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When Managing Director Stuart James Harris joined Harris & Co more than a decade ago, the family business was running on little more than spreadsheets, paper diaries, long hours and grit.
Ten years on, it is a business transformed and a noted full-service estate agency, running complex, time-consuming tasks at scale and managing more than 500 properties. Its secret? Reapit and PayProp is powering its lettings and sales operations.
The bad old days
With just three people handling the entire lettings operation, every payment, tenancy detail and task required manual effort. Growth was underway, but the systems in place weren’t built to support it, says Stuart.
Once PayProp entered the picture as the looming pandemic hastened the need to digitise work, the agency immediately gained control over rent payments and arrears.
And when PayProp announced its merger with Reapit in 2023 and came on board two years later, it sparked another new chapter for Harris & Co’s business.
A modern CRM that fits your agency like a glove
Before choosing Reapit, Harris & Co had cycled through various different estate agency systems – some buggy, some limited, and none capable of supporting the level of growth Stuart envisioned.
Reapit was different from the get-go. During onboarding, the agency’s data were all migrated across cleanly – from documents, templates, photos. Nothing was left behind, and nothing needed to be rebuilt.
From there, the team worked with dedicated Reapit support to map out how their day‑to‑day tasks, compliance checks, communications and other touchpoints would live inside the system. Rather than simply moving their old processes into new software, they were able to refine and re‑sequence steps and create internal workflows that suited the way they actually wanted to work. This meant once set-up was complete, Harris & Co could hit the ground running.
Within days, Reapit began solving some of the most time‑consuming jobs in the lettings cycle, including the laborious task of preparing Section 13 rent increases.
Instead of generating and sending notices one by one, Harris & Co can now process hundreds in one batch. This has saved Stuart's team days of work and helped them prepare for expected legislative changes under the Renters’ Rights Act.
"Section 13s are a breeze. We just use smart tags, integrated letterheads, pre‑built templates. It’s all really simple, and now we can spend less time in the office.” Stuart James Harris
Visibility, oversight and fewer bottlenecks
Stuart says Reapit quickly became the operational "command centre" for the business. He admits to having a particular favourite – the Reapit Power Organiser, as it gives him a real‑time view of everything that matters to a growing agency:
- Upcoming and overdue gas, electrical and EPC certificates
- Repairs and issues flagged by staff or tenants
- Urgent landlord communications
- Team actions and internal notes
Information that once required calls, e-mails and follow‑ups now appears instantly on a single screen. And because Reapit allows customisation of dashboards, the right information is visible to the right people without constant chasing.
Reapit Bookings: a standout feature for the lettings team
Managing viewings used to be a major source of interruptions. Reapit Bookings changed that overnight.
Now, when a property goes live, applicants book viewings themselves. Appointments automatically populate the correct agent’s diary, which removes the need for staff to coordinate viewing times manually. Automated appointment reminders reduce no‑shows and keep applicants engaged, all without additional effort.
These improvements have resulted in fewer inbound calls, fewer scheduling mistakes and significantly more time for the team to focus on more valuable tasks.
“We've reduced phone calls probably by around 20% because of Reapit Bookings alone. It's all automated to what we want it to be." Stuart James Harris
A powerful ecosystem when paired with PayProp
Reapit’s API approach has allowed Harris & Co to pull together all the other tools they rely on, including serviced accommodation platforms, third‑party communication tools, and, crucially, PayProp itself.
The two systems work in tandem, sharing data to support a fully connected workflow. Reapit manages the operational lifecycle of each tenancy, while PayProp manages the financial side.
PayProp automates the entire rent payment process, from collection and reconciliation to landlord payouts and arrears management. On its own, it has improved efficiency and profitability, but when combined with Reapit, it has enabled Harris & Co to expand beyond traditional lettings.
Harris & Co has introduced serviced accommodation, taken on commercial properties and even widened their geographic footprint beyond Fleetwood into nearby towns. Together, the two systems give the team confidence that they can handle more work without compromising quality.
“There’s loads of software working and Reapit has become the hub of it all, because it all links back into Reapit, which is so rare, by the way." Stuart James Harris
A platform built for the next stage of growth
With Reapit (and PayProp) on its side, Harris & Co no longer feels capped by its processes. With Reapit, including payments powered by PayProp, the team is free to focus on the parts of the business that excite them: customer relationships, new markets and ambitious long-term planning.
Stuart knows that whatever the next five years bring, the PropTech underpinning his agency will continue to support productivity, accuracy and service quality.
“I can’t think of another software that’s remotely close to what Reapit does.” Stuart James Harris
