Emergency management: An insurance policy for your organisation

Posted on by Elizabeth Spencer

An insurance policy is a backstop, we all have them but hopefully, we’ll never have to use them. However, it’s great to know if something should go wrong that you have the right protection in place.

Managing your organisation in an emergency is no different. If you think about emergencies you and your organisation have had to manage in the past they generally come out of left-field and without warning. Knowing that you are protected not only gives your organisation, employees, and everyone in your duty of care peace of mind but ensures you are meeting your compliance obligations.

Why do we need emergency management software?

In the past, we may have managed an emergency situation in our workplace using pen and paper. While this, in theory, is good it does have its downfalls. What if the book that guests have signed into is forgotten as the building is evacuated? Or writing is illegible?

Or someone spills coffee over the book so you can’t read the writing?

These are all real possibilities when it comes to using a  manual emergency management system. Like your insurance policy, you can’t leave your emergency management to chance. Emergency management software is not only your insurance policy but also the way to ensure your organisation can easily manage and protect those in their duty of care.

What is emergency management software?

Emergency management software allows you to remove manual processes and gives you the assurance that you can account for everyone in an emergency.

The MRI OnLocation emergency management tool OnEvac gives you central access to people presence data and enables you to quickly and easily account for everyone in the event of an emergency.

OnEvac has a number of features to streamline and automate your emergency management from creating an event to clearing zones and communicating with your team.

Evacuation event

Quickly and easily create an evacuation event, for a particular area, zone, or your whole workplace. Invite Safety Marshalls to join and help manage the event.

Verify those on-site are safe

Safety Marshalls can verify those within their zone as they evacuate. Employees can also self verify so efforts can be focused on those who are unaccounted for.

Clear zones

Get accurate and real-time reporting as Safety Marshall’s clear zones and verify employees are safe.

SMS messaging

Send an SMS to your employees and contractors asking them to self verify if they are safe or not.

Forum Chat

Communicate not only with other Safety Marshalls but also respond to the replies from the SMS message to make sure you can be as effective and efficient as possible with making sure everyone is safe.

Dashboard overview

An easy-to-understand and navigate overview of the event where all Safety Marshalls can see what the others are doing.

No matter the size of your organisation having an emergency management system and process in place is vital. You may not need it today, or tomorrow but when an emergency situation strikes you can have the confidence that you can protect everyone in your duty of care. To learn more about OnEvac book a demo.

 

Overcoming the hurdles of fixed asset management

Posted on by kestoesta

Controlling fixed asset information and extracting the data needed for compliance and reporting purposes can often come with many challenges. These hurdles may be caused by a lack of a proper functioning asset management system or the need to update processes to reflect changes in the organisation’s environment.

What challenges are presented by fixed asset management and how do you evaluate the current processes and the solutions that specialised systems offer?

The major challenges

Fixed asset management may generate several challenges, such as dealing with the volume of data, tracking assets and the maintenance of those assets.

1. Volume of data

Fixed assets can create data that continuously increases. Throughout an asset’s lifetime, the amount of information about it will never decrease. The file will continue to expand with information about depreciation, maintenance performed or required, whether it has moved departments, and so on. If an organisation does not have a proper system to record all this information, it can quickly get out of control and become chaotic.

2. Tracking assets

Fixed assets may be transferred to another department or disposed of without the information making its way back to the accounting department, or to those that maintain the asset register. If the asset register is not kept up to date with the movement of assets, it can quickly become an obsolete tool.

3. Maintenance

Fixed assets can often be quite costly, and most are expected to last for several years. To get the most out of an organisation’s fixed assets, it is important that those items are maintained over time. Without proper maintenance, assets may need to be replaced prior to the end of their average life expectancy or repaired more often than expected, thereby causing the company unforeseen costs.

Evaluation of your current practices

As an organisation grows, processes may be outgrown as well. If an asset base has increased significantly and no specific management system is in place, patchwork solutions may make it difficult to overcome the major challenges of ongoing fixed asset management.

If your organisation is currently using spreadsheets as an asset register, this could be compounding the challenge of dealing with the volume of data. With the amount of information available as your asset base grows, a spreadsheet will quickly become too large to properly manage everything. Additionally, this system offers no audit history to see changes made and it is difficult to avoid unknown and unintended errors.

If you have a specialist system in place or use the fixed asset module within a general ledger, it is important to review the functionality and decide whether it is still meeting your needs. Older programs may not offer integration with other solutions that you require, such as asset tracking by barcode or RFID. Or it may be that the basic asset register lacks the necessary functionality or reporting capabilities needed to address maintenance issues.

If an organisation does have a specialist fixed asset system in place that has all the required functionality but continues to experience problems with asset management, it may be time to retrain employees and review current practices.

How software is an incentive for changes to your processes

Whenever a company implements new software or updates their current systems and procedures, it is a natural stimulant for change. If there are challenges or issues to address, the introduction of a new system is the time to do this. For example, a new fixed asset management process or software system can help correct issues associated with ghost or zombie assets that exist by adding annual physical audits to avoid the issue in the future.

Another issue to solve when introducing software is that of asset transfers and disposals. With a system that allows for event request authorisation, an organisation can expunge any manual processes in place that may require filling out forms that then have to travel from one department to another. Inclusion of transfer/disposal authorization in the software will help to streamline processes and ensure the accuracy and accountability of an asset register.

Additionally, the annual reconciliation of the fixed asset register will be far simpler with the utilisation of functionality that requires transfers and disposals to be properly authorised and recorded throughout the year. Sound internal controls and the provision of a full audit trail for each asset will help to prevent unaccountable asset losses.

Whether you have a system in place currently that is sufficient or if you implement a new system, it is important to ensure that it serves as a helpful tool to overcome the challenges of fixed asset management. The purpose of specialist software is to decrease the amount of manual labor and to increase efficiency. Some of the ways that can ensure best use of this tool are to run regular reports and to conduct a physical audit on a regular basis.

If an organisation has or plans to purchase fixed asset software, make sure to take advantage of annual upgrades made to the software as these will include any changes required in line with the latest regulatory requirements such as IFRS.

When it comes to dealing with fixed assets, there are several ways to ward off the worries that are associated with ensuring the data is correct. To overcome the challenges of voluminous data, inaccuracy and maintenance requirements, organisations should review their current practices and fixed asset management systems. Some of the hurdles associated with fixed asset management can be overcome by a simple restructuring of processes, while others may require that a new system is put in place to provide the tools for change.

Learn more about MRI’s fixed asset management or request a demonstration.

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A balancing act: how technology continues to help businesses keep IFRS 16 compliant

Posted on by gmaze

Lease accounting rules were dramatically altered when the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 16), requiring all leases to be recorded on balance sheets in a bid to increase the transparency of business exposure to costs, came into force in January 2019. Yet, despite IFRS 16 coming into effect over two years ago, some businesses are still feeling the impact of the new legislation and struggling to make the right adjustments to their lease and accounting practices.

IFRS 16 represented one of the most significant changes to lease accounting in decades because it eliminates nearly all off-balance-sheet accounting for leases. Before IFRS16, businesses expensed leases, but now lessees must recognize assets and liabilities arising from leases on their balance sheets.

The business challenges of IFRS 16 compliance

Virtually every company has been impacted because most businesses lease several big-ticket items, including cars, offices, power plants, retail stores, cell towers and aircraft. COVID-19 has added complexity to leases with additional KPIs and clauses.

IFRS 16 spotlighted the importance of accurate, complete and incongruent data given the on-balance sheet accounting for almost all leases. Still, many organizations are struggling to achieve this because they are using old fashioned and manual ways of collecting the data, such as spreadsheets, which are inefficient, costly, and time-consuming.

The businesses most affected by IFRS 16 usually have a presence in multiple regions, different business operations, and often acquire companies. As a result, they have complex portfolio structures, and trying to manage all of that with spreadsheets and collect accurate data remains a considerable challenge. This has a knock-on effect on the ability of real estate teams to optimize portfolio performance and finance teams’ need for accurate IFRS 16 disclosures along with full amendment and validation logs.

Real estate and finance teams must work together

Furthermore, before IFRS 16, many organizations worked in siloed ways with real estate and finance teams having minimal interaction, but achieving regulatory compliance requires more inter-department collaboration and communication. IFRS 16 asks for an unprecedented degree of financial transparency. Businesses need to approach the entire process with a ‘one version of the truth’ mindset if company figures are to be 100% accurate. Consequently, accountancy needs to become an integral part of a real estate professional’s remit.

All real estate teams within an organization need to approach new and existing leases with the standard at the forefront of every decision. It may even be that traditional approaches to property are no longer within the business’s best interests. What’s more, accounting teams should now have a greater say in whether certain assets are bought or leased, completely reshaping the role of real estate. All of this means there’s a greater need for collaborative reporting.

How lease accounting software can help

Fortunately, technology is helping automate time-consuming and costly tasks and provides a central platform for collaborative reporting. Organizations that have overcome the challenges of IFRS 16 use technology that extracts the critical data – often using machine learning and AI for extensive lease portfolios – from leases in just a few minutes and eliminates manual errors so real estate and accounting teams can access accurate data in real-time.

Using the right software solutions ensures that half-year and end-of-year audits don’t become unmanageable, expensive tasks because there are full audit trails for any changes made during the lease lifecycle. Additionally, lease accounting software can ensure compliance by automating otherwise time-consuming calculations, prone to error and difficult to audit in a spreadsheet or different software approach. This means all teams have one platform which produces accurate reporting, allowing real estate and accounting teams to focus their time and attention on tasks that deliver real business value.

With the right lease accounting technology platform, companies have the capability to handle the huge churn in data and automatically analyze the numerous variables that can affect leases to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date.  The upshot is that, through the effective implementation of the standard, IFRS 16 can help make the business not just more transparent, but more efficient.

Learn more about our Lease Management, Lease Accounting and AI-powered lease abstraction tools in the solution brochure.

Real estate investment post-COVID: Technology is here to stay

Posted on by Chris Vroman

Since March 2020, the real estate industry has experienced a large shift to a digital environment in the face of a global pandemic. As investors shift their attention to the future of commercial spaces in a tech-driven world, many are wondering which COVID-related changes can be expected to stick around.

Recently, a panel of experts from Deloitte, One11 Advisors, CohnReznick, and MRI Software shared their insights into the specific ways investors, owners, and occupiers in the real estate industry are reacting to current market trends. Here are some of the key takeaways:

1) There’s increased interest in innovation – from all parties

Even as both the traditional office environment and brick-and-mortar retail were experiencing turbulence, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of technology. Real estate owners and operators were forced to move their businesses further into the digital space than ever before, and many have come to recognize the benefit that these innovations can have on how their organizations are run. To quote Ken Meyer, Principal at Deloitte Consulting:

On a foundational level, everyone recognized that everything needed to be accessible, and everything needed to be properly integrated so you could drill down and see the data.

Since the pivot to digital in 2020, many of the reasons that owners and operators traditionally opted against impactful tech adoptions simply vanished. Now, with those barriers gone, companies are investigating the possibilities of tech innovation as a competitive advantage more than ever before.

2) Tech adoption can mitigate risk in strategic planning

Having access to the right data can help you make more informed business decisions, but in a world where it seems like everything is “unprecedented,” access to historical information isn’t always enough. Utilizing technology that enables businesses to analyze market trends, variables, and other external factors can provide valuable insight that can be used to drive better decision-making and optimize return on investment.

3) Investors want to understand the end users of their services

Core aspects of offices and retail centers were dramatically impacted by the loss of foot traffic at the start of the pandemic. Real estate investors have become acutely aware that they rely on more than just consistent rent rolls and cashflows – they also rely on the employees that work for the occupiers, or on the customers that retail tenants depend on for profit. In order to boost performance in businesses dependent on the human element, investors need more information on the end users of their services – customers, employees, visitors – than ever before. By taking cues from the relationship-driven residential sector, commercial real estate investors are adopting smart technologies that enable them to benchmark the behaviors of those end users in order to drive performance.

Among all these observations, the panel of experts agreed on one thing: the digital transformation in the real estate industry is here to stay, and when it comes to tech adoption, looking forward will be the only way to stay ahead of the curve. Learn more about the opportunities for real estate investors in a post-COVID environment.

MRI Software wins 2021 Stevie® Award!

Posted on by Chris Vroman

MRI Software is thrilled to announce that we’ve won a Stevie® Award for the fourth time in the Large Computer Software Company of the Year category! For the past 50 years, we’ve taken pride in our ability to come together as one company with the best and most enthusiastic employees to deliver excellent software, services and support to our clients. As we continue throughout another year of tremendous growth, we’re honored to receive another Stevie Award as a result of our efforts.

Helping clients innovate for the future

Since 2019, MRI has expanded its technology solutions for real estate owners, operators and occupiers through new product launches, enhancements to existing offerings, and strategic acquisitions. MRI’s solutions help businesses respond to the challenges of COVID-19 and plan for the future by using technology to embrace digital operations and prepare for the return to the office. MRI is proud to be a PropTech industry pioneer that helps clients plan for the future by becoming technology visionaries through the execution of several key strategies including:

Transition to digital services – When the pandemic forced a sudden shift from in-person to online operations, MRI clients had access to software that allowed them to easily transition to virtual processes and maintain business continuity — from collecting rent payments online to managing the leasing process virtually and collecting digital signatures.

Reinvent the workplace – As a “new normal” rears its head, MRI has been at the forefront of helping real estate occupiers and landlords adjust to and navigate changes in space requirements, lease agreements and contracts. With space scheduling software and tools that help manage employees and visitors in the physical office, MRI is offering clients a way to reinvent the workplace for their business needs.

Forging a path forward together

This award underlines MRI’s understanding of where the real estate industry has been headed with or without the pandemic. Having the right technology in place will not only enable real estate organizations to preserve business continuity in the short term as they return to the office – it will position forward-thinking companies as industry visionaries that are able to thrive in the face of change. As we move forward into an era where the workplace experience will be more varied than ever, MRI is committed to both innovation and an open and connected approach to real estate software. Learn how you can become part of our award-winning team.

4 essential workplace tech features to manage the return to office

Posted on by James Foster

As work-from-home restrictions ease for many countries, people around the world are beginning to think about returning to the office. This introduces some challenges for businesses to adapt office environments to a different way of working.

What will the office look like once workers begin returning? Without a doubt, there will be plenty of new safety protocols involving strict personal hygiene and physical distancing, but how do we make this transition as simple and as safe as possible?

As employers, we are all navigating new territory. The workplace we left many months ago is unlikely to be the same when employees return. Most organizations plan to increase their use of technology to manage the flexibility that will be required in the office of the future. In these unprecedented times, the reality is likely to be very different than we anticipate.

Using technology to keep your employees safe

Companies across the globe face many challenges when it comes to returning to the office, and it can be hard to know the best way to ensure employee welfare is maintained. We’ve pulled together the top four features to look out for in any people presence management software:

Employee and guest screening

Screening all employees and guests before they arrive at the property ensures that only those who meet your organization’s onsite criteria are granted access. It’s also incredibly beneficial to get alerted when you encounter a person who does not meet your criteria so their access can be restricted.

Touchless sign in/out

The fewer surfaces we touch in the workplace, the better for slowing the spread of germs. Ensure your software has the option for employees and guests to enter and exit your location using a touchless kiosk, QR code poster, mobile app, or via the front of house team. These systems reduce health risks, improve overall hygiene, and create peace of mind for anyone entering or exiting your property.

Onsite policy acknowledgement

Make sure that everyone who enters your location is aware of your organization’s requirements by using a system that allows them to acknowledge your onsite policies. This could be as simple as asking them to agree that they will use hand sanitizer or stay six feet away from other people. For any question not answered correctly, someone on your team can be notified.

Limit numbers onsite

Automatically set the number of people allowed to be onsite at any one time rather than leaving it up to an individual. This feature takes the responsibility off your receptionist or facilities team and ensures that anyone attempting to gain access after your maximum number is reached will not be allowed to enter, and one of your employees will be notified. This is a great feature to help manage density within your office space.

MRI Workplace Central offers these and other features to help you keep your organization and those within it safe and secure. Watch the webinar here to learn more about how technology can help you prepare for the return to office and beyond.

4 benefits of cloud migration for real estate firms

Posted on by Chris Vroman

Commercial and residential real estate firms have undergone a digital transformation over the past few years, and when the pandemic forced many to social distance and work from home, that transformation was dramatically accelerated.

Even with return to office discussions underway, work will likely not look the same as it did before, and neither should your business operations and data practices. By implementing cloud services for your real estate business, you can mitigate both risk and cost while preparing for future growth. Here are just a few of the many benefits of cloud migration for commercial real estate firms.

Remote access

This past year has proven that not only can businesses maintain productivity in a work from home environment – some employees thrive in this environment. As organizations everywhere are looking towards what the office of the future will look like, your system’s accessibility or lack thereof shouldn’t have to be a driving force in deciding what’s best for your company or its employees. Cloud services can allow you and your employees to securely access your data and applications from anywhere.

Stay at ease and up to date

Some real estate organizations prefer to house their technology and data on their own servers, but this choice comes with its own set of risks and costs to the business. With cloud services, your staff can focus on tasks that drive value to the business instead of doing double duty as tech experts. Through cloud services, you can ensure that all employees are using the most up-to-date version of software, simplifying the support process and enabling you to maintain consistency across your business.

Scalability

As your real estate firm takes on new properties, projects, and staff, cloud-based solutions will give your business the flexibility it needs to grow. Many real estate companies end up migrating to the cloud only after they’ve outgrown existing systems and reached a point where the business can’t pursue new opportunities. A proactive cloud migration will ensure that your firm’s growth won’t be limited by inflexible technology.

Dedicated help

Using cloud services also offloads the responsibility of having to support servers, software and data backups to the organization you choose as your provider. With the help of dedicated IT support and a toll-free help desk, you’ll receive fast, efficient and effective client services. In addition to dedicated support, you can also work with your provider to develop reports and distribution guidelines that adapt to the way you do business.

Businesses across the real estate industry are pivoting to the digital environment and shaping the future of the office. With MRI Cloud Services, your organization can prepare for tomorrow and implement solutions that work for you, whether you’re at home, in the office or anywhere else. Learn more about how Cloud Services and other digital solutions can benefit your business.