Using Lease Management Software at Your Airport

Gone are the days when you could expect tenants to mail in a check. For efficiency and convenience, you need lease management software capable of meeting your tenant's needs and supporting your airport's operations. The question is, how do you choose the right solution?

Leasing hangars is a major revenue stream for most airports and almost the sole revenue stream for many civil operations. However, as technology advances, both complexities and tenant expectations are on the rise. Failing to keep up with industry changes might not result in lost business, but it could cause your airport to lag behind in service, satisfaction, and profits.

What Is Lease Management Software?

If you do not currently use lease management software, your airport likely relies on paper-based processes or the slightly better spreadsheet method. In this case, it means you have a lot to gain by adopting lease management software. This software is specifically made to help manage tenants, and Aerosimple's solution is designed explicitly for the unique needs of airports.

The purpose of lease management software is to provide an all-in-one place where you can oversee available space, current tenants, lease terms, and payment status. For instance, your lease management software should be able to tell you when a hangar lease is expiring or when a tenant is late on their payment. Likewise, it should also allow you to track payment dates, contract renewals, vacancies and even provide a portal to your tenants to make online payments. 

By tracking your property, contracts, and revenue in one place, lease management software makes managing airport operations that much simpler. Every aspect of leasing, from financial reporting to tenant experience, will be made easier if you choose the right lease management software.

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Does Your Airport Need Lease Management Software?

As technology continues to advance, many airports have been faced with some tough decisions. Deciding whether or not to invest in lease management software could be related to budgetary constraints or just the thought of juggling a dozen different software solutions for different aspects of your operations.

Fortunately, integrating lease management software into your airport doesn't have to be difficult. With Aerosimple's all-in-one solution, you can make lease management part of the same intuitive dashboard where you can manage everything from work orders and assets to wildlife sightings. Of course, your experience as a user is not the only consideration to keep in mind.

When deciding if lease management software is worthwhile for your airport, you also need to consider the number of tenants you have and their preferences. Some tenants will not use an online portal even if you offer one, for instance, but others may jump at the opportunity. With that said, even if half your tenants choose not to use the software, it can still simplify things for your administrative staff.

If your airport currently faces challenges with reporting, contract renewals, late payments, or other aspects of leasing, lease management software will prove to be a valuable back-end tool to simplify these critical processes. The time savings for your team alone could pay for the solution, and it's another step toward modernizing your airport — something that's rapidly becoming a must-do even for small operations.

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Choosing The Right Lease Management Solution

Once you decide your airport could benefit from leasing management software, it's essential that you know what features to look for in order to make the most of the solution. Failing to choose the right software will only end up wasting more time and resources and cause additional complexity in daily processes. With that in mind, it's important to take advantage of free trials so you can test software for yourself before buying in.

Full Integration

It's essential that you find a lease management software that fully integrates with your existing software. Just about every airport today is using some type of software to manage its operations, and while adopting technology is the right step, implementing multiple platforms that don't integrate with each other will only create hurdles to efficiency and transparency.

You'll be excited to learn that Aerosimple’s lease management software can be fully integrated into your existing platform, which means no additional databases or complications for you to manage. Instead, you'll be able to access lease information from your Aerosimple dashboard, allowing you to have all of your data in one place.

If you're not sure whether lease management software integrates with your existing solutions, or if you are not sure whether integration is necessary, our team of experts can help. At Aerosimple, we're dedicated to helping users achieve a seamless management system that supports operations from every facet.

Intuitive Interface

Whether or not your team is technically inclined, it's essential that any software you invest in has a user-friendly interface with a minimal learning curve. Keep in mind that if lease management software requires a carefully planned implementation with multiple phases of setup and staff training, you should look elsewhere.

While it will take time for your team to adjust to the software, especially if they're accustomed to paper-based processes, the adjustment should result in plenty of positive responses — not frustration, procrastination, and avoidance. This is why taking the time to test software through a free trial is essential to long-term success.

During the trial, make sure the key staff members that need to interact with it have the opportunity to truly test the features of the platform. Be sure to get their feedback on how easy they felt it was to navigate and utilize the system. If most staff are left feeling confused or thinking the software isn't fast enough or capable enough, you should look elsewhere.

Tenant Portal

Failing to choose a lease management software that features a friendly tenant portal represents a major missed opportunity. Improving the tenant experience should be a primary goal for your airport, and a clean, easy-to-use tenant portal that simplifies renewal, reports, and payments is a big step in the right direction.

The best tenant portal will feature your airport's branding, which means you should have full customization options to personalize the tenant's experience. Moreover, the portal should be easily accessible from a desktop or mobile phone, and it should feature quick access to your staff if they need help.

The primary function of the tenant portal is generally payment processing. Tenants should be able to view their payment due date and rate and submit payment with ease using any one of a variety of methods. But features should go beyond collecting rent. Tenants should be able to view their lease agreement, submit a renewal request, and report issues.

For instance, if a tenant discovers a problem that requires the attention of maintenance staff, the tenant portal should allow them to quickly report it, even attach photos or notes so your staff can address the issue quickly. Being able to track the status of the report is also handy and greatly improves airport perception for your pilots.

Invoicing and Payments

No lease management software would be complete without a complete payment tracking system. This system should include invoicing tools along with detailed reporting options to help you track revenue and file taxes.  

When it comes to payments, you should be able to set up reminders the day before a payment is due with additional reminders if the payment is late, simplifying the collection process and encouraging on-time submissions. Any late fees should be automatically added to the displayed rate so the tenant knows how much they need to pay.

As part of the revenue management system, the solution should also be able to handle maintenance work orders. After all, these expenses are important when calculating the actual income rental hangars are generating and crucial for adding up business deductions come tax time.

Communications

Becoming more efficient with how you manage tenants is the primary goal of adopting a lease management solution, but the benefits shouldn't stop there. Since lease management software, by default, incorporates all of your tenants into one place, it should also act as a CRM (customer relationship management) tool for handling communications and outreach.

With all contact information in one place, your lease management system can help you oversee interactions with tenants to mitigate issues, alert them of delays or weather, keep them updated on hangar maintenance, and announce rate increases.

In other words, your lease management software will become a central place for dispersing information that you need to get in front of tenants quickly, without the need to make individual phone calls or use other disjointed communication methods. In turn, your tenants will feel more connected with your airport and everyone will be able to operate more efficiently.

Tips for Implementing New Software

Choosing the best lease management software for your airport might feel like a feat in and of itself, but implementing it can bring about new challenges if you don't start with a good plan. Here are some tips to ensure that adoption and implementation go smoothly so your staff can get the most out of your new software.

• Plan the implementation in advance. Consider the order of what needs to happen, like creating accounts, assigning privileges, important contact information, and so on before the software can actually be used by your staff.
• Train your staff on how to use it. Even if you choose very intuitive software, you still need to sit down with your staff and make sure they know how to make the most of the solution you're putting in front of them.
• Oversee adoption. The worst outcome of implementing new software is going through all the trouble of adding it only to find that your staff is not consistently using it. If you see issues during adoption, get ahead of them by talking to staff and mitigating challenges.
• Introduce your tenants to the portal. Just as you need to guide your staff in adopting the new software, you also need to get your tenants on board with the new solution. Your staff should be available for questions and troubleshooting, especially during the initial rollout.
• Track usage and outcomes. The best marker of a successful software implementation is seeing fewer late payments, more renewals, and happier tenants. Decide on the metrics you want to use and track how they improve after the addition of the new software.

Get Started with a Lease Management Solution

Is your airport ready to implement a modern lease management solution? Don't waste time trying to integrate third-party software with your existing programs. With Aerosimple, your airport can simplify operations with an integrated, all-in-one platform to manage every important task, process, and obligation.

Interested in learning more about Aerosimple's convenient lease management solution? Get started with a free 60-day trial and see how our software will change the way your airport operates. Sign up today!