Commercial property management requirements are different from residential properties whether it is office space, retail or industrial. Good commercial software should be able to create detailed financial projections and budgets, to auto calculate rent increases, to create recurring charges, to calculate expense recoveries and common area management (CAM) charges and to perform reconciliations.

Common features of Commercial Property Management Software

Property Type

Software should enable user to manage individual units or floor spaces of any size as per business requirements.

Accounting

Accounting for commercial real estate firms is more complicated (though less transaction intensive) than residential firms due to complicated nature of real estate leases, accounting for expense recoveries , intricate CAM reconciliation, detailed financial reporting, frequent use of escrows and need for advanced budgeting tools.

Lease Management

Lease Management is an integral part of any commercial property management software. The software should be able to handle the different leasing rates and rates across the complete lifecycle of the lease. Leasing module should be able to handle staggered lease terms with differential leasing rates and CAM recoveries, rent reviews, and options such as first refusal rights for the tenants.

Maintenance Portal

Maintenance Portal refers to section that enables the manager to handle tenant maintenance requests, track maintenance tasks, set-up schedules and alerts regarding upcoming due maintenance. A good software should provide options to renters to submit maintenance requests directly to their property management company at their convenience. Property managers get notifications of maintenance requests on mobile and can take action promptly.

Owner Portal

Owner Portal classifies the features property owners will be able to access and complete online. Providing owners with the ability to access property inspection reports, financial statements, personalized statements, and avoid annoying lost password calls with a secure password recovery system reduces the need for owners to reach out to property managers directly.

Reporting

Every software is capable in generating reports like rent roll, unit status, and delinquency reports but the best commercial management software provides detailed and custom reporting at unit, property, entity or investor level. The software should also allow for memorized reports across different user types such as investors, management , accounting etc. The software which is able to provide a comprehensive suite of reports including investment grade rating, lease maturities & rental rate growth, vacancy rate, gross initial yield by property can be considered. Dashboards are a significant add-on as they are simpler and can visually represent complicated information.

Common Area Maintenance (CAM)

CAM accounting is one of the most complicated aspect of commercial real estate accounting. Software with inbuilt functionality of CAM billing and reconciliation is a big asset. A good software must provide you to track, bill and reconcile the shared common area expenses and income for your commercial properties. It should also be able to handle different types of expense recoveries across different leases /across different periods of the same lease. This include popular CAM allocation basis such as a per sq ft allocation, flat fee allocation, proportionate share or a custom defined one. Yardi & Appfolio have added CAM feature in their software’s with utility rebilling & charge codes functionality.

Comparison Sheet

	Yardi Voyager	Yardi Genesis	MRI Commercial Management	Appfolio Property Manager

Property Type

Commercial Real Estate
Retail
Construction
Energy
Multi-Unit

Property Portfolio Size

Large (1000 units and up)
Mid-Size (251-999 units)
Small (1-250 units)

Accounting

Accepts Online Payment
Accrual Accounting
Bank Account Integration
Bank Statement Upload
Complex Expense Recoveries (CAM)
Custom Add Offline Items
Financial Statements per Property
Online Payments from Residents
Online Statements
Owner ACH
Payables
Post Rent & Late Fees
Print Checks
Profit & Loss Reports
Retail Percentage Rent Calculations
Quickbooks Sync
Receivables
Setup Auto Pay
Statement Archives
Track Mortgage Amortization

Management Features

Automatic Property Mapping
Customizable Reports
Easy Data Migration
Events Calendar
Maintenance Overview
Message Boards
Move in/Move Out Workflow
Paperless Work Orders
Proactive System Notifications
Recurring Work Orders
Rent Comparison Tool
Smart Search
Streamlined Work Orders
Tabbed Categories
Upload Documents

Tenant Portal

Online Lease Agreements
Online Leasing
Online Rental Applications

Owner Portal

Email Owner Statements
Performance Metrics
Surveys
Vacancy Dashboards

Marketing

Automatic Postings to Web
Guest Cards
Lead Source Tracking
Lease Option Management
Marketing Statistics
Real Time Vacancy Statistics
Support Inquiries
Website Templates

Data Management

Automatic Data Backup
Export to CSV
Export to Excel
Export to Web
Export to PDF
File Storage
Sync with MS Word
Sync with Outlook

Operating Environment

Web-Based (Online)
Windows
Mobile Application