Real Estate ERP: What Is It and Why Do You Need it?

When you are running a small-scale business or an early-stage startup, there are few employees and even fewer defined processes. It is easier to manage and control the various business functions and also to keep track of the information.

But as the business begins to pivot and wear bigger shoes, there is an upsurge in the number of employees, activities, workflows, etc. Now, if there is a vision to grow globally and increase the customers, and there is no software to help streamline the processes; the profitability, the productivity of the business, and ultimately the growth gets affected.

Now no enterprise would want that.

That’s where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software comes in. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software aids a business in streamlining processes, boosting revenue, bringing down operational costs, and do a lot more.

Why not we dig deeper and know what exactly is an ERP and how it will help industries like real estate and construction increase efficiency.

A Brief Evolution of ERP Software

ERP software dates back to the 1960s (a long, long time ago) but was catered to only the manufacturing industry initially, encompassing inventory management and control. It was first known as Material Resources Planning (MRP), and it later evolved to Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) in the mid-1980s.

But in 1990, Gartner coined the term “ERP”, as the software engineers started to code other functions in the software like finance/accounting and human resources. As and when companies began adopting ERPs, it expanded to other industries like hospitality, financial services, education, real estate and construction, etc.

Today in the modern world, there are multiple ERPs available, and a complete ERP not only entails all the business functions but also automates them to make any business’s day-to-day life more manageable. An advanced ERP also integrates Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards to provide more in-depth and hidden insights helping to keep a tab on the critical metrics a business owner needs. 

What Exactly is an ERP Software?

In simple terms, ERP software integrates, streamlines, and automates all the business processes like sales, HR, procurement, inventory, etc., with the help of the latest technology to provide insightful and meaningful data/information mainly to boost revenue and reduce the operational costs for the business.

Typically it is a digital transformation of your business in terms of processes, product, and technology.

The business processes (usually known as modules) are customized and updated to meet the organization’s requirements. Since In4Suite® is an ERP software laser-focused on the real estate and construction industry, there are modules like land, engineering, purchase, rentals, facilities, etc. to make any real estate developer or a contractor’s life more comfortable and efficient.

If you go for the right ERP software, it must:

• Give a 360-degree overview of all the business processes of your industry.

• Enhance and streamline the workflow across different modules.

• Present all the data in a centralized location.

• Generate reports to help users understand information on every module.

• Automate processes that usually take hours to do (like GST and RERA filing at the click of a button for the real estate industry)

• Have integrations with different tools and be accessible on the go with the help of mobile apps.

• Possess real-time business intelligence (BI) dashboards to help make better everyday business decisions.

Does Your Real Estate Business Need ERP Software?

According to our research, every growing real estate developer needs ERP software for their business. While many (approx 40–50%) still don’t use one enterprise-wide, let’s look at a few reasons why a real estate business must have one.

• Using outdated tools like Microsoft Excel or multiple software to manage the business functions

Microsoft Excel is a powerful tool, no doubt (we use it for specific internal purposes as well). It’s straightforward to enter formulas and customize the rows & columns to your needs. But you be in a dire state if it were to handle complex formulas like GST calculations. It is bound to have mistakes as most of the work is manual. So it doesn’t make sense if a company relies just on spreadsheets to make business decisions.

Many companies also use different software for each module like Tally, Oracle Financials, SAP FICO for finance/accounting, SalesForce, and Zoho for CRM, etc. It can be beneficial in the initial years for the company but can get challenging in the growth phases, especially if you have to update every software for every release it has. But if you have a single software for all modules or the main ones with add-ons, not only all your data will be under one roof, but also it would require only one software update. It’s like a one-stop solution for your real estate or construction business needs.

We recommend not to use outdated or multiple software to manage each of the processes and hop on to a scalable 360-degree solution like In4Suite® ERP for your real estate company and explore the immense possibilities it can provide.

• Real-time information of your business

As and when a company grows, maintaining data becomes difficult, if there is no efficient software in place. An ERP software will not only eliminate the chance to enter multiple inputs but also update the information in real time to keep all the module heads and respective users updated. All departments must be in sync as it saves redundancy, and the users can concentrate on the data available and help the owners to scale the business.

• Providing meaningful and deep data insights

While most of the software helps you maintain data, quite a lot does not give you deeper insights into the business. A company needs to have ERP software that provides dynamic reports with the help of Business Intelligence dashboards.

In4Suite® has partnered with QlikView to provide deeper insights to business owners in real-time and give deeper insights which software may generally not be able to offer.

• Automating business processes and saving time

Automation integrates different business processes and improves communication for users working in various departments within an organization. When the employees in one department wait for tasks to get completed by those in other departments or when a piece of information is not readily available, it reduces productivity. An ERP system can automate these business processes and store data in one central place. It not only helps the users to access the data quickly but also enables automated communication between departments.

Conclusion

A real estate ERP software contains integrated applications such as financials, purchases, sales, leads, projects, engineering, etc. and it’s essential to automate the information within these modules. For example, as a new purchase order gets processed, the software may automatically prompt interactions with the finance, purchase, and expenses departments. This type of automation of ERP software may yield multiple benefits, including fewer routine errors and unintended duplication of data, and streamlined communications, leading to time savings and lower operational costs.

If you are looking for an ERP for your business, talk to our team and know how we can increase your revenue and reduce operational costs.