Managing CAM reconciliations is only one aspect of commercial property management. Effectively running a commercial real estate business also involves tracking large-scale maintenance, organizing shared space expenses, and managing tenants. Additionally, keeping track of lease escalations and handling complex lease structures such as NNN agreements are crucial skills.
Using the best commercial property management software available makes it significantly easier to successfully manage these tasks. The right commercial property management software transforms lease tracking into manageable workflows. Automation liberates you from manual work, 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 Desktop and Online.
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 have annual escalations or lease bumps.
The escalations often 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 missed income directly impacts the bottom line for these clients. 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 can 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 financial security.
Why STRATAFOLIO Stands Out for Lease Escalation
Some commercial real estate owners lose lease income opportunities because of these missed lease escalations. Knowing why this happens is important for understanding how to correct it.
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. An invoice is deemed unnecessary. Lack of clear, consistent communication invites confusion about whether the tenant paid the correct amount. It also makes 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 someone misunderstands the spreadsheet’s structure, overlooks a detail, or makes an error in the calculation of the increase, they fail to update the invoice in QuickBooks, and landlord misses the increase.
- The owner, accountant, or property manager has memorized one transaction in QuickBooks for the lease increase. However, they never updated it to reflect the adjustments 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. Team members then transfer those reminders into QuickBooks for each individual lease. Forgetting to put the increase date on the calendar also means missing the increase itself.
- Additionally, if the spreadsheet creator is out of the office, others may not understand their system. This creates a potential breakdown in the process, leading to missed escalations.
There are many ways the process breaks down when using manual tracking methods. The good news is that you now have options 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 Property 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. In addition, 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 Desktop and Online. Two-way accounting connections allow property 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 essential for commercial property owners. STRATAFOLIO provides a consolidated dashboard for you to see your commercial portfolio at a glance without having to pull all your financial reports from QuickBooks manually.
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 management team numbers in your account. This creates efficiency and allows team members to back each other up, leave the office, and work offsite.
STRATAFOLIO reduces manual work by 80%.
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.
Scalability & User-Friendly Tenant Interface
STRATAFOLIO also provides a professional and user-friendly portal for tenants that streamlines rent payments (and ensures they are paying the most current lease rate). They can also submit their certificates of insurance (COIs) and report maintenance requests. This portal simplifies communication and professionalizes your customer service, helping you build strong tenant relationships.
How Property Managers Get Started with STRATAFOLIO
STRATAFOLIO helps property managers to work faster and more efficiently across their operations. It will help reduce stress and provide a more positive tenant experience. We connect people through processes and data. Our clients receive 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 spend more time out of the office, STRATAFOLIO allows you to reduce working time without impacting your tenant or investors’ experience. Schedule a demo to see how STRATAFOLIO can improve your management efficiency of commercial investments for the coming year!
