Six Reporting Features Every Commercial Property Management System Should Have

As a measure of how critical reporting is in property management, consider this: from 25% to 30% of all implementation efforts center around reporting. That’s because commercial property management professionals are only as good as the data they use to make decisions. If the data is difficult or impossible to retrieve, they’re hamstrung in their jobs. And having to go through extra steps or turn to the accounting department every time they want to look at data a different way sharply limits their effectiveness. Standard and optional reporting features vary greatly between property management systems, and you can’t always depend on their ability to grow with your needs. In many cases, expanding reporting capabilities involves expensive add-ons and customization – and even after they’re in place, these bolted on tools suffer from a lack of tight integration with the base property management system. With these things in mind, here are the six reporting features to look for in a commercial property management system: 1. Filterable standard reports All property management systems have standard reports, but not all standard reports are the same. Though they’re called standard for a reason (they come pre-created with the solution), not everyone wants to look at the data they contain in the same way. Asset managers and property managers, for example, view the business through different lenses. You need the ability to apply filtering, sorting, totaling and grouping criteria – and to save these criteria for future sorts and searches, so you don’t have to re-specify them every time you want to look at data in the same way. 2. User-configurable grids and queries Let’s say you’re looking for leases that share a certain characteristic: leases by property, or leases by type, or expiring during a certain period. When you pull up a screen showing all your leases, it’s important for you to be able to apply filter...