Managing CAM reconciliations is only one aspect of commercial property management; it also involves tracking large-scale maintenance, organizing shared space expenses, managing tenants and lease escalations, and handling complex lease structures such as NNN agreements. To successfully navigate all these tasks, utilizing the best commercial property management software can make a significant difference.
The right commercial property management software transforms lease tracking into manageable workflows. Automating invoices will liberate you from manual tasks, empowering you to focus on strategic decision-making.
STRATAFOLIO is a property management software designed to simplify operations for commercial managers. STRATAFOLIO makes it easy to manage commercial properties by collecting rent, tracking leases, and managing CAM expenses while seamlessly integrating with QuickBooks.
Key Challenges in Lease Escalation Management
At STRATAFOLIO, we always prioritize making our clients’ lives lighter. The majority of our clients manage commercial properties. With those commercial properties comes managing leases that generally escalate or have lease bumps annually. The escalations happen at different times across the tenant base. As a result, it is easy to overlook or miss an escalation.
The most common reason clients contact us is that they have missed a lease escalation. Sometimes, that miss is for one month, but it has often been for a much extended period. This directly impacts the bottom line, which is the missed income. Sometimes landlords or owners will go back and try to collect this, but often they don’t. A late renewal or missed payment can cause a significant income gap; staying on top of this is important.
The aftermath of a missed lease renewal could affect future budget planning and cash flow and cause instant financial loss. Investing effort and money in a good lease monitoring system like STRATAFOLIO can help businesses capture every dollar they are owed and prepare for long-term economic stability and financial security.
Why STRATAFOLIO Stands Out for Lease Escalation
Some commercial real estate owners are losing lease income opportunities because of these missed lease escalations. Understanding why this happens is important for understanding how to correct this.
Here are the most common reasons for these missed escalations that we see:
- Owners do not invoice their tenants because they believe they have signed a contract indicating what they should pay for their base rent, so an invoice is deemed unnecessary. This creates confusion about whether the tenant paid the correct amount, and even more, making it challenging to track accounts receivable overall.
- Commercial real estate teams depend on a spreadsheet to track when a tenant’s rent increase should take effect. They create elaborate spreadsheets to act as a trigger to prompt them to adjust the invoice accordingly in QuickBooks.
- If this is overlooked, if someone misunderstands the spreadsheet’s structure, or if there is an error in the calculation of the increase, they fail to update the invoice in QuickBooks, and the increase is missed.
- They have memorized a transaction in QuickBooks for the lease increase, but they never updated it to reflect the adjustment as required by the terms of their commercial lease.
- Tenant lease increases are added to a calendar as a visual reference for when an increase should occur. This reminder is then transferred into QuickBooks accordingly for that rent increase. If that act of putting that reminder on the calendar is missed, so is the lease escalation.
- Additionally, if that individual is out of the office or no longer with the company, this creates a potential breakdown in the process, and lease escalations may be missed.
There are many ways the process breaks down when using manual tracking methods. Even though this system was created more than ten years ago, there are now ways to fix this broken and out-of-date way of handling commercial real estate. We built STRATAFOLIO to directly tackle the manual lease management activities that most commercial landlords face.
How To Streamline Your Operations and Handle Lease Escalations
Automated Lease Escalation Tracking
STRATAFOLIO offers automated commercial property lease and tenant tracking. Landlords can spend less time entering data by hand and more time building their businesses and getting to know their tenants. They can also cut back on their time spent on data entry so they can do other things outside of work. STRATAFOLIO’s real-time analytics and centralized data help landlords make better decisions.
Integration with QuickBooks
STRATAFOLIO is a cloud-based software that makes life easier for commercial property owners! Our software works perfectly with QuickBooks; two-way accounting connections allow property management managers to sync data seamlessly between QuickBooks and STRATAFOLIO. Gone are the days of consulting a calendar or spreadsheet to know what is happening with your commercial tenants
Most commercial leases also require common area maintenance reconciliation (CAM). Our integration with QuickBooks makes this process as simple as 1-click!
Data-Driven Insights & Reporting
Keeping track of income and lease escalation rates is important for commercial property owners. STRATAFOLIO provides a consolidated dashboard for you to see your portfolio at a glance without having to pull and consolidate financial reports from QuickBooks manually.
Real-Time Notifications & Alerts
With STRATAFOLIO, you can receive notifications and alerts so you won’t miss anything! Our software has built-in automated reminders for lease escalations, increases, renewals, and expiring leases. STRATAFOLIO is all about automation; you can have everything you need in one place, and your portfolio will stay organized. We do not limit the number of users within the application. We encourage you to include all your team members who are a part of your management team. This creates efficiency and allows team members to back each other up, leave the office, and work offsite. STRATAFOLIO reduces manual work by 80%
Scalability & User-Friendly Tenant Interface
STRATAFOLIO also provides a professional and user-friendly portal for tenants that helps them streamline rent payments (ensuring they are paying the most current lease rate), submit their certificates of insurance (COIs), and report maintenance requests. This portal will simplify the process and professionalize your tenant experience.
How Property Managers Get Started with STRATAFOLIO
STRATAFOLIO helps property managers to work faster and more efficiently in their operations. It will help reduce stress and provide a more positive tenant experience. We connect people through processes and data, giving our clients real-time insight into their entire commercial real estate portfolio management and individual assets.
We assist you in finally maximizing the return on your real estate assets, which will help you grow your company. Conversely, if you want to coast and spend more time out of the office, STRATAFOLIO is the best commercial property management software that allows you to do that without damaging your tenants’ or investors’ experience. Schedule a demo to see how STRATAFOLIO can change your management of commercial investments for the coming year!
