04.26.2009 by Don Wood.

Recently I was visiting someone at an upscale apartment community. I struck up a conversation with the Property Management and being me, I asked her what PM system they used. She told me and said he didn’t like it. No names needed here. I asked her why she did not like the system and discovered a crucial reason.

It turns out that she has to fill out a report in Excel every week and email it to the Regional Manager. All, I repeat all, of the data on this Excel report is from the PM System. I suspect that not only does each Property Manager fill out and email this report, there is someone at the corporate office that consolidates the data and creates another report.

This very manual process could easily be automated with a custom report. It might cost a few thousand to create it but it would be a quick return on investment in process efficiency and accuracy. All it takes is for corporate to talk to the on-site Managers about there system needs.

Leverage the system you have!

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03.11.2009 by Don Wood.

The trend over the past many years has been to have software hosted and maintained by an Application Service Provider (”ASP”) rather than the company maintaining the infrastructure to run the software. This trend has increased as most applications have become web-based. That is to say, the software is run with a browser (i.e. Internet Explorer) and can be access by anyone with a high-speed Internet connection. As high-speed Internet access becomes increasingly common, the requirement for a Client Server application becomes less important. Many of the Property Management & Accounting software companies offer a hosted solution (e.g. Yardi, and Intuit RES). In fact, one firm only provides a hosted version (RealPage).

Should you allow your mission critical software (e.g. Property Management & Accounting system) to be hosted by the Vendor? Here are some pros and cons to be aware of before making your decision.

ASP Pros

Quick Start

ASP applications can often be on-line and operational more quickly. The Application Service Providers (e.g. Yardi) are adept at setting up the application and have the necessary hardware in place.

Low up-front Costs

The entry cost of the application is typically lower because you are often in essence renting it. The cost for the hardware is defiantly lower as the ASP provides all of the hardware. You don’t have to hire additional staff to run the data center, troubleshoot network issues, maintain backups, etc.

Easier Upgrades

They ASP is capable of applying upgrades, patches, and bug fixes quickly and easily. Regression testing and the like are performed by the ASP prior to updating the files.

Easier/ lower cost Maintenance

The ASP is responsible for maintaining the hardware. They schedule backups, take care of hardware failures, and maintain a contractual agreed to up-time.

Lower human capital

Usually requires less people to run the application internally (i.e., web servers, data storage, administration, etc.).  Some of the ASPs are also SAS 70 ( www.sas70.com) certified and that can help reduce costs on Sarbanes-Oxley (”SOX”) audits.

ASP Cons

Less Control Over Mission Critical Software

Having a mission critical software (e.g. accounting) in the control of an ASP is a risk, but one that can be mitigated. It is important to perform due diligence on the ASP, establishing service level agreements, expectations around access to data, issue resolution, back-up and restore procedures, and communication channels.

Potential Higher Cost of Ownership

Depending on the structure of the fees, using an ASP may cost more in the long run. If the fees are transaction based and this is a long term solution the fees could easily exceed self-hosting costs. There are many factors that influence the total cost of ownership. For example, the staff required to maintain the system and hardware, license fees, annual maintenance fees, transaction volumes, number of users, etc. Generally, cost comparisons will show that costs for an ASP will exceed that of self hosting over a 10 year period; even when additional resources are required.

Limited to No Control of Timing of Upgrades

In the case of patches and bug fixes this is a positive; however, it can be a problem if new functionality is introduced. Unless you have adequate notice there may not be time to prepare training materials or train staff on changes. Especially if you have well-defined policies and procedures in place.

Difficulty with Integration of Other Applications

Integration with another application can be challenging and in some cases not an option. You need to examine the architecture of the system and the hosting environment. Are there API’s for the data you need? What is the availability to access real-time data? Will there be any transactional load problems? In other words, is it possible that your request for data can over burden their ability to send it?  An important question to ask is: who actually owns the data and if you stop using the ASP, how do you get a copy and in what form will the data be?

Difficult to Access Data for Custom Reporting

Like integrating with other applications, it can be difficult to get the data required for custom reporting. In addition, some firms (i.e. RealPage) charge clients to access the data. Some data may not be available at the level you require (e.g. summary vs. detailed transactions). The ability for the ASP to send results for data requests may not be adequate, both from a time to process and the ability to process the request.

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03.02.2009 by Don Wood.

There are still some Multifamily Property Managers using DOS applications like Rent Roll and the AMSI DOS version. Many of you may be surprised that these products are still in use and will wonder why do people still use them? Well, frankly, they work, albeit with risks! Smaller, cost conscience firms find it difficult to justify spending the money for an upgrade when the old DOS system still gets the job done.

The expense to upgrade to a new product can be a lot. Plus, new equipment, training and changing business processes can be daunting and costly. But is the risk of staying on the old DOS application too great? I say “YES!” Early versions of Microsoft Windows actually ran on top of the DOS platform; however since Windows 95, DOS is no longer needed and has fallen in disuse. That does not mean you can’t still operate a computer with DOS, in fact there are some companies that will sell you a PC with FreeDOS as the operating system. DOS is not the only problem or risk, you have to consider the hardware, support, expertise, security, and opportunity costs.

Risks of not Upgrading

Hardware
It is increasingly difficult to purchase hardware compatible with running DOS. As I mentioned you can purchase a PC with FreeDOS but that is certainly not a mainstream purchase. If your current PC crashes you won’t be able to run to the local retailer and grab a replacement off the shelf. New printers don’t usually work with DOS and finding a DOS compatible printer is increasingly harder. You may have to buy used equipment on ebay.

Support & Expertise
Most companies that produced the old DOS software provide little to no support. There are few programmers around that know anything about DOS. Most experienced property management personnel are trained on more modern systems.

Security
If your DOS application becomes corrupted there is little support and expertise to fix the problem. Consistent, daily backup best be your policy! In addition, your data is at risk for hackers using vulnerabilities associated with dial up modems. Newer systems are more secure.

Opportunity Costs
Granted, I did say the old DOS programs still work, but in our changing economy and business drivers, the old software can’t compete with the new functionality. New systems don’t merely do the basics; they provide analytical reports, traffic tracking, and frankly too many features to cover here.  Plus, upgrading opens numerous opportunities to improving your processes, efficiencies, and profitability. Having staff run to a dedicated DOS computer to look up data is inefficient. Your competitors are using up-to-date programs with up-to-the-minute data to make pricing decisions and leaving you in the dust! So cover your risk and upgrade before your luck runs out.

Reduce your risk and improve your business processes and bottom line by upgrading to a web-based solution.

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02.27.2009 by Don Wood.

We all want to work smarter, right? Well, I have a great way to increase productivity and improve your communications at the same time. There are software companies offering tools that provide additional functionality to Microsoft Outlook. I’m not promoting any particular company. However, there are two providers that I have tried and used their products with success:

• MapiLab
• Sperry Software

Both companies offer similar products. I have successful experience with two products that offer these features:

• Manage attachments
• Send an individual email to multiple email addresses

There are other add–n features that I have not tried but sound promising such as:

• Hide fax numbers
• Reply to all monitor

My experience
The manage attachments add-in was a huge productivity boost to me when I worked for a firm that limited the size of our inbox. This add-in automatically removes the attachments in an email and saves them on your hard drive. There are options on how you organize the attachments. The tool, inserts a link in the email that you click to open the attachment. For example, if John Smith sends me an email with a 2MB file attached, the tool takes the file, removes it from the email, replaces it with a link, and saves the file to a folder organized, in my case, by the sender’s name. It saves me from having the 2MB file in my Outlook folder and getting a warning that my mailbox is over the size limit.

My favorite tool is the Send Individually by Sperry Software. In the past I have sent emails to a large number of people using blind copy to protect everyone’s privacy. But when I do this, if I’m soliciting advice, I get few responses. I believe most people think “oh, someone else will respond to him”. With the Send Individually, add-in I can have the tool send an email to multiple addresses, each with the person’s name inserted into the body of the email, this makes it appear to the receiver that I typed a personal email to them. When I have done this, I get a much higher percent of people responding.

The other two products I mention sound promising but I have yet to try them.

Hide Fax Numbers
When you click the “To…” button on an email compose screen you get a dialog box that lists all of your contacts, the list includes fax numbers. This tool hides the fax number entries.

Reply to all Monitor
How many of us have clicked the “reply to all” button in an email and regretted it later? The Reply to all Monitor add-on pops up a warning anytime you select “reply to all” to make sure you really want to send it to everyone on the email list.

There are many more add-ins for Outlook. I encourage everyone to consider these tools as an easy productivity boost.

Posted in Process Improvement, Productivity, Microsoft Outlook, Real Estate Software | Print | 1 Comment »

02.18.2009 by Don Wood.

Are you looking at purchasing software for your real estate organization? Not all purchases need go through a detailed process, but if you are considering a major investment such as a new property management or accounting software, a carefully planned selection project would behoove you and your firm.

As with any project, the first step is to plan. The basic steps I use in a software selection project are:

1. Initiating & Planning
2. Define List of Requirements
3. Develop Business Scenarios
4. Vendor List
   
5. Request for Proposal
6. Vendor Short List
7. Develop Decision Criteria
8. Vendor Demonstrations
9. Product Analysis (a.k.a. scorecard) and Reference Checks
10. Negotiations
11. Plan implementation

In my experience, the key to a successful selection project is a carefully defined list of requirements and detailed business scenarios. Gathering the requirements can be daunting but it is a critical step. Involve users at your company. This will get your better requirements and help you to garner buy-in from the users. The requirements should be detailed and sorted into logical groups (e.g. Accounts Payable). List the requirements and identify them by level of importance, such as critical, important, and nice to have.

Well drafted business scenarios are instrumental because they allow you to see the differences between products and show you how the software is going to execute and improve your business processes. I usually write a story board of a process like the purchasing process. I’ll explain how the company does it, what they would like to do differently and I give an example. The requirements should tie to the scenarios. If a critical requirements is to have an on-site manager enter a purchase order (PO) and that PO be approved by a VP based on a dollar amount then I would create a scenario with such an example and list that requirement.

Insist that the software vendors demonstrate to your scenarios and requirements. This ensures that you see how the software fulfills your list of requirements rather than watching demonstrations that only show you what the sales reps want to show you. For example, if you have a requirement for an accounting system to “process payments by EFT,” all of the accounting systems are going to respond with a “yes we do that.” But how they do it is what you want to know. For instance, the JD Edwards system utilizes transaction codes to denote the type of payment (e.g., check, wire, etc.), whereas Microsoft Dynamics - GP has a free form text field where the user can enter the type of transaction. Both methods work, but you may have a preference for one over the other.

And don’t let the software sales representative make or break the deal. I have nothing against software sales people but I have seen clients try to not pick a solution because they didn’t like the sales person. Don’t buy or not buy based on the sales person. Be objective and let the software selection process help you make the right decision.
Remember: plan and then execute the plan!

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

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02.18.2009 by Don Wood.

If you are on the RealPage OneSite property management system there is a great feature you that most users don’t leverage to their advantage. I’m referring to the Letters & Notices feature.

The Letters & Notices feature allows users to create custom letters and notices that can be generated from the system. Data in the database will be merged into the documents and a record will be maintained of the document you sent each resident. Some of the benefits of using this feature are:

• Less time required to generate resident documents
• More accurate documents as data from the system is merged into the document
• Adds to your green initiatives as the final documents are stored in the system rather than printed and stored in a file cabinet

The letters & Notices functionality include:

• on-line training
• preloaded standard documents
• Ability to create custom fields
• Access to hundreds of data fields

There are a wide variety of documents that can be created. For example:

• Lease Agreement
• Lease Addendum
• Renewal Letters
• Inspection Notice
• Late Notice
• Eviction Notice

How to Get Started

The best way to begin is to watch the on-line training videos RealPage offers. They can be found on the RealPage website under training and on-demand catalog. The videos will show you how to create new letters and merge data fields. If you don’t have a test site I highly recommend you get one. Using a test site will enable you to create documents and test them to make sure you are merging the correct data.

Other systems such as Yardi and Intuit RES (MRI) have similar features.

Don Wood has over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

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02.18.2009 by Don Wood.

A few years ago, Microsoft purchased the Great Plains accounting software company and rebranded it as Microsoft Dynamics - GP. This product is not about to take on the property management software leaders like Yardi and Intuit RES (MRI), however, it does offer a solution for a much needed niche: corporate accounting, consolidations, and non-real estate related business accounting.

There are excellent property management software products that manage resident traffic, rent, maintenance, etc. Where they often fall short is in handling the corporate office accounting. In the past JD Edwards has been the leader in solving this problem. However, MS Dynamics-GP is starting to gain momentum in this area. Several large multifamily companies use MS Dynamics - GP. A few months ago I helped CAS (Riverstone’s parent) select MS Dynamics-GP as their corporate accounting platform. I have since assisted Aztec Systems, a Microsoft Partner, better understand the Multifamily requirements.

Microsoft has placed GP in their Office division and that has enabled some powerful integration with MS Office. For example, a report can be run in GP and placed in an Outlook folder. Users can open the report and drill down to data from their Outlook and never log into GP. Therefore, they don’t need to purchase a license for GP. Microsoft has taken a best of breed approach and rather than developing their own software modules they promote tight integration. This can be very good for users. For example, project accounting, project management, and project controls can be crucial to many multifamily companies. Microsoft Dynamics-GP has partnered with WennSoft to bring a full featured product to the table. Microsoft also empowers and encourages their partners to develop add-on products. Binary Stream has created a feature that really enables GP to work in the multifamily space. GP on it’s own doesn’t handle multi-company consolidations as well as needed. But Binary Stream created the Multi-facility module that makes multiple entity consolidations a snap. In a nutshell, the module enables users to process centralized and decentralized AP/AR accounting transactions for multiple entities within a single company database. The same partner is also working on a real estate management module. It will be interesting to see how that develops.

I realize this post sounds like I’m a shill for MS Dynamics-GP. I’m not. I think JD Edwards is a fantastic product as well as some others. I’m independent and want people to know about their options.

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

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02.18.2009 by Don Wood.

Multifamily revenue management has been a hot topic of late. There are products on the market that will cost a fair amount and help you to optimize your pricing. Often these products have a proprietary calculation method that gives you the recommended rental price for a unit. If you have Yardi Voyager 6.0 you already have this feature available to you.

Revenue Management comes free with Yardi Voyager 6.0. Granted, it is not as feature rich as other products such as RealPage’s Yieldstar but it is included in your base application.

What can you do with Yardi Revenue Management?
The revenue Management functions include market surveys and pricing models.

• Market Surveys
  • Subject property
  • Comparison properties
  • Comparison groups
  • Collect market survey data
• Pricing Models
  • Create pricing models
  • Preview model rents
  • Calculate new market rents
  • Review and post new market rents

You already collect market surveys, right?
You are probably already collecting market survey data and entering the information on a spreadsheet or a paper form. With this tool you just enter that data into Voyager. The module will then maintain the information and allow you to use it for analysis and reporting. You can capture data such as property name, number of units, percent occupied, rents, unit types, amenities, etc.

The market survey reports list the data and includes graphs. The standard reports include market survey and rent comparables, effective rent trends, and comparable ratings. Imagine how impressed your boss will be when you present a report with graphs showing the valuable data you have gathered!

Flexible Pricing Models
Voyager allows the user to create pricing models. Instead of using a proprietary black box methodology, Yardi puts you in control. The pricing model is basically a set of rules and measurements that define how new market rents are calculated. There are pricing factors that you can weigh and rate according to your particular market.

Once you have run the pricing model, Voyager will provide a suggested market rent that you can accept or adjust before posting it to the system.

If you have Voyager 6, then you really should look at this functionality. It is easy to use and oft overlooked. I suspect that if more people use this feature and begin asking for enhancements, Yardi will make it even better.

Don Wood is a PMP with over 25 years of experience in project management, business process improvement, and information technology for the real estate industry. Please visit www.dbrw.com for more information.

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