FixrOS was born to run the whole building: incidents, meetings, documents, providers, insurance claims, the marketplace and the accounts, with a different app for each of the five profiles that live in the community. All inside the same system. All except one thing: the money, which kept living outside, on the bank’s screen. Not any more. The integration with Unibo is done and working, and with it the community account comes inside the operating system of horizontal property.
What we have integrated
Unibo and FixrOS were solving different halves of the same job. Unibo has built the digital account designed for owners’ communities and property management firms. We have built the system that runs everything else. The bridge was missing, and the bridge is now in place.
The movements of the community account come into FixrOS already matched to the bill, the owner or the provider invoice they belong to. And the orders that until now had to be launched from online banking are launched from the same screen you are already working on. It is not a link or an export: it is the account working inside the system.
What Unibo is and why we chose to integrate with them
Unibo is a digital account designed specifically for the sector: owners’ communities, property managers, landlords and real estate professionals. It is not a generalist bank with a leaflet for buildings; it is a product born from the concrete problems of this trade. Its own motto sums it up bluntly: «We are not a bank. We are Unibo».
What made them fit with us is their portal. From it, a firm manages SEPA direct debit bills, returned bills, direct debit charges, outgoing and incoming transfers, Norma 19 and Norma 43 file downloads, changes of authorised signatories and the administration of many accounts at once with per-user permissions. Anyone who has managed forty communities recognises that list: it is exactly the banking work of a property management firm, with no filler.
Who holds the money in the community account
It is the first question any president will ask, and it is worth having the answer clear before taking the matter to a meeting. The electronic money services are provided by Unnax Regulatory Services, an entity regulated and supervised by the Bank of Spain. The funds are kept segregated and held in custody at Banco Inversis, that is, separated from the entity’s own assets. The community’s money is not mixed with anyone else’s.
Unibo today has more than 1,500 property managers working with the platform and states that its clients save up to 70% in financial costs compared with traditional banking. That figure is theirs and we pass it on as such: anyone who wants to check it can compare the latest fee statement of their communities.
The problem we have just closed
When we break down the week of a property manager with an average portfolio of thirty to fifty communities, the accounting, reconciliation and bills block takes between 8 and 10 hours. They are not thinking hours, they are transfer hours: downloading the statement, matching it against the bills, finding the returns, updating the defaulter’s record, preparing next month’s direct debit batch, uploading it, checking it has gone through.
That work was not difficult. It was repetitive, it was fragile and it was done at the worst possible moment, at the end of the month and with fifty buildings at once. That is where the mistakes crept in that later turned up at a meeting as an argument: a bill marked as paid that had been returned, an owner chased by mistake, a balance that did not match the statement.
If you want the full context of this block, we cover it in the guide on how to keep a community’s accounts without being an accountant.
What you can already do with the community account inside FixrOS
These are the pieces the integration sets in motion:
- Linked accounts. The community account is linked to its record in FixrOS, and the balance and movements appear next to the building’s budget and reserve fund.
- Automatic reconciliation. Movements come in matched to the bill, the owner or the provider invoice they belong to. What used to mean reconciling an entire statement becomes reviewing a short list of exceptions.
- Direct debit batches from the system itself. The batch is generated with the data FixrOS already has, shares and fees included, and is sent without exporting a file by hand.
- Returns that update the defaulter automatically. When a bill comes back, the owner’s record changes status, the unpaid counter moves and the notice goes out without anyone having to remember.
- Payments to providers with the invoice in front of you. The transfer is ordered from the approved invoice itself, with its community, its budget line and its receipt already attached.
- Openings, authorised signatories and signature changes, all digital. Opening the account of a new community or changing the authorised signatories after a meeting is no longer a visit to the branch with the minutes under your arm.
- Transparency for the president. From their access in the app, the president sees the status of the community account without having to ask you by phone on a Thursday at nine in the evening.
What the property manager gains
First, hours. Of the 8 to 10 a week taken up by the financial block, most was manual transfer, and manual transfer is exactly what disappears when the two systems talk to each other. Across the whole working day, our block-by-block estimate puts the time saved with FixrOS at 15 to 20 hours a week for an average portfolio, and the accounting and reconciliation block is one of the biggest contributors.
Second, capacity. A firm that stops losing afternoons reconciling statements can manage more communities with the same team, which is the only real way to grow in this sector without payroll eating up the margin.
And third, peace of mind at meetings. When the balance you show on screen comes from the bank itself and not from a spreadsheet someone updated by hand, the conversation about the accounts lasts five minutes instead of forty.
What the community gains
The community gains three concrete things. An account designed for it and not a business product half-adapted. Lower financial costs, according to Unibo’s figures, which in a community is money that is not paid through the service charge. And visibility: owners who see the status of their bills from the app and presidents who see the status of the account, without depending on someone finding time to explain it to them.
It is worth remembering something that is sometimes forgotten: the account belongs to the community, not to the firm. A system in which each community has its account identified, its movements traced and its authorised signatories up to date is also the best defence for the property manager the day someone asks at a meeting where every euro came from.
How it is activated in your communities
The integration is already available for firms that work with FixrOS. It is activated community by community, as each meeting approves it, so there is no need to move the whole portfolio at once: the usual approach is to start with two or three buildings, see the first month-end close with reconciliation running on its own and expand from there.
If you want to see it working, ask us for a FixrOS demo and tell us how many communities you manage. In the same session we will show you the financial block with Unibo connected and what each community needs to take the step.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to move all my communities to a new bank? No. The community account is migrated building by building, at the pace set by the meetings. You can start with two or three and expand when you see the result.
How is the change of the community account taken to a meeting? In practice it is included as an item on the agenda and recorded in the minutes, together with the authorised signatories who will be in charge of the account. If you have doubts about how it fits your bylaws, check with your legal adviser.
Who holds the money? The funds are segregated and held in custody at Banco Inversis, and the electronic money services are provided by Unnax Regulatory Services, an entity regulated by the Bank of Spain.
Can I still use FixrOS if my communities are with another bank? Yes. FixrOS works just as before with any bank. The Unibo integration is one more layer of the system for those who want it, not a requirement.
What happens to the community’s accounting history? It is kept. The accounting lives in FixrOS and does not depend on the bank: when the community account is connected, the new movements are linked, without touching the financial years already closed.
An operating system for the building that knew nothing about money was incomplete. Not any more. Ask for your demo and we will show you what management looks like when the bank stops being a separate tab.