TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION
We help your organization turn strategy into reality by finding the right technology and the best business process. Assetsoft leverages strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Yardi, MRI, Concur, Nexus, SAP, Salesforce, MS Dynamics, Nesh Technologies, and many more to
recommended the most appropriate software and technology for your business needs.
Assetsoft believes in pioneering innovation within our software understanding as we take on emerging technologies such as, robotic process automation, machine learning algorithms, and even autonomous drone to aid in property management.
Assetsoft is your perfect consulting partner to foster business innovation and growth. We help bring technology and modern business practices for your firm’s needs, streamlining performance, and ensuring a better return on your investment. Whether straightforward or complex, our team of experts can help achieve better ROI in your technology investment by providing expert advice along with choosing the correct method to do so.
It is in the next generation of technology that Assetsoft wants to become the leader in, that drives our company forward – creating the results you need for your business.
FAQs to Get you Started
The real estate space today thrives on property management software that generates and stores massive amounts of data every second of every day. Sadly, real estate is one of the few industries where the data is vastly underutilized. If an organization is not making the most of its data, then it is missing out on valuable information and actionable insights. Decisions based on robust insights (not gut feeling) can help improve your business’s performance and become a competitive advantage in an industry where your competitors are not doing so.
In this article, we will get an introduction to BI and learn about MRI Software’s Analytix BI tool, how it can help you, and how to get the most out of it.
What Is Business Intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) combines business analytics, data visualization and infrastructure to help organizations to make more data-driven decisions.
It is important to note that this is a very modern definition of BI. Traditional Business Intelligence emerged in the 1960s as a system of sharing information across organizations. It further developed in the 1980s alongside computer models for decision-making and turning data into insights. Today's BI solutions prioritize flexible self-service analysis, governed data on trusted platforms, empowered business users, and quick insights.
Today’s advanced phase of BI combines:
Data Preparation
Reporting
Data mining
Data visualization
User experience
Much more than a specific “thing,” business intelligence is an umbrella term that covers the processes and methods of collecting, storing, and analyzing data from business operations or activities to optimize performance.
What Is MRI Analytix?
MRI Analytix Portal empowers real estate organizations to transform data into actionable insights, to move from reactive decision making to proactive planning.
To appreciate and understand the modern BI tools, it is important to learn a little about the traditional methods such as reports and static dashboards. Graphs, charts, and static dashboards tend to create most questions as it is normal for any thinking mind to ask “Why?” after seeing any piece of information. But due to the static nature of the traditional, it is not possible to interact with the dashboard or go deeper into granular levels to get an answer.
Getting actionable insights in traditional reporting tools usually means running more reports or exploring the application for the answers. This results in a waste of management’s time and delays in decision-making. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the next set of reports will result in something of use. Proper BI tools like MRI Analytix seek to eliminate this cyclical and unending process.
Within the MRI Analytix interface, the visualizations can be explored, modified, and drilled into. The interface is designed so that users can move forward and backward through the data sets without leaving the application or a requirement to commission a completely new set of reports.
Analytix Insights Dashboard Overview
The MRI Analytix Insights Dashboard offers Accounts Receivable, Occupancy, and Advanced Retail functions. Every section contains all the information required to make decisions in such key areas. The dashboards are simple and quick to set up, which means minimal disruption during implementation and a short learning period.
Accounts Receivable Dashboard
The Accounts Receivable (AR) dashboard offers easy-to-understand visual representations of receivable data sorted by asset, asset manager, date, amount owing, or other filters. Such insights allow you to design policies and processes that keep the AR Aging (the length of time an invoice or amount owed has been outstanding) from exceeding decided thresholds.
Occupancy Dashboard
The Occupancy dashboard offers occupancy related data of properties in your portfolio such as actual leases, occupancy statistics region, lease changes, and leases to expire soon. Occupancy insights are crucial to a robust budgeting and forecasting exercise.
Advanced Retail Dashboard
The Advanced Retail dashboard offers detailed insights into occupancy and retail metrics. Such insights provide a peek into tenant type performance, comparison between different tenant categories and more. The objective is to understand the reasons behind the good or bad performance of specific tenant groups to bring in changes.
Insights Dashboards for Reporting
You can export data from your Insights Dashboard and cross-reference the data with point of interest (POI) data for reporting, budgeting and more. Data can be exported as an Excel file, CSV, or PDF.
Using BI for Budgeting and Forecasting
Detailed awareness of your trends, accounts, and asset performance is required to build an annual budget and forecast your financial position for the next year. MRI Analytix can be configured to pull relevant budgeting and forecasting information easily and automatically. Moreover, processes can be automated that would otherwise have had to be done manually.
With insights into average aging and a clear look at AR delays you can predict not just cash flow, but also the liquid assets you will be able to apply to future projects and investments. Moreover, insights into occupancy metrics can help you understand your typical occupancy rate at any given time and take steps to improve it, as well as understand occupancy to performance factors. Such actionable insights help you make smarter decisions to ensure that every asset in your portfolio is creating value for investors.
Supporting Your Journey to MRI Analytix
Assetsoft can help to implement a business intelligence solution like MRI Analytix or to train your staff on the tool to maximize your ROI.
Running a property management company means tracking a lot of data. Get the help you need to grow your business and increase your client base by choosing the right property management software.
In this article, we will answer commonly asked questions and questions that should be asked but are not.
Is My Firm Ready for a Property Management Solution?
If you are from a new or a small company, you may wonder whether you even need a real estate software solution and if it will represent a good return on investment. Truth be told, there is no certain answer for that, no magic revenue figure or a tenant count number. So, there is no easily identifiable cut-off point. However, adopting the right technology at an early stage will save you hassles later.
As a smaller firm, you might get away with just having a data admin or data entry person instead of using an expensive software solution. But if you do not have or want to hire for such a role, or if your staff is already overwhelmed, getting the right software will alleviate a lot of problems. Generally, firms tend to go for a property management solution when firms do not want to take on the additional overhead of hiring more staff. If you face a similar predicament, now might be the time to think about the best solution for your needs and budget.
But it is worth noticing that while using software will free up your existing staff to focus on more high-value tasks, the software can provide many other benefits to your firm that may itself justify the efforts and cost. We will discuss the benefits in the next section.
Should I Upgrade My Property Management Software?
Looking for new property management software can be overwhelming. You must know the latest features provided by property management software to make an objective selection. You must make judgement about the features that are right for your organization. This requires an experienced internal resource like CFO or COO who has experience of working on a property management software or an external advisor who can look at your present situation and future goals and zero-in on the right solution as per your budget.
Though generally speaking, the right property management software will help you with marketing, managing tenants, and handling accounts.
Get Discovered Online
Attract Leads
Convert Prospects
Retain Residents & Tenants
Streamline Accounting
Automate Workflows
Manage Asset(s)
Investor Reporting
How Will My Tenants Be Affected?
Organizations that provide better services to their customers do better in the long run and create better value for all stakeholders like investors, employees, and yes, tenants. Any business decision that is made should always be kept in mind.
The right property management solution helps to generate leads, qualify prospects, and onboard tenants. Customers can make online payments instead of paying checks. The latest information can be pushed to tenants easily. Tenants can make maintenance requests and much more. Better tenant experience can help you attract new prospects, retain tenants, and charge higher rent.
How Will My Investment Be Affected?
Property management software brings all the information to your screen. The best property management solutions prompt users to modify lease prices based on daily market fluctuations. Users also get detailed analytics on the project’s performance, with granularity down to an individual unit. Actionable insights allow you to make better decisions, based on data rather than gut feeling, thus improving the overall ROI.
The right solution also helps improve communication between your organization and its investors. While making investments, investors have high expectations of transparency, which requires regular and detailed reporting. Such reporting requires accurate and timely data. The data is easily accessible in a properly implemented property management software system.
Which are the Best Systems in the Market?
As experienced real estate technology consultants, we recommend two solutions that are loved by our customers and their investors alike: Yardi and MRI Software. Both systems offer extensive features such as portfolio management, payment processing, vacancy management, billing and invoicing, vendor management, and more.
Do we have a favorite? We love both. Which one you should select depends on the specific needs of your business and available human talent. Both companies offer robust capabilities. Yardi provides a robust platform and MRI Software offers an extensive partner program with leading applications.
Need Help Selecting the Right Software?
The advisory team at Assetsoft can work with you to conduct a needs assessment based on your current and future business needs, develop a requirements matrix, and guide you through the entire process from arranging demos to the review, ROI analysis, implementation and support.
The implementation is a key activity for any real estate business that has decided to deploy an ERP solution, regardless of going for a greenfield deployment that replaces spreadsheets, replacing an ineffective legacy system, or adding capabilities to an existing ERP. The success of the solution—in terms of user adoption, process alignment, data quality, and enterprise fit—depends on successful implementation.
The first question that a new prospective client ask is “Why do we need Yardi implementation consulting?” or “What is Yardi implementation consulting?”. Incidentally, salespeople also tend to wonder why a client would need an implementation consultant rather than just self-implementing.
Implementing an accounting software like QuickBooks or a marketing CRM like HubSpot is different from implementing Yardi or other property management solutions, which over the years, have evolved into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools that require a comprehensive implementation approach to successfully generate new leads, service tenants, manage vendors, undertake budgeting exercise and much more.
This article discussed how implementation is carried out to give readers a better understanding of implementation.
A Peek Into Yardi System Implementation
A typical process starts with a Business Process Review (BPR) where the consultant understands the client's business and its peculiarities—both from the current-state to the future-state objectives and requirements. The review aids the consultant to design the project plan and create a roadmap for the implementation. This blueprint is key to a successful implementation.
Then the consultant starts to conduct core team training, which allows the core team members from client-side to attain foundational knowledge of the system, both in terms of processes and standard reporting tools and options. The team uses this working knowledge of the system in the next step of solution design to make decisions on setup and configuration.
In most cases, such as moving from a legacy system or shifting from spreadsheets to Yardi, data will be migrated from the prior system of record. To complete the seamlessly, first, conversion experts from the consulting firm work with the client to develop a data conversion plan. The plan includes the data points to be converted, data history to be brought over, and the mapping of data from the old system to Yardi. Thereafter, the consultants will work with the client to build the system with configuration and populate the data, including the data conversion.
Data migration and data conversion require substantial experience for a successful overall implementation. Consultants bring in substantial value in terms of prior experience and expertise as they know every step of the way and have navigated challenges many times previously. Internal teams generally get overwhelmed at this stage. In cases of internal implementation, many realize at this stage that they require external help.
After completion of data conversion, the process flows into the pilot period, which includes functional testing of the system and data validation. A short but intense test of all business processes is carried out. The new system is compared to the prior system both in terms of data and functional processes. Many times, clients require custom reporting, and the goal should be to prepare such reports by this time in the project. At the end of the pilot process, the client conducts a final User Acceptance Testing (UAT). The client tests the system to confirm readiness for the live conversion.
After a successful UAT, the consultant proceeds with live conversion, which is a repeat of the pilot migration, though often on a larger set of data. Clients may choose to roll out properties in phases, depending on the requirements of the business. The conversion usually involves a go-dark period where the old system is frozen to allow for the conversion. At this time, the consultants generally provide end training to the client for a successful takeover of Yardi system.
Finally, consultants then assist with support and beyond as per client’s specific needs or requests.
Should Clients do Implementation by Themselves
The answer this question depends entirely on the resources and talent pool available with the clients.
Implementation requires both time and resources. In case both are available, it is advisable to go with a reliable consultant with a proven track record of successfully completing projects on time. Understanding the client’s budget and resource constraints allows a consultant like us to plan out our role accordingly.
A few clients can carry out implementation successfully, though it is rare. Such a situation requires experienced internal Yardi resources who have extensive experience with Yardi to drive the design and management of the project. Such resources would be required to dedicate a significant amount of time to the project. Typically, implementation is typically a one-time event so most organizations do not have the expertise and resources for the nature and level of work required.
Many clients have come to us after trying to self-implement, asking for help for redesigning their processes, sorting out mess related to conversion, and checking their books.
Need Help Implementing Yardi?
The advisory team at Assetsoft can work with you to conduct a needs assessment based on your current and future business needs, develop a requirements matrix, and guide you through the entire process from arranging demos to the review, ROI analysis, implementation and support.
BLOGS TO READ
"RULES THAT PROPERTY MANAGERS MUST ABIDE BY WHEN EVICTING A TENANT"
There is no other way to put it; tenant evictions are a nightmare. Aside from being very heavy on the wallet, it can also reflect poorly on your business. The chances of things going wrong in evictions are high. So, how do you go about it the right way? Here is the guide you may want to read.
"BENEFITS OF USING REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE"
If you have been making your real estate investments without the help of management software, you already know how tedious it can be. Here is how you can use a real estate management software to simplify your work process, and make data management easier.
"TOP PROBLEMS SURROUNDING REAL ESTATE CRM DATA MIGRATION AND THEIR SOLUTIONS"
It takes a lot of time and effort to build up your client base. Most of your income as part of the industry comes from this set of clients. As a result, it is important that you deal with the problems that come with real estate CRM data migration. We have also outlined the solutions to the top problems in this article as well.
