The Key Tools for Your Lease Administration Function

Tessa Author

Using the right tools is a game-changer to improve efficiency and compliance while keeping everyone delighted.

The Key Technology Tools for Your Lease Administration Function

Technology is deeply ingrained in all aspects of operations, especially in the last year since the "Great Lockdown" began. Yet, using the right tools becomes a game-changer to improve efficiency and keep everyone delighted.  

Lease Administration isn't an exception, and tools are vital to simplify daily tasks. For example, it improves customer relationships by allowing you to quickly lookup payment information when the landlord calls you because she doesn't know how to apply it.

It can also improve your work quality by eliminating unnecessary work or manual data manipulations, which inherently carries a risk for human error. The ideal tech tool will allow you to simply run a report, save it, and send it to the users.

Finally, the tool must keep you compliant with regulations while the promised value exceeds costs. You're looking for an intuitive system that allows for quick data entry and record updates. The time and effort to create a report or upload a file shouldn't outweigh the benefits of having the report or a file in the system. 

The categories of essential tech tools

Many technology tools can simplify your job. I have narrowed it down to six major categories, with several options typically available under each category to fit your business needs.

#1 Telecommunication Tools

We start with tools that allow us to communicate over a distance. The prominent examples are telephone, email, Zoom, other conference equipment, and even instant messengers. 

You rely on telecommunication tools to work with others and exchange information, which is extra relevant in the post-COVID-19 environment. 

# 2 Office Productivity Tools 

By office tools, I'm referring to the basic spreadsheet and word processors. Microsoft Office is a popular solution for Windows users, yet many are switching to online platforms, such as Google Suite or Smartsheets.

Validating calculations and writing notices are amongst the core lease admin tasks; therefore, it's essential to have tools to accommodate those activities.  

#3 PDF Editor

An application that allows you to create and edit PDF documents is critical when working with lease documents but useful for most other Lease Admin activities. Adobe, who created the format, offers a variety of products to read and edit the documents. However, once PDF became the standard format for exchanging electronic documents, alternatives to Adobe emerged, such as PDFElement and Foxit Phantom. 

Specifically, you're looking for the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality when choosing your tool. It will allow you to convert images within PDF into searchable text within the lease file, enabling keyword searches during initial abstraction or looking up information later. 

To simplify your job in the future, remember to OCR all PDF documents before you upload them to the lease record. It's a best practice. 

#4 File-Sharing Applications

The file-sharing applications enable you to collaborate with others, inside and outside of your organization, by exchanging files. Consider applications such as Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive, or a shared drive on your network. 

It complements your telecommunication tools. Save time by uploading your document, or a report, to a shared workspace, and everybody who needs it can download it from there, instead of you emailing the same thing repeatedly to the requesting users.

#5 Lease Record Database

The lease record databases are vital to the lease administration function. It stores lease data and can range from a simple internally-developed spreadsheet to a very involved database integrated throughout the entire organization. Options are abundant, depending on the desired functionality. 

The benefits of data analysis and financial management are enormous. Yet, many databases will also accommodate the new lease accounting calculations, easing the company's burden of adopting the new standards.  

#6 Task Manager 

The task manager is the epicenter of your function. It's an application to keep track of all upcoming and current activities for your department to ensure you stay the course to achieve department objectives. Many options on the market these days, like Asana, Monday, and my favorite, Notion.so. 

Besides helping you align your daily tasks with the department goals, It also replaces logs as you can create a project for each new instance of primary activity and effortlessly track progress for all in one place. 

A Note About Task-Specific Applications

There's a subset of tools you use for the specialized tasks in your department, such as the Accounts Payable application used to look up payment information or a Project Management software that tracks project spending for TI Allowance reimbursement requests. 

It's outside of the six main categories because it is often used for reference only and managed by another department, so Lease Admin won't have a say in selecting or using these tools. However, you'll need to monitor these applications to ensure the team has appropriate access rights to perform their job responsibilities.  

Having at least one tool for each of the six categories streamlines the processes within your function. To take action and organize your technology solutions, download the workbook here. 

However, knowing how to use these tools is just as important as having them. Therefore, the next step is to learn how to use them proficiently. And, if you're not comfortable now, just remember that everything gets easier with practice.

Categories: : Process Improvement