Ready for the truth about commercial property management software? Your choice is likely going to come down to just two or three features. (It’s true.)
There are six features that typically matter most to our clients, but of these six, only two or three will make or break your decision.
If you are newly in the market for commercial property management software, at this stage you’re swimming in a sea of similar-looking solutions, so if you don’t ask the right questions, you’re never going to see below the surface. To help you out, we put together six questions your sales rep must be able to answer.
Ask around, compare answers and find out which platform is right for you.
1. What is your CAM reconciliation functionality?
The goal here is to find out if the software can handle a variety of different recoveries.
Recoveries are tenant charges based on the true expense for the property, usually based on expenses from the previous year. A software provider should be able to explain recoveries. Also, their software should be able to compare the amount you charged each tenant to the true expense and calculate the difference.
For instance, in Yardi Breeze and Yardi Breeze Premier, if the actual expenses are greater, the system automatically creates a charge on the tenant ledger. If the estimates are greater, it automatically credits the tenant.
In some cases, tenants are responsible for an exact portion of the expenses incurred by the property. This may be calculated yearly, quarterly or monthly. Your property management software should be able to handle this as well.
Whether you’re doing estimated CAM, actual CAM or a bit of both, it should be easy to complete a reconciliation for all tenants at once. No manual calculations required.
2. Do you offer preconfigured expense pools & charge codes?
The best commercial real estate software comes preconfigured with common recovery setups. You should be able to add new GL accounts, charge codes and expense pools — as many as you need to accommodate your company. Make sure the software you’re interested in can do this.
3. Does your platform include built-in lease management software?
Lease management is crucial to commercial property management software. Breeze and Breeze Premier offer CommercialCafe, which lets tenants pay rent online and electronically sign leases. Tenants who lease multiple spaces can access all of them from a single login.
4. Does your reporting include commercial-specific features?
Accounting and reporting functionality are often standard in the best property management software platforms, but not every system has dedicated commercial capabilities.
Ask your sales rep about each of these reports. They’re all important in commercial accounting, and you’ll feel it (in a bad way) if you go with a solution that doesn’t have them.
- Receivable detail by charge code report: Used to confirm that tenants were charged the correct amount for their CAM charges
- Expense by account report: Summary report showing the total expense in each GL account and the total expense for each expense pool
- Expense by transaction report: Similar to the expense by account report but more detailed. It shows each transaction that is linked to an expense pool, confirming that each recoverable charge is accurate.
- Lease option report: This report shows all tenants, their lease option type, the lease status and all relevant dates
5. Will I need to purchase or integrate separate accounting software?
If you can’t do accounting within your commercial property management software, what’s the point? This means you’re able to run income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, transaction registers and more in the same system you are managing your marketing, leasing and operations for a single source of truth.
You should be able to see accrual accounts, cash accounts or a mix of both. Breeze Premier goes a step further by allowing you to set up custom account trees.
With built-in accounting, report generation takes a few seconds, and you can automate schedules to send to owners and stakeholders.
6. Is it okay to switch property management software midyear?
Starting in the middle of the year? No problem. Just make sure you have your beginning balances. Your software provider’s implementation team should help you import your data. If you are switching to Breeze or Breeze Premier, we are happy to help you transfer your data, get up and running and train your staff at no additional cost.
The truth about commercial property management software
A lot of software in this industry looks alike … until you take a closer look. They mostly claim to perform similar functions, which is why you need to ask the right questions before you buy. Your final decision will likely come down to two or three features that matter most for your needs.
For more on this subject, check out our top features of commercial property management software.
