Understanding Real Estate Management Implementation Issues

This chapter discusses:

Real Estate Management implementation.
Enterprise data flow mapping.
Recognize your business structure.
Define an FTP server for document attachments.
Create and administer leases.

Real Estate Management Implementation

To implement Real Estate Management, you first need to design the system's business structure and put that structure in place. You must determine the best way to map your new system to your organization's business structures, practices, and procedures.

Whether you are a retailer or corporate office professional, Real Estate Management provides the functionality for management of the leasing lifecycle.

Mapping Enterprise Data Flow

You need to determine the flow of data into and out of Real Estate Management. Mapping which applications integrate with Real Estate Management and how to carry out that integration helps you with setup decisions.

Here are some questions to help with this mapping:

What applications which integrate with Real Estate Management do you want to utilize?

See Understanding Product Integration.
Are these applications currently implemented?

If not, when are they scheduled for implementation?

Both PeopleSoft Enterprise General Ledger and PeopleSoft Enterprise Asset Management need to be implemented prior to or at the same time as the implementation of Real Estate Management. Additionally, PeopleSoft Enterprise Payables must be used for processing of transactions to the landlords and PeopleSoft Enterprise Transaction Billing Processor and PeopleSoft Enterprise Billing must be used for processing transactions to subtenants.
What do you want to track in your Real Estate Management system?

Recognizing Your Business Structure

Implementing Real Estate Management requires an iterative method of examining your business processes and investigating the software. When designing your system, take into account your policies, procedures, and existing structures. Assess how they can be incorporated into Real Estate Management. Ask questions such as:

How do you control lease management?

How does this relate to your legal and financial organizational structure?

Is it centralized or decentralized?
To what extent do you want to take advantage of the hierarchical structure afforded by using a combination of leases and subleases?
How do you want to control the security of your leases?

Will you want the leases to be automatically approved or will someone in the management organization have to review and approve the leases?
Who is involved in the leasing process at your company?

Defining an FTP Server for Document Attachments

Real Estate Management uses an FTP server to store document attachments. You must establish an FTP server with adequate disk storage to store your documents. The RE_ATTACHMENTS URL is delivered with Real Estate Management, but you must update the data in the URL field so that the path to the appropriate FTP server is specified. To designate the path to the FTP server, use the URL Maintenance page.

The syntax for this URL is ftp://<username>:<password>@<machinename>.

<username>	Name of the user account under which you want all users to connect to the FTP server for adding, updating, viewing, and deleting documents.
<password>	Password associated with the user account under which you want all users to connect to the FTP server.
<machinename>	The name by which the FTP server is identified on your network. You may want to create a directory on the server where your documents are stored. If you create an optional directory, then include this directory name when citing your path. You can also store the attachments in the root directory of the FTP server.

Warning! The user name and password specified here are critical. The system uses these to connect all users to the FTP attachment server.

Creating and Administering Leases

The following is a high-level overview of the steps involved in creating and administering a lease:

(Optional) Create a lease abstract for a lease.

Before you create a new lease, you must extract the terms and conditions of that lease to be captured and administered in the system. A lease abstract provides a work template and/or summarization of those terms and conditions, thus streamlining lease entry.
Create a lease in Real Estate Management.

Each lease you add, whether it is a payables or receivables lease, enables you to define the timetable of the lease commencement and termination date along with the term of the lease. Each lease can include one or multiple properties. You also can designate the administrator, portfolio manager and other operational information such as region.
Capture base rent, operating expenses and other financial terms for a lease.

As a lease administrator, you define the base rent and operating expenses for a lease. Operating expenses can be defined for shared maintenance costs. These costs are for the common area maintenance of the property such as: landscaping, cleaning, lobby staff, and so on, and these operating expense categories can be predefined in setup.

Once you have defined theses terms, Billing can generate an invoice or a payment can be made through Payables, depending on the lease type.
Define rent escalations for a lease.

You can associate a financial index or assign a periodic stepped increase for escalation of rents in a lease.
Setup periodic billing and payments according to lease terms.

Recurring monthly rent can be setup for periodic billing according to lease terms. The information is sent to Billing or Payables on a periodic basis, simplifying the administration of that lease.
Define percent rent terms.

You can establish leases with variable rent payments based on reported periodic sales. Lower rent payments can be negotiated in exchange for a portion of sales. As sales reach specified thresholds (breakpoints) the percentages change, thus altering the final rent amount. You can predefine these sales categories in setup.
Select clause types and clause subtypes to be associated to the lease.

You can predefine clause types and clause subtypes to associate to a lease. Leases can have multiple clauses defining the terms of conditions of that lease.
Define options and critical dates in a lease.

Leases can have many events, options and key milestones dates that may be of significant importance and might require reminders of actions that need to be taken. The options and critical dates feature acts as a early warning of when these dates become due so you can take the appropriate action. Additionally, templates can be setup to expedite entry and enforce consistency in notification rules.
Manage notes and contacts.

Enter notes to serve as a contact history of the lease, with optional attachments, if desired. From the defined Landlord or Tenant in the general information, customer or vendor contact information can be accessed from the customer or vendor master and referenced on the lease. You can also set up either internal or external Real Estate Management contacts specific to that lease.
Manage lease changes through amendment processing.

Amendment processing enables you to make changes to an active lease while keeping a historical record of the original lease and any prior amendments to that lease.

See Understanding Leases.