Strata management software for Australian strata managers

What does strata software have to do that property software doesn’t?

A rent roll manages properties for owners. A strata manager manages companies made of owners, each with its own funds, committee, by-laws, insurance and meetings, and each legally separate from the next. That changes the software problem. A 300 scheme portfolio is 300 sets of books, 300 AGM cycles and 300 by-law registers, and staff still need to work across all of them in one morning.

Four things follow from that:

• Separation by scheme. Money, documents, votes and correspondence must never cross between schemes, even in a shared inbox.
• A calendar of statutory events. AGMs, insurance renewals, fire safety statements, levy runs and government reporting, per scheme.
• Decisions by resolution. Many actions need a committee or general meeting decision on record before the manager can act.
• Many audiences. Owners, tenants, committee members, building managers, contractors and insurers all need different views of the same scheme.

The core ledger: StrataMax, Strata Master, Urbanise or PropertyIQ

Keep the ledger. These products are built for strata trust accounting, levies and meeting administration, and replacing one is rarely worth the risk. StrataMax, MRI’s Strata Master, Urbanise, PropertyIQ and BCSystems all cover levies, the administrative and capital works funds, owner records and meeting documents to varying depths.

Where they fall short is the work between the ledger and the people:

Gap	What usually happens	What a custom tool does
Inbox handling across schemes	Shared mailboxes, manual filing by scheme	Classify each email by scheme and topic, draft a reply, file it
Defects and work orders	Spreadsheets per building, contractor emails	One tracker across schemes with photos, quotes, approvals and status
Committee reporting	PDFs assembled by hand	Generated scheme reports on demand
Regulatory deadlines	Staff memory and calendars	A deadline register per scheme, driven by the rules for its state

Integration is realistic. StrataMax documents a REST API for third party vendors, with credentials from StrataMax and an API key granted with each client’s approval for each endpoint permission. MRI describes a two way integration between Strata Master and StrataVote for meetings and electronic voting. Confirm the exact endpoints you need before scoping.

The NSW reform timeline, and what each stage asks of your systems

NSW is delivering the 2021 statutory review of strata laws in stages, so systems need updating several times rather than once. The NSW Government’s strata laws page lists these stages at the time of writing (November 2026).

Date	Change (summarised)	System impact
3 February 2025	Strata managing agent disclosure of commissions and training	Disclosure records per scheme
1 July 2025	Unfair contract terms protections, accessibility works, assistance animals, developer rules; managing agent reports every six months	Six monthly report on delegated functions per scheme
27 October 2025	Building manager duties, standard payment plans for overdue levies, Financial Hardship Information Statement on levy notices, stronger Fair Trading powers	Levy notice templates, payment plan tracking
1 April 2026	Standard forms for capital works fund plans, independent certification of initial maintenance schedules, embedded network details on strata certificates	New forms and certificate fields
1 October 2026	Strata committee training within 3 months of appointment, two lot schemes exempt from annual reporting	Training tracker per committee member
23 October 2026	New and increased penalties, clarified agent disclosure, payment plans extended to current levies and interest	Payment plan logic, disclosure records
2027 (planned)	EV charging rights; for mixed use buildings, a maximum 3 year term for managing agents, default quorums for building management committees and recordkeeping standards	Contract term tracking, contracts register

The six monthly report, under section 55 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 as amended, covers the manager’s actions on meetings and records, finances, levies, insurance and by-law notices. That is exactly the kind of report a system can assemble from activity data instead of a person writing it from memory.

AGMs, electronic voting and minutes

Online meetings and voting are allowed in NSW within the rules, and the software must follow each scheme’s resolutions rather than assume them. Pre-meeting electronic voting was permitted by 2022 regulation changes, but an election of the strata committee can’t be decided by it. Owners corporations also have to take reasonable steps to let people participate, which in practice means offering more than one way to attend and vote.

A meeting workflow that stands up has these parts:

1. Notice and agenda generated from the scheme’s record, with the voting methods the scheme has adopted.
2. Proxies, priority votes and financial status checked automatically against the ledger.
3. Pre-meeting votes closed before the meeting and kept separate for any motion amended at it.
4. Live attendance and votes recorded with timestamps.
5. Draft minutes produced from the record, reviewed by the manager and chair, then distributed and filed.

Levies, arrears and hardship

Arrears handling now has to show the hardship options as well as the debt. Since 27 October 2025, NSW levy notices must include the Financial Hardship Information Statement, and payment plans for overdue levies follow standard rules, extended on 23 October 2026 to cover current levies and interest. The ledger issues the notices. A custom layer can track each payment plan, prompt staff when an instalment is missed, and give committees an arrears view by scheme without exposing other schemes’ data.

Strata Hub reporting across hundreds of schemes

Every NSW scheme must complete annual reporting on the Strata Hub within 3 months of its AGM, and fines of up to $5,500 can apply for late reporting. From 1 October 2026, two lot schemes no longer need to report. For agencies with many schemes, NSW offers an API so the agency’s software can push the data; the agency still completes privacy declarations, reviews the information and pays the $3 per lot fee scheme by scheme. Incorrect information has to be fixed within 28 days of becoming aware of it.

A simple register, fed from AGM dates, showing every scheme’s due date, lodgement status and payment status turns this from a scramble into a routine.

Victoria and Queensland

Victoria and Queensland run different regimes, so a multi state manager needs rules configured per state, not one hard coded set. In Victoria, the Owners Corporations Act 2006 was substantially amended from 1 December 2021, covering financial administration, governance, rules, managers and a tier system for owners corporations. In Queensland, Body Corporate and Community Management Act amendments that started on 1 May 2024 changed by-law rules on pets and smoking among other things, and further review is under way.

Where AI helps

AI is most useful on the volume of reading and writing: sorting the inbox, drafting minutes and answering by-law questions from the scheme’s own documents. All of it should be drafted for a manager to approve.

• Inbox triage. Identify the scheme from the address or lot number, classify the request, and draft a reply with the relevant document attached.
• Minutes drafts. Turn the meeting record and recording into draft minutes in the scheme’s format.
• By-law questions. Find and quote the registered by-law that applies, with a link to the source, using a RAG knowledge base over each scheme’s documents kept separate by scheme.
• Document intake. Read quotes, invoices and insurance documents into the right scheme record with AI document processing.

AI should not decide whether a by-law has been breached, advise owners on their legal rights or issue notices.

Typical builds and indicative costs

Most strata builds are mid sized tools over the ledger. Expeed’s 2026 survey of Australian costs puts mid complexity systems at $40,000 to $150,000 and simple internal tools at $15,000 to $40,000.

Build	Indicative range (AUD, ex GST)	Main drivers
AI inbox triage and reply drafting across schemes	$25k to $60k	Mail volume, ledger API access, document types
Owner and committee portal with document access by scheme	$30k to $80k	Roles, scheme count, single sign on
Electronic meeting and voting workflow integrated with the ledger	$20k to $50k	States covered, voting methods, ledger integration

These are market ranges, not quotes, and exclude hosting, model usage and maintenance. The workflow automation cost guide explains how automation projects are usually priced, and the customer portal guide covers portal costs in more detail.

How AWLabs approaches strata projects

We look first at what your ledger and its API can already do, and tell you if configuration would solve the problem. Every build starts with our Discovery Audit, a paid step credited in full against the build, followed by a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options: The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build, updates arrive every Tuesday and Friday in Sydney business hours, and the code and IP are assigned to you as they are paid for. We haven’t yet delivered a project for a strata management business. Book a Development Consult to talk through your portfolio, or read our property management software page for the rental side of the same buildings.