This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

PM Reach was all about mindset, wellness and resilience. We were able to attend and hear first-hand as the amazing speakers gave their advice on how to avoid burnout, grow, and really succeed in the property management industry.

We’ve put together a list of our key takeaways from the day, so that even if you couldn’t attend, you can still learn what they had to say!

Continue reading “6 takeaways from PM Reach” →

When it comes to business intelligence tools for real estate, you can’t afford to bend over backwards dealing with a solution that doesn’t work for your specific needs, but you also can’t spend too much time or money dealing with a real estate analytics tool that’s over-customized and ineffective. You need something in the middle.

Business intelligence projects often run into two major issues, both of which stem from the natural limitations of different types of BI tools.

• If you use an off-the-shelf BI tool, you may need to customize it for your specific purposes, often by spending an excessive amount of time and money to craft the queries and reports. Ultimately, your needs are not fully met or they need significant support.
• If you use a highly customized solution, the value of the tool won’t be realized unless requirements are fully developed and executed properly. You’ll spend too much time and money getting it to work for your specific objectives, and it could take months before you reap any value from the new system.

You don’t need to settle for a do-it-yourself solution or a “one size fits all” solution.

You need a centralized and flexible business intelligence and data visualization platform designed for real estate that enables you to effectively explore and understand your data. Implementing this type of solution can help you make better, more knowledgeable decisions and inform key stakeholders in actionable and impactful ways.

Here’s why.

Reason 1: You need easy integration with your current system

The perfect solution for your organization should include a plug-and-play portal that’s integrated with your MRI products and data. Luckily, MRI Analytix, a BI tool that’s already been built by MRI to fit the needs of real estate organizations, has been designed specifically for use with MRI tools, meaning you can be confident that the data and the output is aligned with the information you and your organization require.

Reason 2: You need a centralized data store

Real estate firms have different key metrics than other industries, and MRI Analytix meets this need by being a curated, centralized, fit-for-purpose data store that enables analysis of relevant real estate metrics. With the ability to extract the data, apply filters to narrow or expand results and populate visual representation of the data, MRI Analytix even eliminates the need for IT or technical support. Additionally, you shouldn’t have to add those real estate specific features yourself, which is why any customizations you need will be simple add-ons; not whole updates that might break in the implementation process.

Reason 3: You need to plan for the future

Your BI tool should be a flexible system with the ability to adapt and access the latest advancements to stay competitive. Through visual representation of large and complex data sets, MRI Analytix gives analysts and decision makers easy access to spot trends and identify areas for deeper discovery. MRI Analytix is built off of Tableau, one of the leading innovators in data science to leverage continuously evolving data science capabilities to move your organization into the future. We analyze each update and innovation from Tableau and apply the most relevant ones to MRI Analytix. By using the latest in BI tech tools, you also signal to incoming and prospective talent that your organization is at the forefront of data science and business intelligence.

You shouldn’t have to settle for a clunky, customizable tool or an off-the-shelf solution that doesn’t work for you. MRI Analytix allows to utilize your data without getting in the way of your operations. Learn more about how you can leverage MRI Analytix for the success of your real estate organization.

Acquisition extends MRI footprint in ANZ while adding new solutions for the rental and multi-owner, multifamily property management space

Continue reading “MRI Software acquires Rockend, a Leading Provider of Property and Strata Management Software in Australia and New Zealand” →

Real estate firms know that there’s an excessive amount of data out there that can be harnessed to their advantage. With this data comes the potential to yield insights that will guide the strategy of the business and increase competitive advantage.

Anyone who has evaluated business intelligence (BI) solutions or has been through implementation of a BI project knows that there’s a high probability the system will not yield the results that they anticipated. So how can businesses avoid failure when it comes to BI? Let’s count down the five main reasons why BI for real estate firms fails to deliver on its promise.

5. Choosing the wrong solution – Simply put, many firms select a BI solution that is not a fit for their business. Before making a selection, it’s important to understand your goals for the new system and what problem you expect it to solve. Does the solution truly meet the requirements of your business case? How will it work with your existing processes? New technology won’t fix broken processes, but it can automate the right ones.

4. Cumbersome data integration – From lease information to contracts, assets, and other financial documents, gathering insights from data across your organization can be a challenge if the data can’t easily be integrated with a BI solution. The process of extracting data in an accurate manner can be extremely frustrating if the analytics solution does not offer clean integration capabilities with your system of record.

3. Technological burden – In order to meet the full extent of your business needs, it might seem as if the best BI solution for you would be a fully customizable one. However, developing and adding unique customizations could require an extensive time commitment from your IT department. Even if IT is able to find the time to properly tailor the solution, fully customizing a BI solution can be extremely expensive – even more so if external consultants are required to do the work.

2. Inflexible software – Since customization has its own challenges, you might be tempted to lean towards implementing an out-of-the-box analytics solution. After all, how likely is it that a standard solution that supposedly works well for most won’t work for your company? Real estate firms are well aware that they have different requirements than other types of businesses, and out-of-the-box solutions typically lack the flexibility needed to address their needs. Whereas customization overwhelms your business with the time and financial commitment, out-of-the-box software is likely going to be too rigid to provide any meaningful business intelligence insights.

1. Underestimating time to value (TTV) – Investing in a solution is one thing, but implementing it is an entirely different process to tackle. Off-the-shelf software might not be specific or narrow enough to extract the data that your company requires, and customizable software makes for a long and expensive development process. Looking eight to ten months down the line, your solution still might not be functional enough to yield any notable return. Don’t underestimate the importance of getting up and running quickly to justify your investment.

Ultimately, user adoption is one of the key measurements of success or failure of a tool, and if these are issues you face in taking on a new BI solution, there’s undoubtedly going to be a significant lack of user adoption. Whereas both customizable and off-the-shelf solutions might bring your business significant challenges, MRI Software offers an alternative: a best-of-both-worlds option.

MRI’s business intelligence and analytics tool is already designed to fit the needs of the real estate industry, and that means you can get it right off the shelf without worrying about a long implementation process. Learn more about how you can tackle a BI project the right way with MRI’s business intelligence and analytics solution.

Dealing with multifamily property fraud before it happens is crucial to the health and success of your properties. With the numerous challenges facing multifamily property managers today, it can be tempting to think that the chances of dealing with fraudsters are slim to none. Why would you need to prepare for something that likely won’t happen?

The truth, however, is that multifamily property fraud is far more pervasive than most believe and can quickly grow into a serious problem. Fraud can waste the time of front and back office employees, damage your bottom line, and hurt the reputation of your property.

How multifamily property fraud hurts your property

Dealing with a fraudster within your community is a massive waste of time and money. Getting rid of a fraudster creates a hassle for your leasing office staff who have to go back over the records and the fraudster’s application to see if they passed a background check. In addition to this, evicting a fraudster means losing money because of the time it takes to fill the newly vacant unit.

On top of this general hassle, whoever said “there’s no such thing as bad press” clearly never had to deal with multifamily property fraud. Building up a solid reputation for your property takes time and effort, but fraud can damage that carefully curated reputation fast. The last thing that you want is for all online searches for your property over the next few months to bring up news stories about how a fraudster infiltrated your multifamily community.

How can I identify multifamily property fraud before it happens?

While many of us believe that we could spot someone trying to pull the wool over our eyes, the fact of the matter is that the methods fraudsters use today are far more elaborate than they used to be, with some going to extreme lengths to cover their tracks.

Fraud doesn’t always happen behind the scenes. More often than not, a fraudster could be sitting across from you, handing you falsified documents. Can you identify a fake bank statement or employee records? Can you tell a fake driver’s license from a real one? Fraudsters can use technology to falsify just about any document you could think of – could you tell the difference?

If the answer is “no,” then that’s okay – there are still ways to protect yourself from multifamily property fraud. While FICO score checks and other methods of background checks might not be able to help you catch a fraudster, there are special resident screening services that can. MRI Software offers a screening service that can help you keep fraudsters at bay. Learn more about our resident screening services.

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

Providing excellent customer service is a priority at Rockend and a large part of this is ensuring that you are getting the full benefits of your software. One of the ways we do this is by giving you access to the Knowledgebase – Rockend’s online library of articles, FAQs and videos covering everything you need to know about your software.

Continue reading “3 reasons why you should check out the Knowledgebase” →

This article was written by Nexus, a partner of MRI Software.

‘Virtual’ is virtually everywhere. We’re playing virtual games, using virtual memory, and experiencing virtual reality. It comes as no surprise, then, that virtual credit cards exist as well. Just what are these virtual cards and what do they do?

Virtual cards are a form of electronic payment that’s great for accounts payable

A virtual card is not actually a card at all. It’s a randomly generated, 16-digit number that exists electronically as opposed to physically. Each virtual card number is unique and generated for a specific transaction.

Virtual cards have been making a splash with real estate companies because they offer an easy and rapid way to pay large volumes of invoices each month. They work like this:

• An email with the virtual card details is sent to the payee/supplier.
• The virtual card is processed similar to a credit card in the supplier’s POS.
• The money is transferred to the supplier’s bank, following the same rules set by his or her merchant account.

Besides ease of use, virtual cards also touch upon several other areas of interest for your accounts payable department:

• No check processing costs – When you pay by virtual card instead of check, you can cut out the supply costs associated with checks, including check stock, envelopes, stamps, printer ink/toner, etc. Plus, you can reduce the amount of time and labor dedicated to processing, paperwork, and administration.
• Rebates – You can earn lucrative cashback for purchases made with virtual cards. The more you use virtual cards, the more you stand to get back.
• Security – Since there is no plastic card issued with a virtual card, it cannot be stolen. Plus, even if a virtual card number happens to fall into the wrong hands, it has built-in security features that make it almost impossible to misuse, such as company-chosen pay limits and a limited lifespan.
• Spend controls and oversight – Virtual cards allow you to set restrictions and limits on what may be paid for, so you can enforce spending guidelines.

With these benefits in mind, is it any surprise that virtual card spend is projected to grow at 19 percent annually?

How is a virtual card different from other cards out there?

It’s important to note that virtual cards are not the same as corporate credit cards or purchasing cards (P-cards).

With these more traditional cards, you share your sensitive account details each time you make a payment. This information may be stored by suppliers and vendors, where it may be intercepted during data breaches. Conversely, when using virtual cards, you don’t need to give out your credit card details so it’s less likely that your information will fall into the wrong hands. Furthermore, since virtual cards exist in digital format only, you don’t need to pass around a physical card and constantly worry about its whereabouts.

What about suppliers, though?

You may be left wondering how suppliers feel about receiving payment via virtual cards. It’s not uncommon for them to express some apprehension about accepting them. However, it can help to share some of the benefits they can expect on their end:

• Virtual card payments clear faster than traditional payment methods like checks and help suppliers maintain their cash flow.
• With the reliability and speed of virtual cards, suppliers won’t need to call you about lost checks or late and duplicate payments.
• Suppliers receive detailed remittance data with virtual cards, simplifying their reconciliation.
• Suppliers don’t have to worry about fraud with virtual cards, since there’s no need to store and secure your financial information.

Virtual cards sound great – Where do I start?

Many AP automation solutions make it easy for real estate companies to get started with virtual cards by converting suppliers to this new form of payment. They can contact suppliers about the benefits of receiving virtual cards, notify them when payments via virtual card are made, and help them troubleshoot any issues that may arise.

Here are some of the things an ideal payments solution provider should offer and what should be on your ‘must-have’ list:

• The provider should have a strong outreach program to find the right people at your suppliers’ offices to authorize the acceptance of virtual cards.
• They should be able to work with your existing business infrastructure by fitting virtual cards into your existing workflows and accommodating your established banking relationships. In addition, virtual card payment data should sync back to your GL/ERP.
• The solution should provide transparency/visibility into the status of virtual card payments for both you and your suppliers. Each stakeholder will want to know if payments have been delivered and when.

Considering the above, virtual cards are a natural choice for secure, streamlined, and convenient payments to your suppliers. Interested in starting to use this payment method? Check out Nexus, MRI’s preferred partner for AP and payment automation.

This blog post relates to Rockend, one of our previous brands. For more information please read the press release.

Mobility is the name of the game in property management and to be successful in the business, you have to be able to deliver outstanding customer service wherever you might be.

Continue reading “7 ways Property Tree Contacts App helps you work on the go” →