Would you fire your PM for this?

A few months ago our PM organised a plumbing repair from their own PM's tradie's list. This job was for just over $1k. The plumber sent an invoice to our PM, the PM paid them & this amount was deducted from our rent received. A couple of month's later the plumber sent another invoice to our PM with a different amount ( a few dollars higher) & the itemised descriptions having a few differences from the 1st invoice, the PM paid them & this amount was deducted from our rent received.

If we didn't check our rental statements property, we would've been double charged for the same job!

We queried the PM & they basically said the plumber has changed from being a sole trader to a company. In this transition a second invoice was generated in another month and sent in error. The plumber apologises. He is refunding the money straight away.

I think this is completely unacceptable that a PM just pays invoices without checking it, therefore we'd be double charged for the same job. Especially when they should know that their own tradie has only been asked to do the job one time. I also find it strange that the 2nd invoice was for a different amount and some itemised descriptions were a bit different to the 1st.

What would you do in this situation? Would you fire your PM for this?

 

I said no because it is a mistake triggered by plumber.

If u find PM does other slack things then reconsider.

Even great ppl make mistakes.

 

Yes this exactly. I’ve made similar mistakes doing my job, if people got fired over minor mistakes companies would spend all day recruiting new people. The mistake is being fixed, just leave it be.

 

You don't feel that the PM should be checking all invoices & not just paying any invoice, especially if they ordered the job only once?

The PM's mistake would've cost us over $1k if we didn't pick it up. Totally unacceptable imo when we are paying them to do their job.

 

Let the PM know that I am not happy that they made a mistake.

Nope.

One of life lessons I learnt many, many years ago is:

“It is MY mistake if/when I don’t check for OTHERS’ mistakes”​

It doesn’t matter if they are doctors, lawyers, accountants, dentists, ...

 

A PM is often managing hundreds of bills each month and sometimes mistakes happen and its how the PM has rectified and taken responsibility for the mistake that matters.

It is odd that the bill amount is different and maybe that has contributed to the duplicate not being picked up. I would only change PMs if they don't resolve the matter properly or this happens regularly.

 

Only if there are recurring issues and problems.
As kierank said, it's your jo to check too.

Everyone makes mistakes now and then, what matters is if and how they fix it.

fine print...ok everyone else

 

You can, but not sure the next one is any better. To most PMs, it's only a job...

 

I see your point. And it isn't acceptable. But u found the mistake before the PM or the tradie.
Quite often mistakes are found by the person paying before those administering.

Ur entitled to be annoyed. there is an idea once is mistake, twice is careless, three times is deliberate.

I think ur already at careless, perhaps thinking the worst.

U are the customer, ur choice.

 

I would have thought any payments out from a trust would have to be approved, and correlated to an invoice/PO? Surely PM accounting software would have flagged the invoice as already paid?

I think I would need an explanation from the PM about how it happened, and what corrective actions are being implemented to prevent it happening again.

I don't think I would fire them though. Any service provider can be "good" when everything goes well. It is how they behave when things go wrong that matters - so it would depend on how they responded.

Cheers,
Inertia

 

I don't think they open POs for rental accounts. Could not have been picked up as duplicate - probably different supplier name or ABN and amount, based on discussion above.

Poor attention to detail from the PM but unless it's a pattern of problems I wouldn't fire them. It's also my job as owner to audit the expenses. Mistakes do happen.

 

Sadly not the case…. You’d be surprise how far the trust accounting softwares have to go. Even the best one out there, isn’t doing the check and connection between work order and invoice.

 

I don't trust my PM to pay my bills. What if they forget to pay the insurance? Nup, no way.

 

The software we use checks if the reference number has been used before so we use the invoice number in this field to try prevent this. Im guessing if the tradesperson re-invoiced under a new entity then it might have a different invoice number.

Everyone makes mistakes, i think the important part is knowing how to fix them. There's been times when I've told an owner something was done wrong before they even knew themselves and fixed it before they even affected.

 

We’ve changed pm’s a couple of times .

One had a clunky accounting system which meant they sent us cheques which we had to cash in ( this is a few years ago ).
Just inconvenient

Second . Vacant property which the pm said was hard to rent . Then we got an order from the council to clean up the front yard as the grass was a meter tall .

cliff

 

So they tell you the truth, just not the solution...

 

Not sure if asked, what is your approved spend amount for your PM?

 

Yup. Other bills fine but I do not delegate paying insurances - I always do that myself.

 

I would fire them and get someone who is more thorough.