Seeds of Growth – Ensuring your Rural Estate Property Management Thrives

When it comes to rural estates and farming, many follow the long-term mindset that you should leave things in a better condition from which you took over. This belief makes us look to the future, and in doing so poses the question of how you can ensure your rural estate property management will benefit the next generation.

If you’re managing a land-based portfolio, you will face many distinct challenges. However, land might not be the only asset in the overall portfolio, and you may have to take into consideration the management of other commercial or residential properties. Without the correct and up-to-date data, rural estate property management can get complex. This is why we have outlined the key considerations for ensuring your rural estate commercial property thrives in this generation - and the next.

Increasing collaboration across departments

A unified digital strategy for both your accounting and property management software ultimately makes life easier for both sides of the business. Property managers get access to a platform that streamlines the way they work, whether in the office, on the road, or working remotely, and accountants get full control of their financial data with Xero or QuickBooks Online integrations.

Mark Herrod, Executive Director of Lamport Hall, explains how the collaboration between internal and external stakeholders has been simplified once they started with Re-Leased: 

‘’I compared a number of different property management systems and Re-Leased met the needs of what I was trying to do better than any of the other systems. It also came recommended by other people who use the system.

One significant reason was its ability to integrate with the new accountancy software we're installing at the moment called Xero. The integration will give me confidence in the way we're managing income from the property and ensuring that we are open to scrutiny.

We can be opened up to audits from the UK Charity Commission, HMRC - the tax body, and any other organisations which govern legislation that affects us.’’

Speeding up operational processes to focus on business growth

When managing a diverse range of assets, it can become easy to get bogged down in time-heavy, repetitive, administrative tasks. This is where the right cloud-based rural estate software shines, as it reduces these complexities, and improves processes by giving you the ability to access the right information in any place, at any time. Re-Leased's software, for instance, has been proven to reduce manual tasks by up to 75%, and automates time-consuming jobs like tenant communication, invoicing and reconciliation. This enables you to focus on the more important things, like managing and scaling your portfolios.

A key part of owning and managing rural estate commercial property is risk management. One of the best tools at your disposal to mitigate risk is effective and consistent communication. When executed well, strong communication reassures both sides of the business by keeping everyone on the same page, allowing decisions to be made concisely and with confidence. This is why Re-Leased's platform offers instant reminders and alerts, so you never miss a critical event such as maintenance, inspections, health and safety, compliance checks and more. You can also easily plan your calendar and stay on task with Google Calendar or Microsoft Office 365 calendar integrations, that sync to your phone and computer.

Diversification needs data

While it is vital to consider how making changes may affect your estate, business, and family in the long term, it’s important to consider the impact diversification can have now too. COVID-19 has made us all acutely aware of how situations can rapidly change. If things take an unexpected turn you need to be prepared and ready to adapt.

Siloed information in different systems costs both time and money when you have to manage everything individually. That is why it is important to ensure that your entire rural estate property management work cycle is always visible, and your financial accounts are instantly synced and up-to-date. Further peace of mind is assured knowing that you’re fully compliant with the appropriate laws and regulations. 

Re-Leased offers real-time access to powerful business intelligence and is fast becoming a key differentiator for successful commercial property portfolios. Re-Leased's CREDIA collates data and provides you with real-time dashboards that allow you to understand portfolio performance at a glance.

Succession planning

Diversification can play a big part in planning for the farm’s future ownership and help support the smooth transition to the next generation. However, it’s important to also have a succession plan in place that clearly states how you wish the farm to be run on a day-to-day basis in the future.

Using commercial property management software is a key part of successful succession planning. The Re-Leased platform lets you view one single source of truth where everything is synced and so can make succession planning much smoother when you decide which assets of the farm are owned, which parties are occupying the building, and land on the farm or estate, plus all the requisite tax considerations.

For more information on how to streamline your rural estate management visit www.re-leased.com/ruralestate