Property managers or Operators looking to streamline their operations, and make it easier for them to control and manage their commercial property (coworking spaces, managed offices, tech parks) are advised to integrate with a property management system. With a PMS, they can schedule, maintain and track every aspect that their residences are in need of - like tenancy contract creation and renewals, cleaning, visitor management and more. Fingent reports that a good PMS is the need of the hour - especially in a world that tackles many physical processes, digitally. 

But how does an operator decide what software is best for his property? Existing operators with large listings may find it difficult to find a one-shoe-fits-all solution, and new operators looking to integrate with technology or PropTech, may get confused by the vastness of what is offered. Thus, this blog post has the below 8 features listed that makes a PMS stand out from the rest.

1. 1.
   Contract renewal

Property managers can ensure the timely renewal of commercial contracts linked to their units by updating it on a PMS software. This helps them ensure their units are booked, and that the revenue is flowing in. Contract renewal also helps build in customer loyalty, which adds to its importance. 

Thus, a feature that helps in leveraging expiring and new contracts should be sought after by a property manager. This is especially important in a tech park, where the number of tenants is generally larger with different requirements. Juro is an AI enabled contract automating service, which provides exactly that.

2. 2.
   Seat mapping

In the situation that an office needs dedicated cabin space or seating area for certain individuals employed with them, i.e. dedicated seats, they can easily plan it out on a PMS. 

It’s a great feature to have when the current client office is also considering shifting into new property; the existing setup can be marketed to new clients who have similar requirements.

3. 3.
   Subscription plans

As a part of contract renewals, commercial PMS can also offer a variety of listings to its existing and potential clients. Here’s what a subscription plan offered by a commercial property manager would look like: (website mock)

Subscription plans can help increase revenue for the commercial real estate owner as many clients would want additional features to enjoy along with the office space and its basic amenities.

4. 4.
   Maintenance management 

Tracking maintenances can be difficult when they’re

• 
  Unrecorded - the property manager has no registration done of the maintenance task
• 
  Unattended - there is no observance of the task being done.

A PMS software can fill in the gaps by helping in

• 
  Maintaining an asset registry
• 
  Maintaining inventories
• 
  Issuing work orders
• 
  Planned and preventive maintenance

5. 5.
   Visitor management 

What about a situation when people not from the office(s) enter the property? This can be the case of

• 
  A company’s clients coming to attend office meetings
• 
  Vendors coming to fix the HVAC system
• 
  Auditors arriving for financial inspections
• 
  Potential tenants checking the place out

A PMS can be integrated with a visitor management system or VMS so there’s no struggle of losing track of how many non-tenants have entered the property at any given time. There can be in-built categorisations of the visitor, and thus this brings to a further track of servicers or vendors who enter the property and the task that they are meant to perform.

6. 6.
   Collections and invoice management

As an addition to rental collection, tenants are sometimes liable to pay-

• 
  charges for booking facilities or events
• 
  late fees for overdue invoices
• 
  fines due to noncompliance of rules, and 
• 
  payments for additional services, like extra rental space for temporary usage. 
• 
  Property managers are also liable to make payments to vendors for external services like maintenance or installations.

Managing so many invoices for these payments and receipts can be a cumbersome task. An ideal PMS should be able to seamlessly classify the invoices that are coming in and going out - reflecting on whether the amount that is receivable by or due to the property manager has been paid or not, and the date on which the invoice was created.

7. 7.
   Financial tracking

A good PMS must also be able to assist the property manager in terms of money. It would help with automating accounting processes like sending out invoices, making charts to understand financials better, and 

• 
  Ease in collections
• 
  Tracking A/P and A/R
• 
  Displaying data in easy to comprehend charts
• 
  Forecasting and budgeting
• 
  Streamlining payments

8. 8.
    Cross app integration 

Consider a situation where an office would only want its employees to be able to access the working space. Applications like Salto easily answer this problem through their building management configurations.

Realistically, it is impossible and also redundant for one app to be able to create all the answers for client needs. This is why there are PMS softwares, built to cater to commercial real estate clients, that are integrated with different platforms to make the user experience seamless and delightful.