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3 minute read
Stacking plans has long been an essential tool in the commercial real estate (CRE) industry for visualizing and managing the occupancy of buildings. They provide valuable insights into tenant information, vacancy rates, and rentable square footage. Traditionally, CRE professionals have relied on Excel spreadsheets to create and maintain their stacking plans. However, this manual approach can be time-consuming, error-prone, and inefficient. In this blog post, we'll explore the limitations of creating stacking plans in Excel and introduce a superior alternative - Floorwire's dynamic stacking plan software, which will save you time and improve accuracy.
The Problems with Excel Stacking Plans
(Outdated Template-Based Stacking plan example)
Time-consuming and labor-intensive: Creating a stacking plan in Excel requires significant manual data entry and manipulation. This can be incredibly cumbersome when dealing with multi-story buildings or large portfolios. As a result, CRE professionals spend valuable time updating and maintaining their spreadsheets instead of focusing on more strategic tasks. Worse, CRE professionals depend on their administrative and marketing teams to keep them updated; they spend a lot of money on what isn't a valid solution anymore.
Inaccurate data: Manual data entry is prone to human error, which can lead to inaccuracies in the stacking plan. Incorrect rentable square footage calculations or tenant information can have serious consequences, from missed leasing opportunities to misinformed decision-making. You are in trouble if you are a CRE professional relying on your administrative or marketing teams to ensure correct data entry. They do not possess the up-to-date knowledge that you have on your availabilities and are not mind readers. Further, they may or may not deeply understand the differences between rentable square footage and leaseable square footage, which have direct financial implications on the current building asset valuation and future deal numbers.
Limited collaboration: Sharing and collaborating on Excel files can be challenging, particularly when multiple team members need to access and update the same document. This can result in version control issues and other data inaccuracies.
Lack of real-time insights: Excel-based stacking plans must provide real-time updates, which means CRE professionals may be working with outdated information. This can make it difficult to react quickly to changes in occupancy or leasing opportunities.
A Better Solution: Automated Stacking Plans with Floorwire
(Floorwire's interactive, real-time building stacking plan online interface)
The drawbacks of Excel-based stacking plans highlight the need for a more efficient and accurate solution. Enter Floorwire's dynamic stacking plan software, which offers the following benefits:
Time savings: Floorwire's automated stacking plan software eliminates the need for manual data entry and manipulation. The software can quickly generate stacking plans based on the most up-to-date information, freeing CRE professionals to focus on more critical tasks. The current lease information for leased and unavailable spaces is fed directly from your accounting software or Floorwire's cutting-edge and inexpensive lease tracking and abstraction solution automatically and in real time.
(Image of Floorwire's abstraction tool)
Accurate calculations and tenant information: Floorwire's rentable square footage calculations and tenant information are always up-to-date and accurate. This enables better decision-making and helps to avoid missed leasing opportunities. Floorwire generates building rentable calculations in accordance with your existing utilized standards. If measurement changes are caused by leasing, building re-measurement, or updates in the standard of measurement used, those are captured and automatically reflected in the stacking plan. Additionally, Floorwire is constantly auditing the square footage of your building and provides details on missing rentable square footage to be aware of shown here:
(In the example above, we are showing that on the 5th floor, although it's 100% leased, there is 3,026 of additional available rentable square footage to be aware of)
The immediate benefits of the audit feature result in the following:
- Scenario: A tenant's lease is expiring - You know the correct rentable square footage to market if they vacate or have the correct rentable square footage for renewal negotiations. If the previous lease had inaccurate rentable calculations, you can update those numbers so more rent is captured and pro-rata share is updated ensuring you maximize the amount of passthroughs.
- Scenario: You are the owner/asset manager of a building being sold - Valuations are determined by rentable square footage. All of the rentable square footage that can be captured is the true RSF of the building. This means an increased (and fair and correct) valuation when you go to market or negotiate.
- Scenario: You are charging passthroughs - operating expense (OpEX) passthrough calculations are simplified and accurately measured to bill correctly.
Scenario: You are doing your annual expense reconciliations for a building. You know what should have been charged and can pinpoint underbilling or certify accuracies in seconds.
Improved collaboration: Floorwire's cloud-based stacking plan software allows for seamless collaboration among team members. Multiple users can access the same central source of truth stacking plan in real-time, ensuring everyone is working with the most current information.
Real-time insights and report generation: Floorwire's automated stacking plan software provides real-time updates, enabling CRE professionals to react quickly to changes in occupancy or leasing opportunities. Our exportable reports are instant and are beautiful enough to send directly to investors. Check out an example here:
(Floorwire's exported stacking plan report in PDF format)
While Excel-based stacking plans may have served their purpose in the past, today's CRE professionals need more efficient and accurate solutions. Floorwire's dynamic stacking plan software offers significant time savings, improved collaboration, and real-time insights that can help drive better decision-making and, ultimately, better results for your portfolio. Not only does it offer a superior alternative to traditional methods, but it also prioritizes educating users for a seamless transition to the new system. It's time to leave the manual work behind and embrace the power of automation with Floorwire in your commercial real estate endeavors.
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