For real estate companies with a leasing or brokerage division, commission management can be a complex, multistage accounting process that consumes a lot of staff time and resources. If you’re involved in brokerage and consolidated financial activities and looking to make these processes more straightforward and efficient, consider combining those operations with property management on one platform.

Inefficiencies With Separate Platforms

Historically, property management and brokerage operations have been performed on separate operating systems. This scenario can produce several inefficiencies. For example, calculating complex agent commissions for each deal requires much manual data entry into the property management and accounting system, with agents moving across split plan tiers and different tier structures within a deal.

Invoice processing and commission splits often are entered into the property management and accounting system long after the fact. Yardi clients have reported that up to 25% of commissions they calculated manually were incorrect.

Additional complexities include:

• Commission variations due to the type of transaction, such as a lease, sale or fee.
• Brokers’ custom commission structuring can vary by region.
• Cash vs. accrual accounting methods.
• Commission invoicing and receipt.
• Distribution calculations and payments to agents.

Executing all these operations accurately and keeping detailed accounting records is crucial not just for staying compliant with tax regulations and monitoring a company’s financial performance but also for providing transparency to the agents.

Handling property management and broker activities separately also prevents executives from obtaining a complete, real-time financial picture of what’s happening across the business.

When a broker transaction generates an invoice, for example, that invoice wouldn’t be visible for months until the tenant moved into the building. An open receivables report would show upcoming property management fees and rent payments to be collected from tenants but not brokerage activity or what agents were owed from that income.

CommercialEdge Commissions: Simple and Sophisticated

Is it possible to manage property management and brokerage activities from a single platform? One that synchronizes accounting and property management to deliver a consolidated financial image more accurately and with less staff labor? Yes, and that is where CommercialEdge Commissions comes in.

The CRE solution, part of CommercialEdge and fully integrated with Voyager Commercial and Yardi Elevate, connects agents, operations and accounting processes by centralizing all deal data, documents, invoice dates and commission splits. It tracks invoices, monitors due dates and automates even the most complex commission distributions.

CommercialEdge Commissions provides complete commission and back-office solutions for brokerages and leasing teams by streamlining operations, elevating productivity and boosting revenue with automated workflows powered by real-time business analytics.

Equally important, Commissions brings property management, brokerage and commission generation into one system. All activity is recorded in Voyager in real-time and can be configured to support cash or accrual basis transactions.

This centralization is much more efficient than tracking brokerage transactions with spreadsheets outside Voyager, then repeating those transactions to keep Voyager up to date. There is no more unnecessary manual data entry and manual calculation of complex commission splits among agents and brokerages.

Yardi clients find Commissions simple enough for busy brokers yet sophisticated enough for small, medium or large enterprises, as Susan Olinsky, senior VP of finance for Colliers Philadelphia, notes:

“CommercialEdge Commissions has automated what we were doing manually, which was prone to error. It can handle all transaction types, so to me, that’s the highest recommendation you can get — that it can handle your business needs.”

Susan Olinsky, Senior VP, Finance, Colliers Philadelphia

Managers can view commissions, rent, property management, receivables and more and gain a real-time, consolidated view of the enterprise in Voyager, with the added convenience of being able to pull the data into Yardi Forecast Manager. Commissions can also accommodate the accrual accounting favored by most brokerages.

CommercialEdge Commissions eliminates siloed data, provides a deal data repository, generates custom-branded invoices, calculates broker distributions, provides transparency to agents on their earnings and commission calculations and supports accrual, cash and hybrid accounting methods. The complete integration with Voyager provides consolidated financials for a real-time understanding of business health and broker performance.

Conclusions

Real estate business operators are discovering they can standardize operations on a single connected solution, with Voyager and Elevate on the property and asset management platforms and CommercialEdge for revenue lifecycle and brokerage operations.

With tools for marketing, listings and syndication, pipeline and deal management, legal and research and market data, the CRE software is a one-stop solution that saves time, costs and staff labor.

The post Key Tools for Simplifying Brokerage and Financial Management appeared first on CommercialEdge.

Lease Creation: A Fraught Process 

When executed manually, commercial lease documents comprise numerous Word templates for leases, amendments, addenda and exhibits that are stored separately. The legal department’s staff must then manually populate the draft lease with information about the property and space occupied, start and end dates, rent amounts and increments, insurance and other terms applicable to the deal under negotiation. 

Clauses and legal language are often manually copied from other documents or websites into the draft lease. And because different property management companies might be involved for different regions, lease documents might be managed differently with different language. Amending the draft and circulating it for review can be akin to restarting the process and entering new data. Communication is often executed via email, with the document downloaded, edited and uploaded again; in some cases, the parties edit a shared document. In any case, there is no formal tracking of versions or approval steps. 

As an added complication, the leasing team often has no means of knowing the document’s status, so members must query the legal department for updates. What’s more, determining which clauses need to be in the lease, drawing them from documents stored on a shared drive and then manually copying them to the new lease document can add more opportunities for error. The process might also prove costly as it can require hiring outside counsel or a staff paralegal to amend terms from an old lease document with terms of the current deal. 

This scenario holds true for options as well. As with clauses, options require the legal team to confirm with the leasing agent what was discussed with the tenant, back-and-forth email negotiations, phone tags, video conferences or other channels that lack the capability for tracking approval steps or versions. 

The whole process can be time-consuming, costly and slow down the deal. 

CRE Solutions That Provide an Edge 

Fortunately, CRE platforms that use automation dramatically streamline lease document creation, making the process easier, faster and more accurate at every step. In addition, these solutions centralize template organization and storage, enabling the auto-generation of single or multiple documents that can be separated or combined. 

Lease documents can be created from fewer templates while containing accurate data for any number of lease and property types, regions, markets and other criteria. Additionally, terms, clause additions and signature blocks are automatically populated based on the deal under negotiation. 

CommercialEdge Legal, part of the CommercialEdge revenue solution suite for CRE, is a Deal Manager module that eliminates the time-consuming, labor-intensive and costly legal aspects of lease creation through powerful automation. The CRE tool makes finalizing lease agreements much simpler by automatically generating lease agreements with customized approval workflows, document templates and sophisticated formatting capabilities, ensuring that prospective tenants get the proper documents faster and without manual intervention.  

Lease Creation at the Click of a Button 

With the Legal module, custom terms can easily be populated into a template, along with basic information such as the tenant’s and building managers’ names, space to be leased, security deposit and lease start and end dates.  

The system also contains a library of lease- and property-level clauses — sections covering conditions such as janitorial service, common area maintenance, repairs and lease terminations that are specific to certain tenants — grouped for easy insertion into the appropriate section of the template and automatically included into the tenant record.  

With all information populated into the draft, the lease document, including all applicable clauses, can be created at the click of a button with 95% accuracy, with only a few minutes’ worth of tweaks remaining to be made. The document is then ready for automated online routing to legal counsel and others for review and revision. 

Simplified review 

From that point on, any changes to the draft are made within the centralized system, with multiple versions tracked and maintained throughout the process. The Legal module makes it easy to upload and compare redlined versions following internal and external reviews.  

With a powerful approval workflow, the documents can be reviewed and approved before being sent to the external party. As a result, there’s no need to send emails with separate documents and different versions.  

Easy electronic signing 

The last but crucial step — getting signatures on the final document by using proprietary electronic signature capability within CommercialEdge Deal Manager — is just as easy and efficient. The system configures default signers, sends multiple copies in a single envelope with document visibility control, and regulates signer changes based on deal square footage or total rent as a threshold.  

Benefits of automation and centralization 

The automation and centralized storage in the Legal module make lease completion vastly simpler and better organized than chasing documents through different versions. The solution can also reduce the number of templates a property management company needs to maintain. The Legal module users have documented the following results: 

• Lease documents produced in 5-10 minutes 

• Elimination of rekeying and duplicate entries with automated data flow to the Yardi property management system (Yardi Voyager) 
• Easy assembly of the template, deal term data and clause/option information into one document 
• A clause library created and maintained with the latest lease language to embed data points from the deal into the clause language seamlessly 
• Clause group creation to organize clause language that’s relevant to, but not limited by, property, lease type or market 
• Effortless redlining and revision tracking and built-in version comparison with lease agreements populated by information from the finalized proposals 

• Enhanced online editing capabilities directly within the application 
• Full transparency so the entire leasing team can see each step as it happens 
• Staff efficiency enhanced by leasing teams’ ability to access versions on their own, without the Legal department’s assistance or added legal services costs 
• Expedited signing with built-in, secure electronic signatures that sync with Yardi Voyager 

Additionally, efficiency comes from bulk editing clauses in one screen, with immediate rendering in the document. This keeps the entire process in one platform instead of scattered across emails, Word docs and PDFs. 

CommercialEdge Legal provides a straightforward and efficient approach to lease document creation. If you are looking to eliminate the challenges of putting together a lease agreement through manual effort, consider using an automated CRE solution that reduces lease creation to a few clicks. 

The post Lease Creation in Just a Few Clicks with CommercialEdge Legal  appeared first on CommercialEdge.

Many CRE property owners have discovered that optimizing occupancy requires shortening the lead-to-lease cycle. Achieving that goal calls for technology that eliminates manual processes and integrates marketing with the entire leasing workflow in a single connected solution. So, where to start? 

Maximized Listing Exposure for Effective Marketing 

Effective online marketing begins with assembling the right information in a single, connected system. This system should then power as many marketing channels as possible, like property and company websites, listing sites, brochures, email content and so on.  

Managing all marketing content in a single system makes for easy publication on listing portals, with the goal of displaying your availabilities as high in search results as possible. The CommercialEdge marketing module does just that, with centralized and automated listing management and effortless syndication that maximizes listing exposure. 

With CommercialEdge Marketing, listings are not only published on your website but also on leading marketplaces and the rapidly growing CommercialEdge Listing Network, which includes CommercialCafe, CommercialSearch, PropertyShark, Point2 Commercial and 42Floors. These listing sites rank on the first page of Google and generate hundreds of thousands of qualified leads annually. 

What’s more, users of Yardi property management software can sync spaces, properties and key lease information, including expiration dates, directly with CommercialEdge Marketing. Those key lease dates can then be used to notify the marketing and leasing teams of space coming available, an automated process that saves brokers the manual effort involved in updating websites and listing services. 

CommercialEdge also forges the link between listings and deals, with leads from client- and public-facing sites pushed directly to CommercialEdge Marketing and Deal Manager for further negotiations. 

Email, a Key Component of Optimized Marketing 

Email is another popular marketing medium that can be simplified with the right tools. Email marketing is a powerful resource for advancing CRE timelines through professional and responsive email campaigns and automated email and brochure creation. 

CommercialEdge Marketing is an example of a platform that automatically pulls in property and listing information and transmits emails to a contact or a list of contacts — without having to update the information through different fields and filters manually.  

Ready-to-use email templates can easily be saved for later use, enabling information to be displayed for as many properties and future leasing cycles as desired. When a template is applied for a property or space, it pulls in tags that map to various data points, including the property type, size and pricing information. Email templates are then automatically populated with current property and listing information. When emails are ready to send, they can be distributed to individual contacts or curated contact lists directly from the CommercialEdge CRM in Deal Manager. By using dynamic templates, the whole team is enabled with email automation that stays on brand and provides accurate information.  

Customized brochures can be created, updated and dispatched in a similar fashion. CommercialEdge Marketing allows for easy brochure generation, with branded templates that can be applied for any property and automatically populated with real-time listing information. Once created, brochures are always ready to use, either in email marketing or on listing websites. Furthermore, any changes made to the listing details in the CommercialEdge Marketing tool are automatically shown in any saved brochures or emails generated in connection with the respective space or property. 

CommercialEdge Marketing provides a comprehensive database for storing published, unpublished, off-market spaces and so on, making it easy to select specific spaces from a certain property and market them to prospects based on their exact needs. For instance, in case a property owner isn’t marketing all availabilities but would like to show a “pocket listing” to a prospect, having a system that stores all marketing content across spaces and provides easy access to data in one place is imperative. That way, an effective email marketing tool streamlines the entire process by enabling the user to email out spaces that may not be marketed publicly with minimal effort. 

Complete Portfolio Visibility and Real-Time Availability 

Desired marketing outcomes are most easily attained when marketing and leasing are not only integrated but also connected to the property management and accounting system used to manage the properties. That lets agents list properties as soon as they’re available and avoid late and inaccurate listings. 

CommercialEdge Marketing helps market commercial spaces by automating listings based on actual availability through integration with property management and accounting systems. With all marketing elements managed in one place, the platform provides complete visibility into every managed space, organized by lease expiration and the spaces marketed. 

Moreover, the platform can distribute listings to other marketplaces, saving the time and inconvenience of manual entry and data transfer, and automates the change of each stage from off-market to unpublished to published.  

So, if you’re looking for a CRE solution that reduces leasing cycle times and boosts revenue at the same time, consider moving your business forward with a full-service marketing platform such as CommercialEdge Marketing. 

The post Put CRE Marketing on Autopilot with CommercialEdge  appeared first on CommercialEdge.

Friction in the leasing process, however, can arise from the need for more efficient, timely data sharing. To illustrate this point, let’s consider a lease opportunity scenario.  

How Resource Discrepancies Stall Leasing Flows 

A leasing team pursuing an opportunity uses market leasing data, budgets, historical leases, comps and more. But it’s difficult to reach that information when it is stored in folders on multiple desktops or in a file cabinet. With vital details not coming together quickly enough, a prospective tenant might elect to lease space elsewhere. That means a lost commission or a smaller year-end bonus for the leasing agent, while the asset manager is left with vacant space and a missed chance to secure a rent-paying tenant.   

Going a step up from a single transaction, we can see similar issues when an asset manager compiles data for a budgeting and forecasting cycle. Brokers often track their deals and pipelines on separate spreadsheets. In pipeline reviews with the leasing teams, the asset manager must understand each spreadsheet and analyze the data. There is no easy way to compile each team’s update into one standardized view without manual effort from the asset manager. This makes it challenging to get real-time budgeting and forecasting pipeline information.   

One Platform for the Entire Lead-to-Lease Lifecycle  

How can the scenario of a missed leasing opportunity or delayed budgeting and forecasting be preempted? By avoiding siloed information systems and manual data imports that produce inconsistencies throughout the deal cycle. And by relying on technology platforms that house all deal information in a single connected solution.  

This approach avoids error-prone, time-intensive data transfers and relieves staff of manually tracking leads and tours. It also provides a reliable system for tracking activity at the top of the funnel, such as leads or property tours, giving leasing teams and executives complete pipeline visibility. They can see if there are sufficient quality leads downstream to maximize revenue on the property and compare a deal to the annual or underwriting budget in real-time.  

Property management technology providers are making deal management more accessible and efficient with platforms that house all deal entry, tracking and approval. If you’re in search of a deal management system, look for one that:  

• Ensures a consistent process for gathering, managing and reporting deal information.  
• Encompasses NER calculators, LOIs, deal sheets and lease documents. 
• Allows automatic comparison to budgets, prior leases, and other relevant benchmarks 
• Provides access to all parties needing to see detailed tenant information and expiring rent.  
• Automatically imports expense information.  
• Enables a lease to be automatically abstracted directly into the property management system.  
• Includes a sophisticated approval workflow that avoids email tracking or printing deal sheets for signature.  
• Offers access from any device.  

One advanced system is Deal Manager, part of the CommercialEdge suite of revenue-focused solutions. Deal Manager transforms real-time data from the Yardi property management and accounting platform — which has complete data on upcoming lease expirations, tenant options and encumbrances — into complete deal pipeline visibility. It also enables full deal oversight, approval functionality and comparison of proposals against the approved budget. Furthermore, it makes revenue assumptions more accurate by seamlessly adding deals to Yardi Forecast Manager. 

“Deal Manager’s holistic tie back to Voyager was the biggest selling point; rent rolls are always up to date, which means deal metrics are always up to date. Document transfer as well from Deal Manager to Voyager was huge — it allows us to efficiently aggregate info from essentially pre-leasing to translate to tenant files in one fell swoop which saves leasing and property management time,” Kelli Walter, partner of asset management for Partners, explained.

Immediate Pipeline and Productivity Improvements 

Such systems centralize prospect files for easy reference, eliminate duplicate data entry with full integration with the property management and accounting system, enable side-by-side deal comparisons and automatically populate forecasts with deal data. They can also accommodate complex commission structures and provide full details in approval emails, with approval or rejection done within the email. As a result, brokers can spend their time engaging prospects instead of entering data.  

“Technology like Deal Manager gets folks out of email, organizes deals and data exceptionally well, simplifies the credit underwriting process for leasing, which makes it faster to get deals done, and provides extremely valuable transparency into the deal curation process that can be used to analyze the effectiveness of your leasing and asset management teams,” Walter added.

Team members who need to know about a deal’s progression are automatically notified, letting all team members see each step’s impact on the forecast immediately, rather than days later. In addition, the degree of data capture possible with such a system offers a clear look into revenue potential. 

Deal management capabilities are enhanced with a mobile app that enables fast entry of leads and tours, ensuring those crucial details are always up to date. Brokers can scan a QR code and log a tour. Users can smoothly manage prospects and oversee each stage of the deal flow while automatically comparing deal economics to approved budgets and prior leases.  

“With all information at hand in real-time, our team can evaluate and approve without back-and-forth phone calls and emails,” said Richard Hickson, executive vice president of operations for Cousins Properties, an Atlanta-based REIT. “Our leasing, asset management and legal teams communicate more efficiently with Deal Manager, and that makes us quicker. That’s the largest impact of Deal Manager for us.”  

Consider also the advantages of having all these capabilities in a single connected system instead of pulling together information from disparate systems. That’s a formula for getting deals done and never missing an opportunity.  

The post Eliminate Siloed Data and Streamline the Leasing Process  appeared first on CommercialEdge.