When making a determination of the health of a property for purchase, or for switching management, the practice of a standardized due-diligence is an industry standard practice, but the information captured throughout the industry is anything but standardized. Some owners and investors focus their analysis on the components inside the apartments, others focus on lease and tenant income certifications (TICs) at Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) properties, and some owners opt for a full-blown analysis of the leases and the dwelling units. Until now, there hasn't been a software solution that captures both the lease file audit and the unit due diligence into a single platform, especially one that can be easily operated from a tablet. An all-in-one solution is always preferable, but what other benefits exist to doing lease file audits and unit due diligence from a tablet or smartphone based app?

Security Benefits of an App-Based Lease File Audit?

In the past, the industry standard platform for lease file audits has been excel spreadsheets. Excel spreadsheets do provide a format that is well known in the professional world, but the one glaring flaw in a spreadsheet is that the often sensitive information is left as a file on someone's laptop, often a sub-contractor who may not adhere to your corporate data security policies. With an App-Based Lease File Audit, the data captured by the auditor is transferred from the app to the cloud and once that sync has occurred, the data can be permanently removed from the tablet/smartphone. And unlike a spreadsheet, the intellectual property that is the format of your due diligence report can be locked out of the hands of a sub-contractor by simply deactivating that user's account. 

Effortless Collaboration 

A team of inspectors and analysts can be deployed to a property to gather information, record photographs, perform file audits, and collect information about the property, and all of the information from the different users can be effortlessly merged together in the cloud into a single report. The inspectors and analysts may not even know what the other users are doing on the property, and yet they can all be collaborating on the same report! Compiling and writing a single report isn't what it used to be; the final report can be completed the moment the last inspector leaves the property. Getting used to this change in workflow represents a sea change in the industry, reducing the cost of due diligence analysis and increasing the detail that can be expected from a site visit report.  It is also a feature that many don't realize is part of the transition to a cloud-based mobile software; good mobile inspection software is about more than being able to take pictures - it's about being able to reduce the wasted steps of the traditional manual process. 

The Information That Is Important To You

Each organization has its own unique set of goals and aspirations, and the data that is gathered during due diligence is different for everyone - as it should be. During a moment when you are making a decision on whether or not an investment is appropriate, you don't want to let this analysis be done solely by someone else's template. The reporting you use should have the ability to be dynamic - to expand and contract as needed. You should be able to make changes to your template on-the-fly. You should also be able to create reports that ask the questions that need to be asked, not the questions that will fit in a cell on your spreadsheet. You can create your custom due diligence inspection report based on the information that you want to see gathered.