As real estate teams work with growing data sets and are asked to do more with less, integrated software solutions can help save time, improve efficiency, and increase accuracy. In this post, we’ve summarized key insights from property tax professionals.  

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What are integrated software solutions?

An integrated software solution is a digital system of multiple individual software tools. These tools work together and perform functions in unison. They may transfer data back and forth, sync dates or values across different calendars or systems, or perform actions chronologically in an approval workflow, for example.  

When it comes to property tax, it's common to connect your property tax and real estate software solution with other systems you use regularly, such as:

• Accounts Payable (for tax payments)
• Lease accounting and management
• Business operations/ERP/GL

Essentially, you want to consider integrating any systems that rely on a unified set of data, perform related functions in a workflow, or are being used across multiple teams.  

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Why are integrated real estate software solutions so important?

Real estate teams agree that data sharing is one of the primary drivers for connected systems. That’s because data availability impacts the speed at which you can make decisions. What’s more, integrated solutions also ensure you are basing strategic decisions, calculations, forecasting, and other activities on robust, reliable data.

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What challenges do property tax teams face in integrating software systems?

While many professionals agree integrated systems are a key area of focus, many acknowledge that implementing real estate solutions can be difficult. A primary reason for this is limited IT resources.  

IT is under pressure to vet, implement, and audit software systems in multiple departments. As such, IT teams are forced to prioritize certain systems or teams, which can delay implementations for property tax teams.  

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Check out this blog post for four tips for making the case for your software system integration to IT.

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What goals do real estate teams hope to achieve through integrated software solutions?

We spoke with property tax professionals working for REITs, retailers, and energy companies to understand their key objectives in connecting software systems. Here are the top reasons they cited for prioritizing integrated real estate software solutions.

1. Increase data availability across the organization

Connected systems can make real estate teams more efficient, while reducing the number of distinct programs administrators need to manage. Further, data sharing enabled by software system integrations reduces risk and improves company security. This seamless data flow allows teams to maintain accurate tax and expense data across systems, without manually copying data from one system to the other.

2. Reduce errors, duplicated processes, and inefficiencies

It’s no question that integrations can significantly reduce human error caused by manual data entry. Further, automated data flow reduces the need to duplicate processes and re-key data, freeing up teams to spend time on high-impact activities.

3. Real estate software supports global expansion of operations

Integrated software systems play a key role in business expansion initiatives. While consolidating data is a key first step, integrating with real estate systems used by dispersed teams ensures data is up to date, accurate, and available to decision makers when needed.

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Widespread benefits from integrated software solutions

From supporting global expansion of operations to increasing data availability across the organization, real estate software integrations are becoming more fundamental for property tax teams. Of course, this is made easier when an enterprise solution you’re already working with offers vetted integration options. Did you know itamlink offers both qualified standard and custom property tax integration options? Connect with systems you're already using, like Yardi, MRI, Nexus Systems, and more.