Brocade
TL;DR: RTM companies need software that covers five areas: compliance tracking, service charge management, document storage, communication, and maintenance. Spreadsheets and consumer tools leave gaps that the Building Safety Regulator will find. Purpose-built platforms cost a fraction of what you would pay a managing agent, and they give you an audit trail that proves you are doing your job.
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You Took Over Management. Now What?
RTM company directors face a specific challenge that professional managing agents do not: you are running a building alongside your day job. You did not train for this. You may have been a solicitor, a teacher, or a retired engineer before your building's leaseholders voted to take over management.
RTM companies have the same legal obligations as any other Accountable Person under the Building Safety Act 2022. There is no exemption for volunteer directors.
The first thing most new RTM directors do is set up a shared Google Drive and a spreadsheet. It feels productive. But within six months, you will discover that a spreadsheet cannot tell you which fire doors are overdue for inspection, whether your contractors actually uploaded the evidence they promised, or whether your safety case report has gaps the BSR will flag.
This guide covers what software you actually need, what you can skip, and how to avoid the tools that will create more work than they save.
The Five Software Categories RTM Companies Need
Not every RTM company needs enterprise-grade tools. But every RTM company managing a higher-risk building needs coverage across five categories. Miss one, and you have a gap the BSR can drive through.
1. Compliance Tracking
This is non-negotiable. The Building Safety Act 2022 requires you to track fire risk assessment actions, schedule safety checks, file mandatory occurrence reports within 10 days (BSA 2022, s.78), and produce a safety case report on demand.
What to look for:
- Action tracking with priority levels and due dates
- Scheduled checks with automatic reminders and escalation
- Mandatory occurrence reporting with deadline tracking
- Safety case report generation from live data, not manual assembly
- A fail-open compliance dashboard — one that shows gaps as warnings, not false green
What to avoid:
- Generic task management tools (Trello, Asana, Monday.com) that have no understanding of BSA obligations
- Tools that let you mark something "complete" without evidence
A building with 40 FRA actions where 35 are complete with uploaded evidence, 3 are in progress with contractors assigned, and 2 are overdue with escalation records demonstrates active management to the BSR. A spreadsheet with "done" in column F does not.
2. Service Charge Management
RTM companies collect service charges from leaseholders to fund building management, including BSA compliance costs. This means budgeting, demand generation, payment tracking, and year-end reconciliation.
What to look for:
- Budget creation with RICS-standard categories
- Statutory demand generation with s.21B summary of rights included automatically
- Payment tracking and aged debt reporting
- Year-end reconciliation with balancing charge generation
- Section 20 consultation tracking for qualifying works
What to avoid:
- Accounting software alone (Xero, QuickBooks) — these handle bookkeeping but not statutory service charge requirements
- Manual demand letters in Word — you will miss the statutory notices and face tribunal challenges
The s.20B time limit on service charge demands is 18 months from when costs are incurred. Miss it, and you cannot recover the cost from leaseholders. Your software should track this automatically.
3. Document Management and the Golden Thread
The Golden Thread is not optional. The Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023 require you to maintain building safety information in an electronic facility with version control, audit trails, and controlled access.
What to look for:
- Version-controlled document storage with tamper-proof records
- Access controls — not everyone should see everything
- Audit trail showing who uploaded, viewed, or changed each document
- Export capability for BSR requests
- Structured storage, not a flat folder dump
What to avoid:
- Shared Google Drives or Dropbox — no version control, no audit trail, no access management
- Email attachments as your filing system — spreadsheets are not a Golden Thread
Compare Brocade to spreadsheets ->
4. Communication Tools
You need to communicate with three audiences: leaseholders (about service charges, safety updates, and engagement), contractors (about work assignments and evidence requests), and the BSR (about registration, reporting, and safety case submissions).
What to look for:
- Resident notifications with status updates on reported issues
- Contractor workflows that do not require contractor accounts or training
- Resident portal where leaseholders can view safety information and report concerns
- Templates for statutory communications
What to avoid:
- WhatsApp groups — no audit trail, no structure, messages get buried
- Personal email accounts — when a director steps down, the history leaves with them
- Multiple disconnected tools — if your communication tool does not connect to your compliance data, you will spend hours copying information between systems
5. Maintenance and Repairs Tracking
Issues come in from residents, fire risk assessments, and routine inspections. You need to track them from report to resolution, assign them to contractors, and keep evidence of what was done.
What to look for:
- Issue tracking with a clear lifecycle (reported, triaged, assigned, in progress, resolved, verified)
- Contractor assignment with notifications
- Evidence upload linked to specific issues
- Cost tracking that flows into your service charge budgets
- Integration with your compliance tracking — a fire door defect is both a maintenance issue and a compliance action
What to avoid:
- Separate systems for compliance and maintenance — they are the same work stream in a higher-risk building
Three Approaches Compared
RTM companies typically land on one of three approaches. Here is what each gives you and what it costs you.
Spreadsheets and Free Tools
What you get: Familiar interface, zero cost, complete flexibility.
What you lose: No audit trail, no reminders, no version control, no statutory compliance features, no evidence linking, no resident portal. When a director leaves the board, their laptop goes with them — and so does your compliance data.
Real risk: The BSR requests your safety case report. You spend two weeks assembling it from five different spreadsheets, a Google Drive, and three email threads. You miss items because they were tracked in a tab you forgot existed. The BSR finds gaps.
Generic Property Management Software
What you get: Tenancy management, rent collection, maintenance ticketing, basic document storage.
What you lose: No BSA compliance tracking, no scheduled safety checks, no mandatory occurrence reporting, no safety case report generation, no Golden Thread structure. You are paying for lettings features you do not need and missing the compliance features you do.
Real risk: Your software tracks that a contractor was assigned to fix a fire door. It does not track whether the door was inspected to a schedule, whether the inspection evidence was uploaded, whether the action arose from your FRA, or whether it feeds into your safety case. The BSR does not care about your ticketing system — they care about your safety case.
Purpose-Built Compliance Platform
What you get: Compliance dashboard, scheduled checks with reminders, FRA action tracking with evidence, mandatory occurrence reporting, safety case report generation, service charge lifecycle, resident portal, contractor workflows, Golden Thread document management, audit trail.
What you lose: Less flexibility than a spreadsheet. You work within a structure — but that structure is what the BSA requires.
Real cost: Typically 50-200 pounds per building per month, depending on features and building size. Compare this to managing agent fees of 8-15% of your service charge budget. For a building collecting 150,000 pounds in service charges, that is 12,000-22,500 pounds per year in agent fees — versus 600-2,400 pounds per year for software.
Common Mistakes RTM Companies Make
Buying Too Many Tools
A compliance tracker here, a shared drive there, an accounting package, a WhatsApp group, and a separate email system. Each tool solves one problem but creates three: data duplication, context switching, and gaps between systems. When information lives in five places, it effectively lives in none.
Buying Too Early Without Requirements
Before you evaluate software, write down what your building specifically needs. A three-storey conversion with 6 flats has different requirements from a 25-storey tower block with 200 units. Do not pay for portfolio management features if you manage one building. Do not skip compliance features because your building "seems low risk."
Treating Software as Optional
A managing agent who drops the ball on compliance can be replaced. An RTM company that drops the ball faces personal liability for its directors (BSA 2022, s.73). Your software is not a nice-to-have — it is the system that proves you took reasonable steps. Without it, "we were doing our best" is not a defence the BSR will accept.
How Brocade Addresses These Needs
Brocade was built specifically for buildings like yours — higher-risk residential buildings managed by RTM companies, resident management companies, and building managers who need to demonstrate BSA compliance without hiring a consultant.
Compliance tracking: FRA actions with priority-based due dates, 11 pre-configured safety check types with automatic reminders, mandatory occurrence reporting with 10-day deadline tracking, and a safety case report generated from live compliance data — not assembled manually.
Service charges: Annual budgets with RICS categories, statutory demand generation with s.21B notices, payment tracking with aged debt, year-end reconciliation, and reserve fund planning with 10-year major works projections.
Golden Thread: Version-controlled document storage with SHA-256 checksums, access controls, full audit trail with tamper-proof records, and BSR export packaging.
Communication: Resident portal with issue reporting and financial transparency. Contractor magic-link workflows — contractors update progress and upload evidence without creating an account. Branded notification emails with status updates.
Maintenance: Six-stage issue workflow from report to verified resolution. Costs flow automatically into budget categories. Every action, check, and issue links back to your compliance picture.
The compliance dashboard uses fail-open logic: missing data shows as a warning, never a false green. You always know where your gaps are.
Questions
What software does an RTM company need?
RTM companies managing higher-risk buildings need software covering five areas: compliance tracking (Building Safety Act obligations including FRA actions, scheduled checks, and mandatory occurrence reporting), service charge management (budgets, demands, payments, and reconciliation), document management (Golden Thread records with version control and audit trails), communication (resident and contractor updates), and maintenance tracking (repairs, inspections, and scheduled checks). The specific tools depend on your building's size and risk profile, but all five categories must be covered.
Can RTM companies use spreadsheets for compliance?
Spreadsheets do not meet Golden Thread requirements under the Building Safety Act 2022. The Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023 require an electronic facility with version control, access management, and audit trails. Spreadsheets lack all three. Beyond legal requirements, spreadsheets cannot send reminders, track evidence, generate safety case reports, or maintain an audit trail. If the BSR requests your records and you hand over a spreadsheet, you are demonstrating the opposite of compliance.
How much does RTM management software cost?
Purpose-built building safety compliance platforms typically cost between 50 and 200 pounds per building per month, depending on features and building size. Compare this to managing agent fees, which typically run 8-15% of service charge budgets — often 12,000-22,500 pounds per year for a mid-size building. Software does not replace all the work an agent does, but for RTM companies already doing the work themselves, it provides the structure and evidence trail at a fraction of the cost.
Should an RTM company use property management software or compliance software?
Generic property management software is designed for lettings agents and tenancy management. It handles rent collection, void periods, and maintenance ticketing — none of which are relevant for an RTM company's core obligations. RTM companies managing higher-risk buildings need compliance software that covers the Golden Thread, safety case reports, mandatory occurrence reporting, scheduled safety checks, and service charge management with statutory notices. Using the wrong category of software means paying for features you do not need while missing features the law requires.
What is the most important feature for RTM company software?
Audit trail and evidence management. The Building Safety Regulator can request your safety case report at any time (BSA 2022, s.77). Your software must prove what you did, when you did it, and who was responsible — with tamper-proof records that cannot be edited retrospectively. A system where anyone can change a status to "complete" without uploading evidence is worse than no system at all, because it creates a false sense of compliance.
This guide is for informational purposes. For building-specific advice, consult a qualified fire safety professional.
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