BiggerPockets

Hello Everyone. I am a rookie property manager who is in the process of evaluating the current 'financial health' of all the properties I manage. We outsource our laundry services and receive a check for our share of the income. We are not present when the $ is collected from the smart card machines nor are we given any type of print out (from these machines) detailing the income. At this time, we basically trust that the total $ amount referenced on the paystub section of our monthly check is correct. I have reasons to believe that this company may be ripping us off. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any suggestions on 'how' I can address this issue with this company? Any assistance is much appreciated.

Thanks for your response George. There is no doubt about me confronting this company, was just wondering if anyone else was in a similar situation and how they approached it. I may require the building manager to be present every time they collect the $. Also, with these smart card machines, I can't see how they can't provide a print out of how much $ was collected. Even on their end there must be checks and balances in place to make sure that 1) the person collecting the $ is not pocketing any of it and 2) the amount collected is the same amount credited to the users.

Thanks for responding Steve. These buildings are zoned in NYC and over the last couple of years our water/sewer bills have increased by 30%. I'm going to install water meters to gauge usage (to see if it's still worthwhile to keep these machines) but in the mean time I need to verify 'actual' income. The building in question has 65 units and the washers/dryers are only a couple years old. All of them use smart cards so there are no quarters. In one of our buildings we still have our own machines, it only has 40 units and yet we generate more income than the 65 unit building (contract adjusted of course). Demographics are similar, nearest laundy facilities are equally distanced, prices are the same, similar ratio of young to older tenants and yet our income is a lot lower at the location where we utilize this laundry service. I think I'm going to require the building manager to be present when they collect the $ and have them count the $ in his presense, lets say for 3 months, and see if my suspicions are correct. Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks for your additional feedback George. I'm going to reach out to the company today and discuss how the landlord (us) can verify the actual income on a monthly basis. The agreement we have in place is a 50/50 split of the profits.