Solutions for property management business
We meet hundreds of property management (PM) companies that adore Excel. If they don’t use it for accounting, then they use it for managing their leases. But is it enough? Changes are not easy. At some point, your property management business, you must ask yourself whether Excel is not limiting your business growth.
It is the right time to change, if you recognize yourself being in these situations listed below:
- The scope of your business operations constantly increases
We heard from many property management companies that they can’t exclusively use Excel once their property management business grows to several hundreds of lease agreements or hundreds of tenants. It becomes too hard to follow on the contract expiration dates, renewal dates, management of vacancies and aging reports. It’s time we start talking not only about the data warehouse but more about people productivity and ability to deal with multiple tasks and increased work-load. Can you integrate Excel to the other systems you use within the company, e.g. accounting? Can Excel calculate CAM fees and bill the customer for you? Do you think there are more or less chances to miss some numbers and lines in double or triple data entry scenario? Advanced software systems like soft4realestate.com can interact with web portals, work on various devices, be used through your browser or through web services for data exchange with other systems, e.g. bank interfaces; and goes hand in hand with Microsoft Office tools so that you can print the new agreement or invoice straight from the system.
- One person knows it all
You know how it gets – someone knows Excel well, builds dozens for formulas inside and everyone prays the excel data will not go wrong someday. But – what if this guru person leaves, you want to add some additional calculations or a fresh colleague joins your team who does not know the Excel that well? Then your business might get into trouble. The same situation is valid for one-man in-house built software.
- Sentiments to the past
Your grandpa worked like this, your dad did, so why shouldn’t you? Well, because the world has changed and business has become different today; the needs of your customer has changed, too… They use their mobiles, they want more self-service, they want information right here and right now. Are you ready to be in line with their requirements? Even if you have some luxurious property in a great place and have prospects waiting in a line – even then you might want to increase your profits, manage deals faster and smarter. Excel in no way goes in line with “faster and smarter”.
Buying a new property management software might look like expensive project, though the gains from increased efficiency and improved operations are a good long-term investment. If you are not keen on investing much upfront, there are cloud based property management systems available, offering software as a service for monthly fee. If you are in small or medium sized property management business and looking for a way to optimize your business process, this is the time to think about breaking free from the Excel’s embrace and start focusing on your profit growing decisions rather than technological challenges.
