By Tanuja Adiani, Managing Director, U.S. Fund Administration
The client, their challenge
Our client is a vertically integrated real estate investment manager, founded in New York City in the early 1990s. This well-established firm excels as an owner, operator and developer with expertise in the office, retail, residential and industrial sectors.
The client faced the task of entering the Florida sub-market with a transformational development project while establishing a new back-office team skilled in fund, property and development accounting operations. The client’s unique asset-specific approach necessitated a team that not only understood real estate accounting and operations but also knew how to optimize legacy Yardi systems for the new mega development.
Our solution
Initially, the client sought traditional hourly accounting support to reconcile data for various stakeholders. While we provided immediate relief to the CFO to ensure seamless operations, our Real Estate Reporting and Analytics team also collaborated with the client’s New York City team to assess the existing Yardi set-up.
We evaluated the tracking and reporting needs for the new mixed-use development, which encompasses nearly two million square feet, including condominium housing, rentals, retail and public spaces such as a marina.
After determining the required data for the construction team, lender, investment team, and CFO’s office, IQ-EQ worked with a Yardi consultant to establish appropriate dimensions and reports. This new set-up allowed all data to be entered into Yardi once, on an ongoing basis, eliminating the need for constant reconciliations of reports for various stakeholders.
The results
The process was streamlined, with books configured to track development costs based on asset class and encompassing the mixed-use nature. This enabled easy reconciliation to the budget and facilitated agile reporting for all stakeholders, without the burden of continual data reconciliation.
