6 Ways to Control Multifamily Expenses From Source to Pay

A 2023 National Apartment Association (NAA) article and infographic illustrate the tremendous financial challenge multifamily owners face. According to NAA, for every dollar of apartment rent collected, multifamily owners profit by a mere 7 cents. Their findings are based on 2022 operating statements from 9,263 rental properties with five or more units securing loans in Freddie Mac CMBS. Illinois, New York and Wisconsin owners enjoy a slightly higher average profit of 9 cents per dollar of rent, but that margin is still painfully slim. Given that rising costs are impacting residents as much as owners, raising rent isn’t always a viable answer. Instead, owners should focus on using technology to gain better control of operating expenses. Procure-to-pay solutions aren’t the answer, though, because they don’t cover the entire purchasing journey. The future of spend management is source-to-pay. It’s the key to lowering operating costs, reducing expenses and increasing NOI through centralization and automation along the entire purchasing journey. The multifamily experts at RealPage® recommend implementing a source-to-pay solution that can help you in the following six ways. 1. Map a strategic buyer journey A strategic buyer journey starts with centralizing and consolidating all purchasing, invoicing and vendor engagement processes from sourcing to procurement to payment. And it must deliver timely data insights across your entire multifamily portfolio. Centralization and automation can enable you to: Manage vendors more effectively, including vendor credentialing Maximize purchasing power Keep property spend under control Stay ahead with actionable data insights 2. Create procurement, purchasing and invoice process efficiencies Optimizing procurement, purchasing and invoice process efficiencies can get much easier when implementing an end-to-end procurement and purchasing solution. Such software can reduce invoice processi...