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How to Maximize Your Value from STRATAFOLIO

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Practical ways to increase your value from STRATAFOLIO property management software.

Overview of Steps to Maximize Value from STRATAFOLIO

Learn about the seven major areas to improve your use of STRATAFOLIO for the biggest impact. Find automations, connect with tenants and investors, and keep information organized and accessible.

As a property manager or owner, you face endless tasks. From invoicing and tenant communications to reconciliations and reporting, you spend each day juggling huge amounts of information and a never-ending to-do list. 

And as if that wasn’t hard enough, you might be fighting your technology, too. Especially for a growing commercial real estate business, using spreadsheets, QuickBooks alone, or other disconnected systems simply isn’t enough. When you can’t handle all of your data and tasks in one place, missed dates, tenant frustration, compliance issues, and wasted time are unavoidable.

The good news is that STRATAFOLIO offers a simple solution: as a dedicated property management software, it is designed to centralize, automate, and streamline commercial real estate operations. In this guide, we’ll cover practical steps to maximize your value from STRATAFOLIO and overcome the most common property management challenges.

1. Simplify Invoicing & Collections

The Problem:

Simply, missed rent payments lead to missed revenue. And when invoicing and collection procedures are complex or don’t hold up to large numbers of tenants, missed payments are inevitable. Especially for large portfolios, it takes hours to create and manage invoices manually. Even then, payments aren’t always tracked accurately or consistently. Confusing systems also mean that if the main employee responsible for invoicing is out of the office, everything shuts down, risking lost revenue.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution:

  • Quickly generate invoices for your entire portfolio.
  • Track what tenants owe vs. what they’ve paid.
  • An intuitive interface means that any employee can handle invoicing, keeping everything on schedule.

Action Steps:

  • Set up tenant leases with escalation terms in STRATAFOLIO to take advantage of automations and alerts.
  • Use the “Create All Invoices” option at the start of each billing cycle.
  • Train multiple staff members on invoicing processes to keep business running smoothly.

2. Streamline Payments with ACH

The Problem:

Most commercial tenants prefer to make rent payments online with ACH. However, many landlords don’t offer this option. This is usually because ACH fees from third-party platforms are often high, and payments take a long time to process. These frustration points result in delayed income and difficulty keeping track of cash flow.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution:

  • STRATAFOLIO offers ACH payments with low fees.
  • Payments are automatically posted for you, avoiding manual entry.
  • Makes it more difficult for tenants to continue to pay the old lease rate.
  • Autopay helps prevent missed payments.
  • Two-way QuickBooks integration ensures accuracy across your books.

Action Steps:

  • Enable ACH payments in STRATAFOLIO for all tenants and be sure to make them aware of the service.
  • Encourage tenants to set up autopay, reducing missed payments, or underpayments where the tenant continues to pay the previous lease amount.

3. Stay on Top of Leases

The Problem:

Lease management is a complicated process. When managed by hand, it is prone to errors, disorganization, or even being forgotten entirely. Finding the right document is challenging when information is scattered across multiple spreadsheets. There’s no easy way to see when leases are about to escalate, start, or end, leaving you in trouble from missed revenue or sudden low occupancy rates.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution:

  • Stores leases in one convenient location.
  • Built to handle complex commercial leases, including processes like CAM reconciliation.
  • Sends alerts ahead of all lease escalations.

Action Steps:

  • Upload leases directly into STRATAFOLIO for easy tracking.
  • Enable alerts for important dates like escalations.
  • Have tenants upload supplementary documents like COIs directly into the portal to ensure compliance.

4. Use Debt Tracking Tools

The Problem

Like handling leases, debt tracking is difficult to manage manually. This is especially true for large commercial real estate businesses with multiple properties and complex investment setups. If your data isn’t stored carefully, when you need to calculate crucial metrics like loan to value (LTV) or debt service coverage ratio (DSCR), you risk using the wrong data and coming up with incorrect answers.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution

  • Centralized debt tracking for each property.
  • Provides real-time metrics for LTV, DSCR, and more.
  • Two-way integration with QuickBooks keeps data accurate and up-to-date.

Action Steps

  • Input all debt information into STRATAFOLIO for tracking.
  • Use STRATAFOLIO dashboards to regularly review important performance metrics at both the property and portfolio level.

5. Improve Investor Transparency

The Problem:

Commercial property investors want frequent updates to monitor the performance of their assets. However, creating investor reports takes time and, when done manually, risks errors. Inaccurate or messy reports can damage your relationships with key investors.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution:

  • Investor portals allow investors to log in at any time.
  • Share relevant metrics like net operating income (NOI) and cash-on-cash returns.
  • Detailed reports provide investors with exactly the information they need.

Action Steps:

  • Grant investors access, distinguished by investment.
  • Regularly update portfolio data for accurate analysis.
  • Provide full access or limited access depending on the investor’s preferences.

6. Enhance Tenant Experience

The Problem:

Without a dedicated system, tenants often struggle to communicate effectively with property managers and submit payments. Even third-party online payment systems can be slow. Finally, they often enforce high fees.

Then, when a tenant has a problem with payment, needs to submit a work order, or confirm crucial lease details, it’s hard to get in touch with the right person. Both tenants and property managers end up losing track of important compliance information and necessary repair requests. This confusion leads to strained tenant relationships and requires digging through unorganized emails and spreadsheets to sort everything out.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution:

  • Tenants can submit ACH payments directly in the included tenant portal, which also features lower fees than outside options.
  • The tenant portal also allows work order submission with photos and documents.
  • Both property managers and tenants can see important documents shared in the portal, including high-level lease information.

Action Steps:

  • Ensure that tenants are aware of the portal and how to use it.
  • Encourage tenants to use the work order feature for faster responses.
  • Use document sharing for fast communication and clarity for lease requirements.

7. Simplify Common Area Maintenance Reconciliation

The Problem:

Commercial property owners and managers dread year-end common area maintenance (CAM) reconciliation for good reason. It’s a complicated, tedious process prone to errors. These exact reasons also often mean that tenants don’t understand or trust the resulting CAM charges, leading to strained tenant relations and extra work to verify them.

STRATAFOLIO's Solution:

  • Automatic, 1-click CAM reconciliation reports are fast and accurate, every time.
  • Real-time data lets you check in on CAM status at any time throughout the year.
  • Generated CAM reports are clear and easy for tenants to understand.
  • Two-way integration with QuickBooks means that all data syncs instantly, eliminating double-entry.

Action Steps:

  • Set up CAM allocations in STRATAFOLIO for each property.
  • Check CAM reports throughout the year to monitor progress.
  • Promptly send tenant reports after reconciliation and include complete CAM charge breakdowns.

8. Manage Work Orders & Insurance Compliance

The Problem:

Tracking certificates of insurance (COIs) manually is risky. It’s difficult to keep track of terms, requirements, and expiration dates when these differ from tenant to tenant. Missed expirations or unmet insurance conditions expose both tenants and landlords to liability when accidents happen.

Similarly, work orders often end up scattered across emails and spreadsheets. The lack of a single, unified maintenance system leads to delays and confusion. In turn, slow maintenance responses frustrate tenants and leave irritating or even dangerous property issues unsolved.

STRATAFOLIO’s Solution:

  • Centralized work order requests and management through a tenant portal.
  • Automated alerts tell tenants, insurance agents, and managers when COIs are expiring or conditions are unmet.
  • Tenants can upload COIs directly to the portal, making tracking fast and easy.

Action Steps:

  • Require tenants to upload COIs directly into STRATAFOLIO.
  • Use automated alerts to stay aware of COI conditions.
  • Log all maintenance and repairs through the work order system.

Take Full Advantage of STRATAFOLIO’s Tools Today

STRATAFOLIO isn’t just software, it’s a complete operating system for effective, modern real estate management. Using its full set of tools saves you time, improves your tenant and investor relationships, and reduces the likelihood of mistakes. Whether you’re a new user or already familiar with the system, now is the time to pause and evaluate if your workflows make the most value from STRATAFOLIO’s resources.

To optimize your STRATAFOLIO setup and ensure you’re getting the most from the platform, schedule a free 1:1 demo with our team today.

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Practical ways to increase your value from STRATAFOLIO property management software.

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