operational Questions Management Companies Should Handle
A large portion of the questions and concerns that come from tenants/members, guarantors, parents, owners, and vendors are operational in nature. These relate to the business decisions, financial terms, and day-to-day operations that your company controls within Revela. Your team is the authority on these matters and is best positioned to resolve them directly.
Tenant Questions About Charges, Balances, and Lease Terms
When a tenant asks why their rent is a certain amount, why a charge appeared on their ledger, or what their current balance is, those are questions about how the property management company has configured their lease. Rent amounts, recurring charges, one-time fees, security deposits, pet fees, and late fees are all set by your team during lease creation or through manual charge entries. Revela displays what your team has entered, but it does not determine those amounts.
If a tenant disputes a charge, believes their balance is incorrect, or has questions about when a charge was applied, start by reviewing their ledger and lease details in Revela. Navigate to the tenant’s profile and check the Ledger tab to see a full history of charges, credits, and payments. If a charge needs to be adjusted, your team can add credits, modify future charges on the lease, or update the charge schedule directly.
Similarly, questions about lease start and end dates, renewal terms, proration, and move-in or move out dates are managed by your leasing team.
Payment Questions from Tenants
Tenants frequently have questions about their payments: whether a payment went through, why it shows as pending, or why a payment failed. While Revela processes these transactions through its integrated payment provider, the answers to most payment questions can be found directly on the tenant’s payment history or in the payment detail screen.
If a tenant’s payment failed due to insufficient funds, a closed bank account, or an expired card, those are bank-side issues that the tenant needs to resolve with their financial institution. Your team can see the specific failure reason on the payment record and communicate it to the tenant. Please refer to the Understanding Payment Statuses in Revela Knowledge Base article for further explanation.
For questions about scheduled payments and autopay, your team can view and manage a tenant’s scheduled payments from their profile by navigating to the Electronic Payments tab.
Note: If a resident’s recurring payment has been paused due to a failure, let them know they need to log in to their portal and retry the payment before autopay will resume.
Maintenance Requests
The entire maintenance workflow (i.e. receiving requests, assigning vendors, tracking work, and communicating with tenants about timelines) is managed by your internal management team. When a tenant submits a maintenance request through their portal, it arrives in your maintenance queue for review and assignment. Revela provides the tools to manage the process, but the decisions about how to prioritize, who to assign, and how to communicate with the tenant are operational decisions made by your team.
If a tenant has concerns about how long a repair is taking, who was sent to complete the work, or the quality of a completed job, those are conversations between the tenant and your team. Revela does not dispatch vendors, negotiate repair timelines, or manage the physical maintenance of properties.
Owner and Vendor Inquiries
Owner questions about disbursement amounts, management fees, or owner statement line items are typically resolved by your internal accounting team. Revela generates owner statements and disbursements based on the management contract and transaction activity that has been entered. If an owner questions a specific line item, your team can review the entity’s financials and the management contract terms to explain how the amount was calculated.
When to Escalate to the Revela Client Success Team
There are situations where the issue is not about an operational decision, but about how the software itself is behaving. These are the scenarios where the Revela Client Success team can help!
System Errors and Unexpected Behavior
If you encounter a full-page error screen that says “Something Went Wrong,” this indicates an unexpected system issue. These errors are automatically reported to the Revela team, but if the issue persists after refreshing the page, submit a support request so the team can investigate. Likewise, if a page is not loading, a button is not responding, or the system is behaving in a way that does not match what you expect, that is a software issue worth escalating.
Payment Processing Problems
While most payment failures are caused by bank-side issues that your team can address directly, there are cases where the problem is on the processing side. If a payment has been stuck in a Processing status for longer than the expected timeframe, typically one to two business days for ACH and a few minutes for card payments, or if payments are failing with error messages that do not clearly point to a bank-side issue, reach out to Revela Client Success. Our team can investigate whether there is an issue with the payment processor or merchant account configuration.
Reporting Issues
If a report repeatedly fails to generate, times out, or produces results that seem incomplete even after you have tried narrowing the date range and reducing the number of properties, the Revela team can investigate whether a system-level issue is causing the problem. The same applies to data exports that consistently fail to complete.
Configuration and Integration Questions
Some settings in Revela are managed at the platform level rather than by your team. If you have questions about how a feature is configured for your account, whether a particular integration is available to you, or if you need changes to settings that you cannot access directly, the Client Success team can assist. Examples include feature availability and account-level settings that are not exposed in your organization’s setup screens.
How to Contact the Revela Client Success Team
When you determine that an issue needs Revela’s involvement, submitting a support request through the application is the fastest way to get help. Click your name or profile icon in the upper-right corner of Revela and select Contact Support. The form will ask you to categorize the issue, identify the area of the platform where it occurred, provide a description, and set a priority level.
When filling out the form, include as much detail as possible. Mention what you were trying to do, the exact error message or unexpected behavior you encountered, and any specific records involved, such as a property name, tenant name, invoice number, or payment reference. Clear, detailed requests help the Client Success team investigate quickly and reduce the number of follow-up questions!
Tips & Best Practices
Before reaching out to Revela, take a moment to determine whether the question is about a business decision or a software issue. If a tenant is asking “Why was I charged this amount?” the answer is in the lease and charge configuration that your team set up. If the question is “I tried to make a payment and the system gave me an error,” that may involve the software and could warrant a support request.
When tenants contact your team with questions about their portal, keep in mind that Revela’s tenant portal is designed to be self-service for payments, maintenance requests, and communication. Most tenant-facing questions about balances, charges, and lease details can be answered by reviewing the tenant’s profile in Revela. The Contact Support page that tenants see in their portal directs them to your leasing team’s contact information, rather than Revela's, because your team is the right point of contact for those inquiries.
Encourage your team to familiarize themselves with the payment failure reasons and system error categories covered in Revela’s knowledge base. Understanding what a specific error means often makes it clear whether the issue is something your team can resolve or something that needs to be escalated. The more comfortable your team is navigating these situations, the faster issues get resolved for everyone involved!