Financial Planning with Real Property Solutions

How enterprise solutions support real property financial strategy

Financial planning & budgets are a north star in any business or organization. Fiscal year outlooks and expense sheets dictate what is or isn’t on the priority list. Enterprise IWMS supports corporate financial planning with data on workplace utilization, asset maintenance, and facilities performance. With data across all areas of the workplace, enterprise solutions present the big picture of expenses and operating costs.

For many of our clients, they combine payables, HR, IT and Real Property data into custom IWMS dashboards. These help to inform day-to-day decisions with KPIs like building utilization metrics. The daily utilization rates combined with real time forecasted maintenance costs, link to the condition of the building to help feed accurate capital plans.

This, of course, feeds directly into things like sustainability initiatives. You can understand all the costs (capital and operating) of your leased and owned space, and asset utilization, to help put real dollars to where to save money and hit corporate goals like net zero.

More resources on portfolio management:

With major financial decisions and capital projects on the horizon in the Government of Canada, we thought we’d share 5 benefits of financial strategy tools in real property. Tools like this support mandates like the Horizontal Fixed Asset Review, and Greening Government, on top of the $15b in cuts that are on the way across the Government of Canada.

Cost Efficiency and Optimization:

IWMS solutions provide a comprehensive view of real estate, facilities, and asset data. This visibility enables organizations to identify cost-saving opportunities, optimize space utilization, and reduce operational expenses.

In the realm of financial management, Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) software stands out as a transformative tool, offering a comprehensive overview of an organization’s real estate, facilities, and asset data. This visibility is a game-changer for financial professionals, providing the data needed to identify cost-saving opportunities. By centralizing critical information, IWMS enable informed decision-making, allowing organizations to optimize space utilization and strategically reduce operational expenses.

Through detailed analysis of space occupancy and usage patterns, financial professionals can identify areas where office layouts can be reconfigured, or operations consolidated. Horizant has seen departments like the Canadian Justice department use space to evaluate performance of assets and buildings. This strategic approach not only minimizes wasted space, but also results in tangible cost reductions, encompassing expenses such as utilities, maintenance, and leasing.

The software’s ability to translate real-time data into actionable insights positions financial teams to make informed choices that directly impact the bottom line.

By offering a comprehensive view of operational expenses, organizations can scrutinize costs related to energy consumption, maintenance, and service contracts. This granular examination allows for targeted cost-cutting strategies without compromising efficiency. Moreover, Archibus’ asset management module aids in maximizing the lifespan of equipment, minimizing downtime, and avoiding unnecessary replacement costs.

As financial professionals navigate the complexities of managing resources in a dynamic business environment, IWMS emerges as an indispensable tool for achieving long-term financial sustainability.

Accurate Budgeting and Forecasting:

With integrated financial modules, IWMS facilitates accurate budgeting and forecasting. It helps organizations plan for capital expenditures, maintenance costs, and other financial requirements. Real-time data and analytics enable better-informed financial decisions, reducing the likelihood of budget overruns.

As lease management rises on the priority list of every organization, know how to approach the future of one of the largest investments your firm has. KPIs on assets costs, lease payments, energy utilization, and space are available on custom dashboards for the big picture on future decisions.

Lease optimization can save businesses and organizations on their next commitment if they know from previous data that they had unused space or were spending too much on maintenance.

In some cases, data can fuel decisions like those we’re seeing in Canadian cities, where unused office space is being turned into housing units. Hybrid work arrangements are rendering large portions of office space to be redundant, and firms are opting not to renew their lease.

With the decision to downsize leases or abandon physical office space altogether, operating expenses across an organization decrease significantly. Related decisions can include adjusting energy demand to fit workplace occupancy, which in turn will help drive sustainability initiatives.

With less demand for space and energy comes lower expenses, and with long-term metrics, financial leaders can make budget decisions that allocate capital to other areas.

Risk Mitigation and Compliance:

IWMS solutions often include compliance management features, helping organizations adhere to regulatory requirements and industry standards. By automating compliance tracking and reporting, these solutions reduce the risk of financial penalties and legal issues, contributing to overall risk management.

With preventative or proactive maintenance, the financial burden on expensive repairs is lower as scheduled tasks that maintain safe operating levels. Better performing assets mean that over the course of an asset lifecycle, assets will have a better ROI.

Improved Asset Lifecycle Management:

Enterprise IWMS solutions assist in managing the entire lifecycle of assets, from acquisition to disposal. By optimizing asset utilization and maintenance schedules, organizations can extend the lifespan of assets and reduce the total cost of ownership. This contributes to financial planning by ensuring that capital investments are utilized to their fullest extent at the lowest cost.

Asset management can be one of the biggest expenses in portfolio management, as costs for repair add up over the life cycle. If KPIs indicate that a system or asset is underperforming and has become too great of an expense, then the financial decision to move on or replace that asset can be made.

Over time, decisions to replace assets and make the necessary improvements can save organizations on budgets and upfront costs. Underperforming assets add to expenses, and budgets must consider if continued maintenance, or replacement is the best way forward, and adjust accordingly.

Doing so requires reporting and analytics that are insightful and not in siloes, meaning they are fed into a core solution to pull from. Tools like Archibus offer these capabilities and ensure that financial leaders have the data they need to plan over the long and short term.

Enhanced Reporting and Analytics:

IWMS solutions like Archibus provide robust reporting and analytics tools that give organizations insights into their financial performance, space utilization, and operational efficiency. This data-driven approach allows for better decisions and the ability to identify trends, supporting more effective corporate financial planning.

Reporting from IWMS, especially at an enterprise level, records data and metrics across workplace, asset, and facilities to give a full spectrum look at a portfolio’s performance.

With a wider range of data, decision makers and financial leaders can see how different assets and areas of the workplace might be dependent on one another. Using this data, decisions to change energy consumption at certain times or on specific days can be made due to occupancy. Or say the workplace is underperforming due to a rise in remote work, occupancy and utilization metrics will highlight a slow decline in these areas and financial planning for a shorter lease can begin.

This is where the strategic financial analysis module of Archibus is the foundation of real property budgeting. Connecting all costs to specific business units and assets, along with capital investments, operating costs, and total cost ownership.

Managing all these costs from a central dashboard to drive financial decisions streamlines the management process as well as budgeting for organizations. Seeing the direct financial impact of assets on budgets can help leaders make necessary cuts or investments.

IWMS are empowering the modern era of workplace and asset management. Innovative capabilities offer office occupancy and facilities KPIs to build and maintain a workplace experience for employees. Data from these areas are fed into IWMS platforms to support workflows and process improvements in an organization.

Eliminating data siloes and making analytics more accessible and enable integration of financial planning over the long term for organizations. Archibus strategic financial planning module offers full-spectrum looks at portfolio metrics to help CFOs and real property managers make decisions on their space. Measuring space, occupancy, asset utilization and more, budgeting for the future in commercial real estate.

Contact us or visit our website for a free consultation and to learn more about financial planning with Archibus to optimize your portfolio and elevate your workplace.