What’s the one thing that property management companies and REITs can change about their business to become more efficient? Discover how installing the right property management accounting software can save time, streamline reporting and allow your company to take a more strategic approach to business.
Challenges faced by property management companies and REITS
Property management companies must maintain good relationships with both landlords and tenants. Working on behalf of landlords to manage real estate properties – securing tenants, gathering rent, handling property maintenance and carrying out other property management tasks – they must bring in an income for the landlord and ensure that the property is performing to its full potential.
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are accountable to their investors, who put money into income-generating properties, such as shopping centres and offices. Using these investments to acquire properties, REITs must then make the right decisions in order to lease properties out to tenants, making a profit on the rents and paying dividends to investors. Like other asset management companies, they must generate an income for their investors, act within the relevant regulations and keep scrupulous records on the performance of all their real estate assets.
The accounting needs of property management companies and REITs
Property management companies and REITs have their own specific accounting needs, but finance software isn’t always set up to accommodate these. Routine accounting tasks for property management companies include:
- Producing recurring invoices for tenants, using property management software such as Landmark or Qube
- Allocating costs to different properties
- Consolidating accounts, using multi-compnay accounting software
- Analysing the performance of different properties in the portfolio, and measuring this against KPIs.
These can all be automated with accounting software that’s tailored to the needs of a property management company or REIT.
Case study: how Hibernia REIT saved a day a week in data entry
Hibernia REIT is an Irish Real Estate Investment Trust specialising in commercial offices. The company has over 30 properties in its portfolio, and is required to provide a range of different finance reports for investors and regulators.
The problem: When it launched in 2013, Hibernia REIT had clear ideas about its accounting needs. For maximum efficiency, the company needed to integrate its accounting software with Landmark, its property management software, and Kefron, its document management package. The group also required an accounting system that could consolidate accounts across its subsidiaries and produce detailed, bespoke reports.
The solution: Integration of AccountsIQ software with Landmark and Kefron, together with the automation of consolidation, invoice processing and other key tasks, has made the group significantly more efficient. Saving a day every week that would have been spent on data processing, the company can spend its time on data analysis and strategic thinking, with the aid of detailed reports available at its fingertips.
Transform your accounting function with AccountsIQ
Fast-growing property management group, G2M, has chosen AccountsIQ as their new finance system. G2M’s CFO, Pedro Dalton, outlines how, with AccountsIQ, they’re finding it easy to automate key processes, integrate their tech stack and deliver vital business intelligence.
As a high-growth business, G2M also identified the need for comprehensive, granular business intelligence they can rely on, to inform their strategy and decision-making.
“We need to extract key financial information on a property-by-property basis and combine it with data from other departments and teams. AccountsIQ’s open API structure enables us to integrate other apps, and even our own proprietary software, to deliver the tailored financial information the business needs.”
“AccountsIQ has helped transform our finance function in the short term through its simplicity and ease of use. In the longer term, its ability to operate as part of our wider software solutions will be key to the G2M growth story.”
Find out more about AccountsIQ’s Property Management Accounting Software.
