Post orders: Definition and What It Means for Your Property

Why post orders matter to a property manager

Post orders are the difference between an officer who happens to be on your property and an officer who is working your property. Without them, a guard stands where the last guard stood and answers questions from memory. With them, every officer who rotates through the post knows the gate code procedure, which doors are alarmed after ten, which contractor is allowed on the roof, and whether a tow is authorized on the third warning or the first.

For the manager, post orders are also the document you point to when something goes wrong. If a resident says a guard let a visitor through, the post orders show what the officer was told to do and the daily report shows what was done. Both are written down, which keeps a dispute short.

How Price Protection writes them

We draft post orders with the client before the first shift and keep them in the officer’s binder or on the tablet at the post. A typical set covers seven things: the post location and hours, the property map with the patrol route, the access rules for residents, visitors, contractors and deliveries, the incident procedures with the names and numbers to call, the equipment at the post, the reporting requirements and the site-specific rules that came from the walk-through, such as a pool gate that must be checked at close or a dumpster enclosure that attracts scrappers.

Post orders change. A community adds a package room, a construction site moves its laydown yard, a store changes its closing time. When the client tells dispatch, the orders are updated and the change is initialed by the officers on the post. Old versions are kept so the report from any past date can be read against the orders in force that day.

Related terms

A static post is the fixed position the orders describe, and a daily activity report is the record of how the orders were carried out. If you want a starting document for your own property, the post orders template is the structure we use.