How to Customize Work Order Budget Limits
This guide will walk you through how to customize budget limits for work orders in your Latchel account. Setting clear budget thresholds helps ensure that service providers are authorized to complete necessary work without delays, while also keeping costs aligned with your property management policies. Whether you’re updating limits for a specific property or applying changes across your portfolio, this guide covers everything you need to know.
The Budget Limit: Emergency vs. Non-Emergency
Emergency Service
The Emergency Soft Budget Limit is shared with Service Providers when a job is sent to them. If a job will exceed the Soft Budget Limit then the Service Provider contacts Latchel first for approval.
The Emergency Hard Budget Limit is the maximum budget limit that you allow Latchel to approve up to. For example, assume a soft limit is $200 and a hard limit is $500. The Service Provider contacts Latchel when the job will exceed $200. Latchel will automatically approve the cost if it is below $500. Anything over $500 will be escalated using your escalation contacts list for approval.
Non-Emergency Service
The Normal Soft Budget Limitis the default budget limit shared with Service Providers when a job is sent to them. If a job will go over the Soft Budget Limit then the Service Provider contacts Latchel first for approval.
The Normal Hard Budget Limitis the maximum budget limit that you allow Latchel to approve up to. For example, assume a soft limit is $150 and a hard limit is $250. The Service Provider contacts Latchel when the job will exceed $150. Latchel will automatically approve the cost if it is below $250. Anything over $250 will be escalated using your escalation contacts list for approval.
Customizing Budget Limits (Company Level)
The Budget Limits set at the Company Level will automatically apply to all portfolios and properties on the account. To learn more about configuration inheritance and how to override company-level configurations, click here.
Log into your Latchel Portal and click the dropdown menu on the far right-hand side of your portal. Then, click Account Settings.
Under the Details tab, scroll down to the Work Order Budget Limits section. From here, you can update or add emergency and normal Work Order Budget Limits.
Customizing Budget Limits (Portfolio Level)
The Budget Limits set at the Portfolio Level will automatically be applied to all properties within that portfolio. To learn more about configuration inheritance and how a single property can override Portfolio & Company level configurations, click here.
Changes made at the portfolio level override the company settings. Any updates made at the company level will no longer apply to that portfolio.
On the upper left-hand side of your dashboard click Places then select Portfolios.
Next, click on the name of the Portfolio.
Under the Details tab, scroll down to the Work Order Budget Limits section. From here, you will see the Company Level Budget Limits were automatically applied to the portfolio. To override the Company Level, click on the override on the lower side of the budget limit you want to edit, and then update or add the emergency and normal Work Order Budget Limits for the portfolio. Click Save.
Customizing Budget Limits (Property Level)
Overriding the budget limits at the property level supersedes the budget limits set at the company level or within the assigned portfolio. Therefore, any changes made at the company or portfolio level will not be inherited by the property.
On the upper left-hand side of your dashboard click Places then select Properties.
Search for the property and click on the address.
On the Details page, scroll down to the Work Order Budget Limits section. From here, you will see the Portfolio Level Work Order Budget Limits were automatically applied to the property within the portfolio. To override the Portfolio Level, click override and then update or add your Work Order Budget Limits and then click Save.
And there you have it! That’s how you can customize your work order budget limits!