The development of real estate is a time-consuming and complicated process. To effectively orchestrate the entire real estate development cycle, your accounting software must work harder than you.
Today’s shifting landscape means it’s more important than ever to adopt the right real estate development accounting software to manage costs and efficiencies.
Handling real estate-specific transactions requires software that’s built with developers in mind that goes way beyond using Quickbooks and Excel to ensure you’re not making important decisions based on outdated, incorrect, or incomplete data – You should be asking these questions:
Does It Allow for Real-Time Visibility on Project Costs?
Using Quickbooks and Excel together has been the entry-level solution for real estate developers for decades. However, for every project and throughout each real estate asset life cycle, your software should give you end-to-end visibility. It’s essential to have seamless access to real-time accounting records and reports. An accounting software solution designed specifically for development is key and without it, you’re likely missing out on opportunities or critical, timely information necessary for well-informed decisions.
Does It Let You Manage Multiple Entities or Allow Inter-Company Accounting and Reporting?
Real estate developers commonly operate in more complex business structures in which each project is defined as its own legal entity. With a multi-entity accounting solution, developers can consolidate and centralize their financial information, making it easier to monitor and analyze the financial performance of individual entities as well as the organization as a whole. It allows for a unified view of financial data, facilitating better decision-making, financial reporting, and compliance with accounting standards.
Does It Make Accounting Data Easily Accessible for Multi-Company Projects?
It’s your accounting data that support future decisions. If your data isn’t complete, up-to-date, or easily accessible for multi-company projects, it can be costly for everyone. It can create process bottlenecks, and if multiple companies are involved, it can throw projects in each of them behind schedule. Real estate development accounting software must solve the data collection and reporting problems that developers encounter.
Can You See Cash Flow and Profit/Loss in a Single Report?
Without a single report of cash flow and profit and loss at your disposal, it’s virtually impossible to know which of your existing projects are under-funded and which types of projects are worthwhile pursuing in the future. These reports provide the kind of insight that is foundational to the successful completion of your projects. Without accounting tools geared toward real estate-based transactions, it can impact information needed to meet debt servicing requirements.
Does It Let You Manage Multiple Loans from One Place?
It’s time-consuming and tedious to track multiple loans, generate updates to loan draws, record receipts, and post accounting entries. Effective real estate development accounting software should take care of this heavy lifting and automate the transaction processing. It should afford you time to focus on more important matters: ensuring projects are executed on time, on budget, and meeting the quality standards customers expect.
Does It Allow You to Manage Contracts and Commitments Easily and Efficiently?
Each detail in supplier or subcontractor contracts provides the basis for any effort, funding, resource, and activity initiated and completed. For this reason, your land development or real estate development accounting software must be able to quickly and efficiently handle contract management, change orders, and other vital elements.
Real estate development accounting software should support industry-specific strategic goals and best practices. It’s only then that real estate and land development activities can be executed with complete confidence.
For more information or to see a demonstration of Real Estate Development Accounting Powered by Acumatica, contact Anton Systems today!