Product Description
Facilities 7 Reserve Study Software
Facilities 7 reserve study software has been certified by ICBI to meet the exacting software requirements of the International Capital Budgeting Institute. Only one other software product in the USA has reached this level of achievement. Why is this important? Because only ICBI standards guarantee the user of accuracy of financial calculations. There are many reserve study software products on the market, but only two that have been certified by ICBI. See ICBI software standards here.
Many people in the industry don't think this is an issue. But, our team has identified calculation errors or programming weaknesses in virtually every other reserve study software product on the market. That's not particularly surprising, since virtually all of those products are created by engineers or programmers who have no technical training in financial modeling or financial calculations. In contrast, the Facilities 7 development team included a CPA with more than 20 years of reserve study experience. AND, to make sure we got it right, we had Facilities 7 further tested for accuracy of calculations by an independent CPA firm. None of our competitors has taken that step, nor will they. Do you want to use any other reserve study software and take the chance that the claculations aren't correct?
At Percipient Software, Inc., our philosophy is derived from our Company name: Percipient - meaning having perception, discriminating, perceiving or capable of perceiving. A "percipient" analysis of a reserve study is possible only with software capable of providing the information you need to make knowledgeable decisions. Only Facilities 7 can give you that information. Facilities 7 creates the information necessary to manage your reserve management plan.
Facilities 7 is the premier reserve study software for common interest developments. No matter what type of association; condominium association, timeshare association, planned development, or condo hotel, Facilities 7 is your best choice.
Internet-based access, so it is always available. The most powerful software on the market, yet easy to use.
Reports that are easy to understand, with a full range of reports to meet all your reporting needs. All reports are also exportable to MS Word or Excel so you customize them or insert them into other documents.
Facilities 7 is built based on completely different concepts from traditional reserve study software. The industry standard for reserve study software is essentially designed to operate like a sophisticated Excel spreadsheet. On other words, a single category level, a single component level, and financial calculations based on replacement cost and remaining life. Facilities 7 provides more power and flexibility by giving you:
- Multiple category levels
- Major and Minor Component levels
What does this mean for you? Only with these powerful tools can you manage a large amount of information. This gives you the ability to track costs at the minor component level (where you actually spend money), yet roll it up into logical groups for reporting purposes. In other words, you MUST deal with the lowest level of reportable financial transactions to assure accuracy, but you can't effectively summarize data if that is your only level of data.
A comparison would be to a financial reporting system. You write checks, which are recorded in a check register, which is then categorized into a general ledger, which is then summarized into a financial statement. You can't look at a check register and understand your financial position; that requires a financial statement. Likewise, the reserve study report is the equivalent of a financial statement; it should be the report that summarizes the financial position of the reserve fund, not the report that provides you with massive lists of detail.
Why Facilities 7 rather than any other reserve study software?With Facilities 7 you’ll spend less time, get better information, and reduce your maintenance costs.While those key benefits are enough for most people, there’s one more.No large up front software cost.Facilities 7 is an internet-based product available at a reduced annual license fee covering both software license and full support.No hidden costs.
Most associations get a periodic reserve study, and think about software only to make that static task easier.These associations don’t understand that reserves do not stand alone.They are part of a dynamic process.
For many associations, performing their operations maintenance activities is just part of the background; they don’t think about it, they don’t know there is software available to manage such maintenance activities, and they give little thought as to how operating maintenance activities affect reserve maintenance activities.
Because facilities maintenance is an ongoing process, it should be managed in the same manner that a checkbook or general ledger is used to manage financial transactions.Even for small, simple associations, if you don’t keep ongoing records of your maintenance activities, you will sacrifice accuracy, just as you would sacrifice accuracy if you failed to maintain a checkbook to track ongoing financial activities.
Operations maintenance and reserve maintenance activities are inextricably intertwined.Failure to perform necessary operations maintenance activities affects the timing and ultimate cost of reserve maintenance activities.The more complex your association, the more challenging is your task of managing maintenance activities. Facilities 7 is the only software system that integrates these activities, and further combines them with the other activities related to your physical facilities.
Our Philosophy
At Percipient Software, Inc., we believe that the basic function of software should be to empower the user. While others design software to ease the pain of specific TASKS, we design software to increase your knowledge and allow you to make better business decisions. This means easily gaining access to data that is otherwise difficult to obtain, presenting the data in such a manner that it becomes useful information, and using that information to increase your knowledge.
We believe so much in the concept of empowerment by knowledge creation that we incorporated that concept into our Company name. Percipient means “to have knowledge.”
Facilities 7 is built on that basic concept of creating knowledge from data. Facilities 7 is an enterprise system that combines into a single database (not separate “silos” of information) all the asset data, activities, and functions that are normally contained in multiple software products. And, those other software products don’t talk to each other. That means the average user has a series of disconnect points in their operations that actually prevent them from creating an effective knowledge-based system.
Facilities 7 is the solution to integrating your facilities activities. It is the result of more than 20 years of hands-on experience in working with a wide range of homeowners and timeshare associations. Our experience includes working not only with small, managed associations, but with all departments in large, complex organizations. As a result, we are familiar with the differing needs of maintenance staff, supervisory staff, accounting staff, executive staff, and volunteer committee and Board members. Each of these groups of users has a different role in the process, and Facilities 7 is designed to specifically meet the needs of each “role.”
In the facilities maintenance staff role, you are dealing with the lowest level of activities, and concentrated on scheduling and completing tasks. Nobody does that better than Facilities 7.
Executive staff needs a high level view to be able to monitor activity at a glance; to see what’s scheduled, what has been completed, where you’re falling behind schedule, and where cost variances exist. Only Facilities 7 has reports specifically designed to deliver this information.
Facilities 7 manages the data so that you can concentrate on what you do best; manage your facilities, and reduce maintenance costs.
About the Facilities 7 Facilities Maintenance Management System
The 7 modules comprising the Facilities 7 system are:
Reserve Study / Long Term Capital Replacement Budgeting
Establishes your long-term maintenance plan and calculates long term capital requirements for replacement of physical facilities and assets. Projects future funding requirements as a 30-year financial forecast. Includes ability to interface with your existing general ledger software so you know that all costs are accounted for.
Capital Improvements Budgeting
Establishes your long-term capital improvements plan for acquisition or construction of new assets (as opposed to replacements). Calculates funding requirements as a 30-year financial forecast.
Operations Management – Operating Budget
Establishes your annual maintenance plan and calculates capital requirements for maintenance of physical facilities and assets. Projects future funding requirements as a 5-year financial forecast
Tracks all maintenance activities comprising your annual operating maintenance budget to help you control operating costs. Allows you to build your budget based on actual projected activities rather than just making gross estimates based on prior year. Includes powerful work order system, purchase order capability, and payroll cost analysis.
Asset Management
Allows you to track all physical assets, including those too small to be included in long term capital replacement budget or operations management budget, but that still require accountability. Tracking capability by location, department, responsible individual. Barcode and RFID capability.
Insurance Tracking
Allows you to create comprehensive analysis and reports of your insurable assets to protect you from over or under insuring your assets. This powerful tool allows you to combine separate components together into a single group for insurance analysis purposes. Allows separate tracking of insurance appraisal values at original cost, current replacement value, and depreciated value for those items that make up your insurable asset database.
Depreciation
Calculates all popular book and tax depreciation methods. Complete set of reports to meet your operating and tax reporting needs.
Project Management
This powerful tool gives you the capability to combine all components that may comprise a special project, such as water damage affecting select units on several floors of a high rise development, construction defects, or any other special project. All costs and activities can be tracked in this module so that you can determine actual and projected costs of an entire project that does not fall within the realm of you normal operating or reserve budget.
Reserve Study Module Features
General Features
Accessible from any web enabled device
User Access Controls
Multiple Windows on Screen
Management Company, Region and Association Hierarchy
Association Phases Set Up
Hundreds of built in Diagnostic Tests to ensure data integrity
Group Purchasing Support
Unit / Lot Features
Import Member List
Enter Unit / Unit Type
Match member with Specific Unit / Lot
Annual Assessment Billings Directly From Facilities 7
Component Data Features
Real time data updates
No Limit on Number of Components
Mass Edit Capability
Multiple Category Levels
Major and Minor component Levels
Multiple Activities per Component
Complete Multi-level Location Tracking
Auto Extension of Calculations on Year Rollover
Auto creation of Replacement Activity on Completion
Grouping of Components
Insert Images / Photos
Financial Calculation Features
Regular Reserve Assessments – adjustable annually
Special Assessments
Loans
Interest Rate
Income Tax Rates on Interest Income
Inflation Rate
Contingency Rate as Percentage of Replacement Cost
Contingency as Flat Amount
Balance Allocation Overrides
Ability for Multiple “What If” Funding Scenarios
Annual Assessment Adjustment Factor
Reporting Features
Produce Reports in Telerik
Report Builder
Export Reports to Excel
Export Reports to Word
Export Reports to Adobe Acrobat
Dynamic and Smart
Facilities 7 is a dynamic, forward looking, smart facilities management system. Its basic data structure is unique, and allows for maximum flexibility in data management and reporting.
Most reserve study software essentially mimics the performance of Excel, meaning the financial calculations are irrevocably joined to the component. In contrast, Facilities 7 can attach financial calculations to components at either the major or minor component levels. This means that we can attach multiple activities to the same component. As an example, we would identify the slurry seal and overlay as the two major components for streets, and attach each individual street’s slurry seal and overly as the minor component. Why is this important? Again, accuracy of the financial calculations.
To illustrate how calculations might work, let’s follow our example of streets above. Assume that an association has 35 streets.
In an old style single category / single component level software system that means you’re going to have either two components (slurry seal of streets and overlay of streets) or 70 components, identifying each street individually. Those are your ONLY two options for seeing the data. If the individual streets are displayed you have too much data (70 components) to easily absorb. If you have grouped the data into two components, you have too little data and your spreadsheet type calculations can’t be accurate unless every street is on the exact same maintenance cycle. That doesn’t happen for two reasons; (1) the streets do not wear out at the same rate, and (2) the association will spread the maintenance and resulting cost over several years to ease cash flow.
In Facilities 7, if all streets were on the exact same cycle, we could perform financial calculations at the major component level for the two major component activities we identified (slurry seal and overlay). But, since the activities most likely do not occur on the same cycle, we will tell Facilities 7 to perform the financial calculations at the minor component level for our two components. The major component then simply acts as a “place holder” to accept the totals of all the minor component calculations. In this manner you can get extremely accurate calculations while still summarizing the data into an easily understandable format.
Other software features
Facilities 7 has a “developed specifically for the web” look, as contrasted to most other systems which still have that “desktop” look and feel. Facilities 7 also has many other unique features that provide benefits to you, the user, in terms of power and performance. These features put you in total control of your facilities maintenance management.
Key Benefits of Facilities 7 Software
Access to mission critical data any time, any place
Real time accurate visibility
Empower staff
Maximize productivity
Streamline processes
Monitor staff performance
Measure, manage and improve processes
Accelerate problem resolution
Create integrated knowledge base
Boost staff efficiency
Control flow of information through every phase of process
Integrate reserves and operations maintenance into a single database
Improve member experience
Create budgets based on fact, not opinion
Provide insight into activities and performance
What Makes Facilities 7 Unique?
To understand why the Facilities 7 approach is so unique, you first have to understand where the industry is today. The main approach to reserves is to perform a static paper-based reserve study based on a site visit every 3 to 5 years, and maybe perform an update in between. Unfortunately, this last century concept is still regarded as current industry “best practices,” and operations maintenance isn’t even on the radar screen.
Because of software limitations and industry practices of most associations and reserve professionals, virtually all reserve studies are based on a single level category and a single level component. This means that data must be compiled at a “macro” (grouped) level, because the software data structure will not support a “micro” (detail) level. In such a file structure you are virtually forced to “group” components to keep the total file size small enough to be understood. The only other option is to expand the component list to a detail level. But, then, in the flat data file structure you will either have so many categories or so many components existing at a single data level that no one will be able to understand it; the list is simply too big. No reporting techniques exist that can overcome such a fatally flawed data structure.
Some progressive associations purchase “reserve study” software. In virtually every case, the software is designed to ease the pain of, but mimic, the static process described above. The only significant improvement is that you can update data more regularly because you have the software to do so. That’s not a system; it’s simply static information produced on a more frequent basis.
Facilities 7 is a game changer. Our goal of an end “product” is not a static paper reserve study report, but the establishment of a dynamic facilities maintenance management system for both operations and reserves. That’s the proper goal for this century, and only Facilities 7 can take you there. In Facilities 7, the reserve study then becomes a byproduct of the dynamic system information.
If you want to establish a dynamic facilities maintenance management system, then data MUST exist at a micro level, which is where dollars are expended and where activities occur. Facilities 7 features multiple category levels and both major and minor component levels. This is the most crucial and fundamental difference from the old single category / single component level data structure the industry has relied on so far. With this powerful database structure we can “roll up” data into meaningful information.
Why is the issue data level important? Because dollars are spent at the individual component (detail) level, not at a group level. Many people don’t want to “deal” with the details. These are usually the same people that complain about the inaccuracy of reserve studies. For larger or complex associations RESERVE STUDIES CAN’T BE ACCURATE IF THEY ARE CONSTRUCTED AT A MACRO LEVEL. YOU CAN’T MANAGE WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE.
Facilities 7 gives you a way to “see” the components that aren’t visible in other software. Because the component list is built naturally rather than being manually grouped, our trained reserve professionals can actually build the micro level database both faster (meaning less expensively) and more accurately than one could build an old style “flat” database with grouped components.
We do understand and appreciate the viewpoint of those that don’t want to see the detail level of data. So Facilities 7 is designed so that if you don’t want to look at the details (minor components), you don’t have to. Both on screen and in reports you can restrict data to display at the major component level.
While the detail level capability exists, if you want to build your component list at the higher, major component level, Facilities 7 is still the most powerful software product available.
See reports section for other unique aspects of Facilities 7.