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Commercial real estate managers are under intense pressure to increase cor porate profit margins. To achieve this goal, they must maintain high occupancy levels, invest in the right markets at the right time, deliver projects on time and on budget, and control operational costs all while strategically planning growth or diversification. The SAP Real Estate Management application, based on the SAP ERP application and the SAP NetWeaver tech nol ogy platform, serves as the cornerstone for the lifecycle management of real estate property. The soft ware supports key industry processes and provides robust, integrated analytical functionality.
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4 Prospering in a Complex Commercial Real Estate Market 4 Effectively Managing the Real Estate Property Life Cycle 5 Building Profitability from the Ground Up 6 Key Functions of SAP Real Estate Management 6 Generating Flexible Reporting and Analytics 7 Managing Physical Property Assets 7 Displaying the Usage View 8 Displaying the Architectural View 8 Viewing Capital Asset Data 8 Managing Construction and Tenant Improvements 9 Handling Facility and Service Requests 9 Tracking Land Ownership 9 Optimizing Lease Administration 10 Contract Type 10 Contacts 10 Terms 10 Property Assignment 10 Lease Measurements 10 Posting Parameters 10 Conditions 11 Performance- or Sales-Based Rent 11 Rent Escalation or Rent Adjustments 11 Common Area Maintenance Reconciliation 11 Reminders 11 Option Rate Method for Input Tax 11 Overviews
12 Optimizing Lease Processes 12 Giving Notice on an Open-Ended Lease 12 Tracking Renewal Options on Fixed-Term Leases 12 Handling Early Termination on a Fixed-Term Lease 12 Managing Sales-Based Leases 12 Processing Rent Adjustments 13 Amending Leases 13 Managing Occupancy 13 Tracking Utilization 13 Promoting Vacant Space 14 Managing Contacts 14 Managing Documents and Correspondence 14 Storing Documents in a Repository 14 Centralizing Data Access 14 Creating Mass and Individual Communication 15 Building Lease Abstracts 15 Executing Transaction Management 15 Using Optical Archives 16 Maximizing Organizational Skills 16 Streamlining Financial and Management Accounting 16 Automating Rental Accounting Processes 18 Improving Real Estate Controlling Processes 19 Managing Third-Party Properties and Condominiums 19 Handling Expense Recovery and Common Area Maintenance 19 Mitigating Risk and Improving Compliance
20 Building for the Future 20 End-to-End Real Estate and Facilities Life-Cycle Management 20 Increased Real Estate Portfolio Revenue 20 Improved Space Utilization 20 Optimized Lease Administration 20 Controlled Expenses 20 Improved Decision Making 21 Foundation for Your Success 21 Find Out More 22 Table of Processes Supported by SAP Real Estate Management 24 Quick Facts
For commercial real estate companies, competing successfully has never been more challenging. Operations are becom ing intrinsically more complex. Favorable regulations overseas and declining profitability margins in local markets are driving many organizations to expand their international holdings. Many organizations are diversifying their portfolio mix to pursue new opportuni ties and ease cyclical market swings. Some enterprises are generating addi tional revenue through complimentary lines of business such as construction or facilities services. Profitability is ever more elusive. Rising energy costs have boosted property upkeep expenditures. Global expansion and diversification can create costly operational impediments, such as ex pand ed compliance efforts and addi tional time needed for site selection and development. The business sys tems used by most commercial real estate companies are ill equipped to meet these challenges. Multiple legacy sys tems and IT vendors can lead to dupli cate management efforts that result in untimely, often inaccurate, information and inefficient processes. All these factors can negatively impact overall portfolio profitability. Despite these industry realities, com pa ny managers and investors expect commercial real estate managers to
deliver high performance while devel op ing new strategies, maximizing oppor tunities, and avoiding unnecessary portfolio risk. You must increase profit margins by maintaining high occupancy levels, investing in the right markets at the right time, delivering projects on time and on budget, and controlling operational costs all while strate gically planning corporate growth or diversification.
estate managers must handle numer ous strategic and operational tasks from the time a purchase is initially considered through such stages as acquisition, construction, refurbishment, leasing, and final disposition. Point solutions work well for companies managing small regional portfolios or those with little potential for growth or diversification. However, these solu tions come with definite liabilities, especially for growing organizations. Often point solutions lack the capacity and flexibility to handle all property types and processes. Most offer a limited range of country localizations to support local languages, currencies, measure
Facility and Service Management
Real Estate Operations Construction/ Refurbishment Acquisition Investment Idea Planning and Optimization
Disposition
ments, regulatory issues, and tax requirements. Furthermore, only rarely can these solutions support comple mentary lines of business, such as construction and facilities management. The most significant shortcoming is that these products lack fully integrated, automated functionality. They cannot provide complete transparency or realtime access to a unified view of the business.
real estate portfolio and all business transactions related to it, allowing you to: Accommodate any type of real estate portfolio mix, including office, indus trial, retail, multifamily, and land assets Strategically manage real estate port folios across all political and geo graphic boundaries Administer numerous lease tem plates, support related lease processes, and create and distribute documents and correspondence Proactively monitor occupancy levels Automatically generate critical reminder dates Centrally administer all relevant contact information Recover common area maintenance fees and other expenses Govern rental accounting and controlling processes Integrate processes with comple mentary business areas, such as investments, construction, tenant improvements, and facility management Conduct internal and external report ing from the operational to executive levels With more than 15 years of experience serving real estate enterprises, SAP has the depth and breadth of industry knowledge and solutions necessary to enhance your control and generate new insight into your real estate portfolio.
Enterprise query, reporting, and analysis packages from SAP and Business Objects, an SAP company, help your company capitalize on the value of accurate and relevant corporate data. These packages can help you increase insight into property portfolio performance, make better investment decisions about con struc tion and moderni za tion, enhance trans parency of space usage, and improve monitoring of maintenance and repair budgets.
The contacts related to your portfolio may include property man agers, lease adminis tra tors, tenants and landlords, owners, and service providers. SAP Real Estate Manage ment helps you create a unique data record for each of these con tacts and allows you to assign each contact one or more roles. You can create the roles you need, and you can specify which roles can access what port folio data or leases.
The SAP software provides reporting and analytics functionality that can help you develop portfolio insight and make critical business decisions. The SAP Real Estate Management application pro vides numerous reports. In addition, the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelli gence com ponent delivers industry-specific ana lytics and insight, giving you access to key information on the utili zation and operation of your prop erties. You can capture data from all integrated SAP solutions including core finan cials as well as data on proj ects, facility main te nance, real estate, and legacy systems and create reports and key perfor mance indicator (KPI) reports (see Figure 2).
Based on the templates, the software can generate information on your KPIs as well as on any aspect of your business, including: Asset information (such as measurements and locations) Occupancy and vacancy reporting Lease reporting (such as term, renewal options, rent roll, lease measurements, and escalations) Tenant and other portfolio contact information Tenant account sheet and status reporting Cost recovery and common area maintenance details Revenues, cost, and profitability reporting per region, site, building, piece of land, space, and lease Related financial reporting Critical date reporting Reporting related to facilities man agement and construction projects Based on the open SAP architecture, the software can combine information from both SAP and non-SAP software in industry-related reports and analyt ics. Role-based data views provide man agers, departments, and teams company-wide with instant access to information. Whats more, the software offers features that help you dissemi nate valuable insights about the real
estate portfolio securely; embedded security functionality ensures data con sistency and maintains data integrity. In addition, you can use enterprise query, reporting, and analysis packages from SAP and Business Objects, an SAP company, to help your company capital ize on the value of accurate and relevant corporate data. These pack ages can help you increase insight into property port folio performance, make better invest ment decisions about con struc tion and modernization, enhance transpar ency of space usage, and improve moni tor ing of maintenance and repair budgets.
physical real estate assets and leases from a leasing perspective. The archi tectural view shows all structures on a site, whether or not they are leased. Displaying the Usage View With the usage view, you can display how the property is used by tenants, including sites, land, buildings, and rental spaces. Rental objects can be represented either as fixed rental units (such as apartments) or as rental spaces of related pooled space. A pooled space could be a larger asset, such as an office or retail area from which smaller rental units can be extracted according to specific lease terms (see Figure 3).
Company Code
Site
Buildings
Land
Rental Units
You can use the software to associate each property asset with related infor mation, which can be used for reporting or other processes. Information that can be associated with property assets includes: General information such as address, dimensions, dates of validity Controlling and posting data useful for posting data such as tax informa tion and allocated cost and revenue Contacts or business partners such as information about tenants, owners, or service providers Linked data such as information about the propertys fixed assets (for accounting purposes), ongoing or planned projects, internal orders, functional location of facilities man agement, and architectural objects When you display physical property assets in the usage view, the data is structured hierarchically showing, for example, a site on one level and all its associated buildings or pieces of land on the next. Buildings may have multiple pooled spaces and rental units. The software automatically replicates infor mation captured at the higher level to any relevant asset on the lower levels of the display.
Displaying the Architectural View The architectural view supplements the data shown in the usage view with detailed space information. You can dis play detailed information about a buildings structure and attributes that may be inconsequential to leasing pro cesses yet critical for move man age ment, facilities operations, or other processes. For example, areas such as building lobbies, bathrooms, and storage rooms may not be important for lease management purposes but can be sig nificant for move and facili ties management. You can use the architectural view to: Display detailed information about the architectural structure and space of a property shown in the usage view Specify measurements for a prop erty, including area, capacity, and number of workstations Assign relationships to business partners, such as service providers Manage room reservations Plan and execute moves Link to CAD drawings or documents produced by a computer-aided facility management system Viewing Capital Asset Data In addition to the usage and architec tural views, you can use SAP Real Estate Management to display data related to capital assets, such as buildings, large pieces of equipment, or any other struc tures that depreciate over time. Data on capital assets is also captured in the asset accounting functionality of the SAP ERP Financials solution.
Inte gra tion between this software and SAP Real Estate Management lets you view all capital assets and capture associ ated depreciation costs related to your portfolio.
In addition, you can use SAP Real Estate Management to distribute and charge project costs to your tenants or asso ci ate these costs with the internal depart ments that requested the improvements.
these areas that might require mainte nance, such as elevators or heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems. The maintenance areas identified in the enterprise asset management software also known as functional locations can be integrated into the architectural or usage views in SAP Real Estate Management. You can then configure SAP Real Estate Management to auto matically include those areas as physi cal properties or structures in your portfolio. When you classify functional areas as structures, the software can manage recurring and ad hoc mainte nance processes as well as any other facility-related service requests asso ciated with them. Finally, you can use SAP Real Estate Management to better understand the costs and revenues associated with maintenance and service activities by settling orders from enterprise asset management to cost elements in SAP Real Estate Management. The software can analyze these values in relation to your real estate portfolios total profitability.
rights, encumbrances and restrictions, liens, and mortgages. Parcels can be described in detail, including such infor mation as addresses, parcel map loca tions, area views based on overlays and classification types, and site devel opment aspects. The SAP software can incorporate local requirements to inte grate your internal view of the cor porate portfolio with the public and legal view of a specific land parcel.
Contract Type Contract type is the primary defining component of each lease template. The contract type specifies the following: Whether the lease should integrate with accounts receivable or accounts payable or whether it is used for intercompany agreements What numbering ranges should be used for the contract number Which types of contacts or business partners such as tenants or land lords are required or allowed on the lease What types of property for example, buildings or spaces must, may, or must not be included in a specific contract type What rental charges or payments (collectively called conditions) are allowed or required How software screens are displayed Contacts When you specify that contacts are allowed or required on a lease, you can use the software to assign a role to each contact, with contacts managed through the integration of SAP Real Estate Management with the business partner. Potential contact roles can include tenants, landlords, or owners. The role selected determines whether the software shares the information with other parts of the SAP software. If you specify on the lease template that the information should be shared, the con tact information will be provided to the customer or vendor account in the SAP ERP Financials solution. The SAP Real Estate Management software also uses contact information for billing and pay ment processes as well as for communication.
Terms All lease contracts require terms infor mation. Lease terms specify the begin ning and ending dates of the lease as well as information such as lease dura tion, termination notice rules, and any renewal option rules. Property Assignment Each lease or contract can include more than one property as well as parts of properties. You use this field to specify which spaces, buildings, and other port folio items are part of a lease agreement. All property assignments are timespecific. You can assign a property to a lease for the duration of the lease or for a specific time segment occurring within the leased period. When multiple properties or parts of properties are included in the same lease or subject to similar requirements such as rental fees or billing cycles you can group them to simplify processing. Lease Measurements The measurements used for billing, pay ment, and other lease-related calculations originate from the property data noted on the lease. However, in some cases, the measurement used for rent calculation does not accurately reflect the physical attributes of the leased space. In these cases, you can use the lease measurements field to capture the correct measurement data. Posting Parameters You can use the posting parameters field to capture general information that affects a leases financial and control ling postings. This information includes posting frequency and calculations, tax
and jurisdiction codes, dunning rules, and controlling information about to which cost center or business area that posting is made. Conditions You can use the conditions field to indi cate the types of rental fees that may be applied to a lease. You can specify that a flat rate is to be applied or that the fee is to be calculated from the measurements stored for the individual properties buildings, spaces, or other portfolio items that were assigned to the lease using the property assign ment field. Alternatively, you can specify that the rental fee is to be calculated from the lease measurements explicitly speci fied for this purpose or from other sources. To streamline the lease crea tion process, you can specify that any market rates, values, or other calcula tions used to assess rental fees default to preselected values. All rental fees are time specific. You can use the software to assess fees begin ning with the lease commence ment date or for any lease interval. Based on the conditions specified, you can capture advanced payments or prepayments that are reconciled at a later date. You can use the conditions field to initiate a controlling or financial posting action. When you enter conditions on a lease, the software automatically cre ates a cash-flow projection of planned income or expense, which is posted to the SAP ERP Financials solution. The software converts the planned income or expense data into open items in the financial software when the periodic posting run is processed.
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You can also specify conditions on pooled spaces, rental spaces, and rental units. This allows you to specify that any market rates, values, or other cal cu la tions used to assess rental fees for these spaces default to preselected values. Performance- or Sales-Based Rent You can use the lease template to spec ify that a lease is sales based, mean ing that the rental fees will be calculated based on sales revenues or volume sales. When a lease is sales based, the software captures all condi tions, calcu lations, and tenant reporting information that is relevant to the sales-based rent settlement process. Rent Escalation or Rent Adjustments SAP Real Estate Management provides a mass-rent adjustment tool, which is useful when you need to adjust rent to match fair market values or consumer price indexes. Using the mass-rent adjustment process can save you from having to adjust or calculate each lease individually. For the software to reflect a lease in any adjustment process, you must assign the specific process here. Common Area Maintenance Reconciliation The software automatically uses data entered for leased spaces to identify leases that have a share in common area maintenance reconciliation. You can further adjust this information for each individual lease. The software then uses the information captured on the lease to support recovery calcula tions and billing processes.
Reminders You can specify critical dates on each lease and have the software generate a critical-dates report for part or all of your lease portfolio. Based on the report criteria you specify, the software selects upcoming reminders for inclu sion in the report. The critical-date reminders ensure that no critical lease date goes unnoticed and that all action related to the critical date is captured. You can manually enter critical dates on a lease, or you can configure the soft ware to automatically default to infor ma tion entered in other lease areas. For example, if you enter renewal option dates and notices in the terms field, the software automatically generates reminders based on these dates. You can specify critical-date descriptions as recurring or one-time events. Option Rate Method for Input Tax In certain countries where input tax dis tribution is legally applicable, you can use SAP Real Estate Management to calculate the deductible and nondeduct ible portions of input tax for properties with mixed rentals, such as commercial and residential. The software calculates option rates monthly. You can manage any related correction items as they arise. Overviews You can use the software to specify frequently used analytical reports that you want to be able to generate with a keystroke. Examples of reports you may want to quickly generate include tenant accounts, assigned buildings and rooms, periodical costs and reve nues, vacancy rates per site or time slot, and building size.
The commercial real estate industry is paper intensive. You must access, store, and man age a large and diverse assort ment of docu ments and correspon dence to support on going operations and to remain legally compli ant. SAP provides a number of document manage ment and cor respon dence tools that inte grate with the SAP Real Estate Manage ment soft ware. These tools support central ized access to portfoliorelated documents and correspondence as well as electronic trans action manage ment.
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responsible contact person. Once the renewal is activated, the software auto matically extends the new lease period, ensuring that lease and accounting processes, such as billing, continue uninterrupted. You can set up the renewal functionality to support additional requirements month-to-month lease extensions or lease holdover periods, for example. Handling Early Termination on a Fixed-Term Lease When a lease is terminated before its scheduled expiration date, you can use SAP Real Estate Management to pro vide full process support. The software can handle initial tracking of the early termi nation request, internal approvals, related tenant correspondence, and the application of early termination fees. Once the early termination is process ed, the software can automatically end the lease, preventing it from inappropri ately affecting related processes such as billing, reminders, or adjustments. Managing Sales-Based Leases In retail operations, all or part of a tenants rental charges may be based on the amount of revenue generated or the number of units or products sold. You can use SAP Real Estate Man age ment to handle these percentage- or sales-based leases. The softwares sales-based lease func tionality captures detailed information on the sales calculation employed, including the types of eligible products, number of products sold, product schedule or grading, and any effective sales caps. You can use the software
to capture additional information, such as how tenant sales are reported, whether prepayments are expected, and how the settlements or calcula tions are processed. Once you enter this information in the lease, the software then tracks report ed tenant sales and processes rent calcu lations at specified intervals. SAP Real Estate Management generates open items in the accounts receivable func tionality of SAP ERP for rent to be paid, entering a sum that is based on the reported sales. When incoming pay ments are processed, the software clears the open items. Users can view the sales-based rental data from the SAP ERP Financials solution or from the lease in the SAP Real Estate Management software. This process is supported by the SAP Interactive Forms software by Adobe. The tenant enters sales data using the SAP Interactive Forms software, which compiles sales reports and correspon dence. The SAP NetWeaver Portal component supports this process by enabling the collection of tenant sales reports and invoices. The sales-based lease functionality can also be used for expense leases, for example, when a retailer leases a shop from a shopping mall operator. Processing Rent Adjustments You can use SAP Real Estate Man age ment to adjust rental fees. The soft ware supports adjustments based on indexes, percentages, and amounts. You can also use the application to adjust rents when a property has been
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method is most effective for mass pro cessing, however, you do need to spec i fy that is it allowed for a specific lease. To process a custom adjust ment, you enter the appropriate values in either percentage or amount and the soft ware calculates the new rental fees. You can review and adjust the proposed rent amounts and approve them before the software adjusts the leases. The custom adjustment process is support ed by cor respondence functionality. It can also be used to update market rates on rental spaces. Amending Leases During the term of a lease, you may want to make legal amendments such as adding space, making rent adjust ments, or changing the names of those responsible for rent payments. You can use the software to make these amend ments in the original lease, noting rele vant start dates. This feature not only captures the history of the lease but also ensures that the soft ware version of the lease matches the paper version.
automate the leas ing process to reduce property turn over time. The following sections describe functionality provided by SAP Real Estate Management that can help you in these areas. Tracking Utilization You can use SAP Real Estate Manage ment to track the utilization of all your rental spaces, so you can easily com pare and review each propertys occu pancy status. You can generate reports with this information, which can help you determine occupancy levels over time. Because you can review this space uti li zation information for all your prop er ties, you can efficiently antici pate poten tial vacancies and take proactive steps to maximize occupancy levels. The software offers a reminder func tionality which discloses critical lease dates and projects upcoming vacancies in advance, helping you take the appro priate steps in a timely fashion. Promoting Vacant Space Another way to minimize vacancies is to actively promote vacant or soon-tobe-vacant properties among potential and current tenants. SAP Real Estate Management provides a real estate search feature that you can use to match prospective tenants with avail able properties, based on the renters preferences. Once the tenant selects a rental space, you can use the soft ware to generate a lease offer from the data. If the offer is accepted, the soft ware automatically converts the offer infor ma tion into a new lease agree ment. This functionality can reduce lease turn over time for residential leases and other lease types that are highly standardized.
refurbished or modernized, when its value is reassessed, or to bring the rent into alignment with comparable properties. The two most commonly used adjust ment methods are based on indexes and custom adjustments. Index adjust ments are based on indexes published by governmental organizations. You can assign these adjustment methods as well as any additional details and restric tions in the lease. The software config ures the adjustment methods and main tains index points using mea sures such as a consumer price index. Based on the index details cited in the lease and the index points, the soft ware pro poses rent adjustments when appro priate. You can use the custom adjustment method to increase rental fees based on a specific percentage or amount. This
Managing Occupancy
An unoccupied property is an unprofit able asset. To maximize revenues, you must continuously monitor property occupancy rates and strive to minimize vacancy. Yet identifying properties with out tenants or those about to be vacated and being able to easily access details about the propertys location, charac teristics, and availability can be diffi cult and time consuming when data is stored in diverse software applications. Non integrated software also makes it dif fi cult to accelerate or
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Because contacts related to your port folio are likely to change over time, you can use the software to limit the terms of the contact relationship or to add new contact information for a portfolio beginning at a specified date. This func tionality lets you maintain a full history of contact information for both your physi cal property and your lease portfolio.
or third-party document repository solution, you can link documents stored there directly to any portfolio asset in SAP Real Estate Management. Centralizing Data Access The SAP software simplifies access to data associated with any asset in your portfolio. With SAP Real Estate Man agement, you can display any corre spondence related to a portfolio asset that was either generated during a related real estate process or created manually. For example, you can use the software to display a lease and then access the original lease documents and any lease amendments. You can display various other correspondence, such as a letter generated in response to an index adjustment process or an ad hoc letter sent to the tenant by the lease administrator. Creating Mass and Individual Communication Commercial real estate companies must communicate with a wide variety of stakeholders. SAP Real Estate Management provides the functionality to create and process mass and indi vidual tenant correspondence and other portfolio-related communication, includ ing letters, e-mail messages, and faxes. Mass correspondence can originate from portfolio-related processes, such as mass-rent adjustment, cost recov ery, or common area maintenance billing, or it can be manually initiated. With SAP Real Estate Management, the user selects the correspondence type from
Managing Contacts
Managing the many contacts related to your portfolio can be challenging, and they may include property managers, lease administrators, tenants and land lords, owners, and service providers. SAP Real Estate Management helps you create a unique data record for each of these contacts and allows you to assign each contact one or more roles. For example, a contact respon sible for rent payment could be assigned the role of a real estate tenant as well as that of a customer in the accounts receivable software. You can also create the roles you need. Contacts can be companies, individuals, or organiza tions, and they may have one or more addresses.
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a list of templates and then adds the relevant contact name, address, and details. (For manually generated corre spondence, the user initiates this pro cess.) Each piece of mass correspon dence is assigned to the portfolio asset for later reference. Although the mass correspondence tool is most often used to create correspondence meant for wide distribution, you can also use it to process individual letters. You can also use the SAP Interactive Forms software by Adobe to create online and offline templates in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Using SAP Interactive Forms is advantageous when you are creating correspondence such as a request or an update docu ment, because tenants can easily update the form and return the information to you. For example, tenants with salesbased leases must periodically provide their revenues to meet their lease terms. To collect this information, you can send tenants an SAP Interactive Forms reve nue sheet or make the form available through a portal. The template extracts the data from the SAP software for each tenant and displays it on the form. The tenants can update the information and submit the form. The SAP software extracts any revised or added data from the form and updates the database used by SAP ERP. For ad hoc correspondence, you can create individual letters or pieces of correspondence using Microsoft Word or Ami Pro. These products allow you to create generic templates that collect
information from the SAP software such as addresses, greetings, and other default information which you can use in the individual correspon dence as needed. Building Lease Abstracts You can use the tools designed for cre ating mass correspondence to pre pare a lease abstract template. When you generate a lease abstract, the soft ware fills in the related lease informa tion as specified by the template. Lease admin istrators can send the abstracts to your contacts, or you can grant access to the abstracts to authorized users. Executing Transaction Management To help structure and manage real estaterelated transactional processes, you can use the SAP Records Manage ment application. With this software, you can define folder templates for each real estate object type, assign docu ments to these folders, and track the individual versions of each docu ment. You can use this software to send requests for approval to other corpo rate employees responsible for processes, such as the acquisition of a new build ing. Furthermore, you can use the SAP Real Estate Management software to attach documents archived in optical storage devices to the correspondence. Using Optical Archives You can use optical archiving software to take a snapshot of documents and correspondence and store the images for later retrieval. For example, you can archive a renewal notice letter right
Efficiently managing the many tasks carried out by commercial real estate managers re quires strong organi zational skills. You can use the SAP Real Estate Management software to help you more effec tively man age such tasks as track ing critical dates for follow-up acti vities, monitoring the com ple tion of criti cal due dates, and issuing re minders for tasks that must be per form ed in speci fic time frames.
after you issue it. Once in the optical archive, users can access it from the related lease in SAP Real Estate Management. In this way, you provide full transparency, not only of tenant documents and other received com munications but also of all corre spon dence generated by the software.
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ing. With the software, you can automate one-time and recurring postings, create invoices, post incoming payments, man age electronic bank statements, carry out dunning procedures, create install ment payments, and withdraw postings considered to be irrecoverable debts. When you specify the contract type in the lease template, you can stipulate finan cial and controlling requirements, for example, whether the lease should: Integrate with accounts receivable, for leases with tenants Integrate with accounts payable, for leases with landlords and service providers Initiate only internal controlling post ings, for leases with interdepart mental occupancy agreements Have no financial or controlling inte gration, such as when there are rightof-way agreements with no associ ated charges Once these integration settings are established, you can specify through the contract type field whether contact with customer or vendor accounts is required and the type of rental charges allowed for this lease type. The soft ware determines which postings should occur on the initial billing or payment for each real estate rental charge as well as any follow-up periodic postings and accounts that should be used. The following sections describe the post ings and other transactions that the soft ware processes. Automating Recurring Postings SAP Real Estate Management provides a recurring or periodic posting program. Based on the selection criteria you
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choose in the lease type field, this program can check all active system leases, create suggested open items in accounts receivable or accounts pay able, update reconciliation accounts in the general ledger, and propose other relevant controlling postings. Once you have reviewed and approved these proposals, you can use the software to execute the relevant postings in the general ledger and subledgers as well as update the profit-and-loss statement. If you find a mistake with the posting run before the open items are cleared, you can use the softwares reverse posting program to undo these postings. You can then correct the mistake and repeat the posting run. If a user error causes open items to be cleared by retroactive changes or other lease rent adjustment processes, the software calculates the accurate amounts and proposes relevant financial and con trol ling follow-up postings. This func tion ality creates a full audit trail that is visible from both the SAP ERP Financials solu tion and from individual leases in the SAP Real Estate Management software. Processing One-Time Postings Occasionally, you must post a one-time billing or payment, such as a tenant charge for early termination fees, improvements, lost keys, or an ad hoc vendor payment. To process these post ings, you can use a real estatespecific entry screen in the SAP Real Estate Management software. You can also use the software to configure tem plates for one-time posting in advance, which speeds data entry and increases posting accuracy. As with recurring postings, the software generates one
software to automatically or manually indicate that the payment was received and clear the open payment items. You can specify that the software auto mati cally match bank payment files with lease-related open items. To clear open items manually as you receive pay ments, you select either the tenant making a payment or the related lease and apply the payment to the appropriate open item. You can perform manual clearing via standard financial entry screens; however, using data entry screens that are specific to your own business pro cesses may be more efficient. When rental payments are executed through bank transactions, the bank sends a file with lease, payment, and tenant information. The SAP software matches this information against open items. If the software cannot identify a match, it highlights the record for excep tion processing, which an accounting clerk handles manually. Executing Dunning Procedures Although you can use dunning function ality in the SAP ERP Financials solution for commercial real estate tenants, the SAP Real Estate Management software provides additional integration that can streamline these operations. It provides the status on each lease and dunning information, including any special dun ning procedure to be followed for a specific lease. For example, if a tenant is responsible for multiple leases, you can set up dunning requirements on a per-lease basis. You might specify that the tenant will not be dunned for out standing items on one lease, but you may retain dunning for outstanding items on his or her other lease commitments.
or more financial and controlling docu ments for one-time postings to update your financial accounting records. Creating Rent Invoices In some regions, real estate companies provide rent invoices to tenants. With the softwares invoice program, you can create invoices based on financial information that can be processed as a single lease or as a group of leases if the tenant occupies multiple spaces. Highly flexible invoice layouts let you include not only open items that origi nate from the SAP ERP Financials solu tion but also calculations used by your business processes and other related rental charge information. Processing Manual and Electronic Incoming Payments You can use the software to receive paper or electronic payments. When tenants pay by check, you can use the
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SAP Real Estate Management provides screens to facilitate the dunning proce dure at both the tenant and lease level. Operating Leases on a Straight-Line Basis Publicly traded companies that abide by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) must also comply with the regulations put forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 13 (FAS13) requires that companies straight-line or average their revenues or costs related to operating leases throughout the lease term. This regulation ensures that com panies recognize costs and revenues associated with rentals in the period that they occur, regardless of lease provisions such as free-rent periods or graduated rents. When you create a lease template that requires rental payments be made on a straight-line basis, the SAP software automatically identifies any noncon form ing lease payments and calculates the required accrual or deferral postings. During the recurring posting process, the software then associates these postings with any actual lease charges. When changes to the rental charges occur, the software automatically recalculates and creates an adjustment posting, which helps your company comply with the FAS13 requirement. Maintaining Tenant Accounts Quickly accessing and processing infor mation about your tenants can speed your work. With SAP Real Estate Management, authorized users can
readily display tenant information such as over all tenant balances, individual open items, and payment history. They also can set up installment payment plans or write off irrecoverable debt. Tracking Lost Rental Revenue In the commercial real estate industry, vacant space equals lost revenue. With SAP Real Estate Management, you can easily track revenue lost as a result of unoccupied rental spaces. You can check for vacancies individually or let the software check for unoccupied space on a scheduled basis. The soft ware maintains market rental charges on spaces available for lease, such as pooled spaces, rental spaces, and rental units. If a space is vacant, the software processes a controlling posting to one or more specified cost centers for that period, allowing you to use the lost rental revenue data in portfolio report ing and analysis. Improving Real Estate Controlling Processes Because it is integrated with the con trol ling features of the SAP ERP Financials solution, SAP Real Estate Management can automate the controlling postings you use in planning, budgeting, and performance monitoring. All items in your portfolio including sites, buildings and structures, spaces, leases, and cost recovery buckets (also known as settlement units) are handled by the software as cost ele ments in the controlling features of the SAP ERP Financials solution. By default, the software posts all costs and reve nues to the associated portfolio items
To achieve maximum efficiencies and opti mize business value, companies with global property portfolios need to manage their real estate in accor dance with all appli cable legal require ments and local regu la tions. The SAP Real Estate Man age ment application facili tates compliance with a wide variety of country- and regionspecific requirements such as withholding tax, tenancy law, tax man age ment, and com mer cial law and helps you manage global issues such as multi currency handling.
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and then assigns those amounts to the proper tenants. This process captures all cost and revenue data on the physi cal portfolio so that it can be used for reporting. The software can process costs and revenues for internal management purposes. For example, you can post incoming vendor invoices to a building and then use the standard controlling settlement process to move the posted amounts to specified profit or cost cen ters. The software allows you to specify other ways to recognize leasinggenerated revenues, if you choose. SAP Real Estate Management provides tools for planning and budgeting cost and revenue on both the physical port folio and lease levels. The open archi tecture on which the software is based supports the use of business intelli gence software from Business Objects as well as other external budgeting and planning tools.
localized for the German market. This solution not only tracks owners, con tracts, and portfolios, but also allows you to create separate financial state ments and pro vides special cost recovery and budget ing functionality.
based on meter readings. The software calcu lates the amount each tenant must pay, based on relevant vendor invoices, advance payments, and any additional calculation information speci fied for either the cost recovery bucket or the lease. Finally, the software proposes a recov ery distribution plan. Once you review and approve it, the software posts recovery charges to relevant tenants. If a relevant space has been vacant during any part of the recovery period, the software posts the associated cost to the relevant vacant space and vacancy cost center. You can use the software to create relevant tenant corre spondence and generate extensive reporting.
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The SAP solution for commercial real estate offers you the func tion ality you need to create competitive differenti a tion and promote your success. You can en hance growth and visi bil i ty, drive new revenues while control ling expenses, mitigate risk, and improve com pliance. It empowers your teams by encour ag ing collaboration, en abling faster response to tenant requests, and helping them overcome operational and strate gic impediments.
Based on the SAP NetWeaver tech nol ogy platform, SAP Real Estate Man age ment supports your business goals with intuitive and powerful functionality that can improve your companys bottom line. Key benefits of the SAP Real Estate Management application are summarized here.
Controlled Expenses
SAP Real Estate Management helps you control and track expenses by auto mat ing transactions and optimizing mainte nance, repairs, and building services.
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For commercial real estate companies, growth is an important element of suc cess whether your company pur sues growth through geographical expansion, investing in complimentary lines of busi ness, or expanding your physical port folio mix. Whichever path you choose, increasing process effi ciency and keep ing a close eye on expenses can unlock previously untapped investment capital. The SAP solution for commercial real estate management offers you the func tionality you need to create com petitive differentiation and promote your success. You can enhance growth and visibility, drive new revenues while controlling expenses, mitigate risk, and improve compliance. It empowers your teams by encouraging collaboration, enabling faster response to tenant requests, and helping them overcome operational and strategic impediments.
With more than 15 years of experience serving real estate enterprises, SAP has the depth and breadth of industry knowledge and solutions necessary to: Support your global expansion SAP provides the financials function ality to support global currencies, tax, and regulations as well as local real estate requirements. Enhance your operational efficiency by reducing redundant activities The SAP software increases the speed and accuracy with which you can pro cess tasks, while providing full autho rization and audit control to quickly identify issues and resolve them. Facilitate your expansion into com ple mentary lines of business, such as con struction and facilities management The SAP software provides a unified software environment with full visibil ity into financial and process informa tion across business lines. Enable expansion of your asset port folio mix SAP Real Estate Manage ment provides the flexibility and adapt ability to accommodate any type of real estate property mix including office, industrial, multifamily, retail, and land assets and supports it with specific lease and portfolio informa tion, processes, reports, and correspondence.
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Benefit Efficiently create real estate contracts for landlords or tenants; set up service, sales, or leasing contracts; create security deposit agreements Enter all important data into the contract, including term, assets, and business partners Quickly add lease conditions for the contract and adjustment rules to be used to handle receivables and payables related to the partner recorded in the contract Efficiently manage all accounting processes Automatically transfer conditions entered on the contract to the periodic posting operations Invoice partners automatically Instantly credit or debit vacancies to a vacancy cost center Automatically post rents and operating costs to the time period the revenue is earned or the benefits are received Handle payment transactions promptly Execute accrual and deferral postings Adjust conditions automatically, even when multiple leases must be changed for legal or contractual reasons Choose from several methods to adjust conditions, including free adjustment, index adjustment, representative list of rents adjustment, adjustment using a comparative group of apartments, and adjustment of the advance payments made for common area maintenance reconciliation Settle all operating costs and heating expenses rapidly, including heating expenses calculated by external service providers Monitor and settle contracts predicated on the tenants turnover Automate controlling procedures, including planning, assessment, and settlement costs and revenues from real estate management
Accounting
Condition adjustment
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Quick Facts
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Summary The SAP Real Estate Management application provides both the scalability and flexibility to allow your company to move swiftly to execute new strategies, reduce operating costs, drive revenue, and increase competitive advantage. It is the cornerstone of a full property life-cycle solution for commercial real estate companies. Business Challenges Overcome operational problems resulting from growth and increased complexity Control and reduce expenses Increase revenue Improve space utilization Reduce operational and investment risk Analyze property-related data on a strategic and operational level Supported Business Processes and Software Functions Flexible reporting and analytics Physical portfolio management Lease administration Occupancy management Contact management Document and correspondence management Financial and management accounting Construction and tenant improvements Facilities management Business Benefits Improved management of real estate life cycle using a system that can accommodate your companys current and future business Enhanced cost control through monitoring and recovering costs related to assets in your real estate portfolio Increased revenue by increasing tenant retention and closely tracking occupancy rates Minimized company risk through improved process and portfolio controls, comprehensive validation procedures, unparalleled transparency, and a full audit trail Optimized asset portfolio as a result of using a full set of industry-specific operational and executive analytical tools For More Information To learn more about how SAP can help your commercial real estate organization increase performance and profitability, call your SAP representative today or visit us at www.sap.com/realestate.
50 093 207 (09/01) 2009 by SAP AG. All rights reserved. SAP, R/3, SAP NetWeaver, Duet, PartnerEdge, ByDesign, SAP Business ByDesign, and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. Business Objects and the Business Objects logo, BusinessObjects, Crystal Reports, Crystal Decisions, Web Intelligence, Xcelsius, and other Business Objects products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects S.A. in the United States and in other countries. Business Objects is an SAP company. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serves informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary. These materials are subject to change without notice. These materials are provided by SAP AG and its affiliated companies (SAP Group) for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP Group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP Group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.