Custom software for migrant worker housing
Accommodation administration breaks down because it has to track two things at once that rarely coincide: the condition of a location and who was sleeping there at what time. An inspection looks at the first, a Wtta or payslip check at the second, and a spreadsheet keeps track of at most one.
Why the clock is now ticking
The Stichting Normering Flexwonen (SNF) manages the standard for housing migrant workers, with requirements for safety, hygiene, space, sanitation and facilities. Anyone registered must have all their active locations inspected within a two-year cycle. In practice, full coverage means half the locations in one year and the other half in the following year.
What changes the urgency is the Act on the Admission of Temporary Agency Workers (Wet toelating terbeschikkingstelling arbeidskrachten, Wtta). It came into force on 1 January 2026 and will be actively enforced from 1 January 2027. An employment agency that offers or arranges accommodation must be SNF-certified to be admitted. A certification that long felt voluntary has thus become a condition for being permitted to supply labour.
The administrative burden underneath this is often underestimated. You need to be able to show, per location, when it was last inspected and what was done with the findings, and per resident, when they lived where, what was deducted and whether they are registered. Those two records collide at every move, and moves are the norm in this sector rather than the exception.
How we build this
The period of residence is the unit here: one resident, one location, a start and an end. Once that is fixed, occupancy, deductions and inspection coverage follow from it.
We start with what exists today: key lists, transfer notices, a spreadsheet per house. Where those disagree is where your risk lies, and that is almost always with interim moves.
Two registers that connect through a period of residence. Whoever merges them later cannot answer who was sleeping in that house in June.
For each location, when it is next due and whether coverage is on track. A cycle that only becomes visible at the end of the second year can no longer be corrected in time.
We have the system run through your current locations and residents and show the gaps. The outcome is rarely pleasant, and that is precisely why it is worth starting now.
What the software actually does
The location register with residence periods carries everything. Which components you need depends on whether you provide housing yourself or purchase it from an accommodation provider.
Location register with standard characteristics
For each location, the number of sleeping places, sanitary facilities, amenities and the characteristics the standard assesses. Without recording these, every inspection becomes a fresh inventory.
Periods of residence per resident
Who slept where, and from when to when. This is the only data point that lets you answer a question about a given month after the fact, and it is usually the one that is missing.
Monitored inspection cycle
For each location, the most recent and the next inspection, with a view of coverage across the whole cycle. The system warns you while there is still time to schedule.
Findings with follow-up
A shortcoming from an inspection or a complaint from a resident becomes an action with an owner and a deadline. A list of findings without follow-up is damaging at a re-inspection.
Deductions and occupancy substantiated
The amount withheld per resident for accommodation, linked to the period they actually stayed there. In an inspection, what matters is that link and not the amount.
Integration with your staffing system
Residents are usually agency workers too. We integrate with your existing staffing agency software through integrations, so that an employee is only entered once.
Who we build for
Your role determines which part of this administration falls to you. Four situations.
Temporary staffing agencies and secondment providers
You both lend out staff and provide housing, and since the enforcement of the Wtta these two are linked. Your greatest risk is a move that has been recorded in the personnel administration but not in the housing administration.
Accommodation providers and operators
You rent to labour-hire companies and carry the standard at your locations. Your clients will ask you for coverage, because they need it for their own licensing. Inspections of the location itself run through the SNF app.
Employers who provide their own housing
At agricultural businesses, food production and logistics this often happens on the company's own site. The organisation is not set up for it, and the administration then lives in a folder with the site manager.
Managers and intermediaries
You arrange housing on behalf of someone else and sit between owner and resident. Who is responsible for what must be visible in your administration, not in a contract nobody picks up. For the structural condition of the properties there is a separate track via condition assessment under NEN 2767.
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Explore OneDayBuild →Technology and integrations
The standard is reviewed periodically and the implementation of the Wtta is still being further defined. Everything related to this should be configurable and retained per version.
Why Appfront
The cycle runs over two years, not one
Anyone who only checks whether coverage is in order in the second year cannot catch up. We make coverage visible from the first month.
The residence period is the missing piece of data
Almost every administration records residents and locations, yet almost none records the period in between. Without that period, no question about the past can be answered.
This is sensitive personal data
Where someone sleeps is particularly sensitive, especially when they depend on their employer. We apply access by role and retention periods per data type, rather than keeping everything.
One employee, not two files
We connect to your existing payroll administration through integrations, so that a move doesn't have to be entered in two places.
Security and privacy
This administration holds data that carries more weight than ordinary personnel records: the home address of someone who depends on their employer for accommodation, often alongside identity documents and deductions from wages. We therefore keep access tightly controlled by role, show a location manager only the residents of their own locations, and log every instance of access.
Retention requires a deliberate choice rather than a habit. You need to keep residence data long enough to answer an inspection and no longer than that, and identity documents follow different timeframes from inspection findings. We therefore set a retention period per data type rather than one period for the whole file, and automatically delete what is past its date. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside come through our vulnerability disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about SNF and accommodation registration
The Temporary Agency Workers (Provision of Labour) Licensing Act came into force on 1 January 2026 and will be actively enforced from 1 January 2027. Anyone who provides temporary workers needs a licence, and a hirer that offers or arranges accommodation must be SNF-certified to do so. Check with your industry body exactly how the requirements apply to your situation, as the detailed rules are still being elaborated.
SNF works on a cycle in which all active locations are inspected within two years. For full coverage, you therefore plan roughly half in the first year and the rest in the second. The practical risk is not the inspection itself but the scheduling: locations added in the meantime quietly skew the coverage.
The licensing requirement applies to you as the hirer, even if the locations are not yours. That means you must be able to show that the place where your people slept was certified during the period they lived there. For that you need your housing provider's coverage and your own residence registration; one without the other is not enough.
Staffing software is about the employment relationship: candidates, scheduling, hours, payroll. Accommodation is about locations and about who stayed where and when. They share the person and little else. That's why we integrate with your existing staffing agency software rather than replace it.
By taking the period of stay as the unit rather than a current address. A resident can then have several periods, even within a single month, and occupancy of a location can be calculated for any given date. Systems that only record the current address cannot answer that question afterwards.
The deduction itself belongs in your payroll administration. What belongs here is the justification: which period it concerned and which location. In an inspection, that is the link people will ask about. How much you may deduct and under which conditions is a question for your employment law adviser.
Then remediation is the focus, not the finding. A finding is assigned an owner and a deadline, and stays visible until it is resolved, with a record of what was done. At a follow-up inspection that trail is decisive; a shortcoming without follow-up weighs more heavily than the shortcoming itself.
That depends on the number of locations, whether you provide or lease the accommodation yourself, and whether it needs to integrate with your staffing system. The location register with residence periods is usually quick to put to use and gives immediate answers to the questions that come up in an inspection; integrations cost more. We'll give you a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase.
Getting worker accommodation administration in order?
Pick a random week last year and try to write down who was sleeping at location seven that week. If you can't, that is the question an inspection will ask. We build this as a standalone application and as part of a broader custom software development project.