The Peterson Companies, based in Fairfax, Virginia, is one of the largest privately owned development companies in the region, with vast experience in every aspect of real estate development, including acquisition, planning and zoning, community development, building, and management.

In order to effectively manage their operations, they have depended on Intuit Real Estate Solutions (IRES), the leading global provider of real estate and asset management information technology solutions, for more than eight years. The Peterson Companies has come to appreciate the flexibility and easy customization of IRES' MRI Commercial system, according to Cindy Singer, Controller for The Peterson Companies.

Flexible, customizable reporting is critical

“There are many things we do at The Peterson Companies that are unique,” says Singer. “We’ve collaborated with IRES to create views and reports that reflect our specialized business needs. It’s great that IRES has in-house implementation experts including experts in reporting who can get to know us and our needs.”

“For example, we choose to track insurance information at the tenant as well as vendor level. We also track legal documents through the process and require tracking of HVAC certifications. So we created a document tracker tool that manages of all these documents and certificates for us. As a result, we always have the information we need, and the process is integrated and complete,” she says.

Solving problems, Providing solutions

“Another problem we’ve solved through MRI Commercial is streamlining of the estoppels process,” continues Singer. “Whenever we refinanced a property, the estoppels process was just awful. Tenants need to be notified of refinancing, but our manual processes for that were exceedingly cumbersome. With the MRI Commercial system, we created a worksheet report, which we can mail-merge with Microsoft Word to generate letters quickly and track them through the process. We anticipate this will save us considerable time and stress during the refinancing process.”

“We also worked with IRES to create a simplified Account Summary that helps our tenants to better see the bottom line. We believe that it will help us collect our past due accounts faster and easier,” adds Singer.

“MRI Commercial's customization capabilities solved a business problem for us by making this reporting process easier and designing a format that increased accuracy. We’ve already used this new system and we’ve seen the results,” she says.

As a 25-year leader in real estate development and a key regional player, The Peterson Companies has relied on IRES for the customized reporting that is essential to their commitment to provide first-class property and asset management. Equally as important is the concept of integration.

Integration and the power of JobCost

“We believe in bringing all of our systems together including property management, accounting and job costing,” continues Singer. “Our approach has always been to move away from manual processes to one streamlined property and asset management technology suite. IRES shares that vision and provides an integrated technology solution.”

As part of that vision, Singer has represented The Peterson Companies on the JobCost steering committee, helping to shape IRES' JobCost software. Completely customizable to unique business needs, JobCost handles any level of tracking – from the easiest to most complex construction jobs including new development, tenant requests and capital improvements. Developed as a complete solution, JobCost will integrate seamlessly with the other IRES tools.

“Most property managers at some point in the lifecycle need to track tenant work and improvements, and redevelopment,” explains Singer, “so it’s important to have those management tools integrated with their total system. We’ve been tracking our job costing on another software solution, but now we’re very excited to be on the verge of implementing JobCost. Now our JobCost and GL will be integrated and our analysis, reporting and tracking will be more comprehensive, more accurate and more reflective of where our business is going.”

About the Peterson Companies

Where The Peterson Companies is going is a dynamic, exciting future of growth and success. Today, The Peterson Companies is a regionally recognized leader in all aspects of the development industry in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

The Peterson Companies’ high quality office properties include Fair Lakes Office Park, King Street Metro Place, and Tyson-McLean Office Park. The growth of the suburban Washington DC region has resulted in a strong demand for retail development, and The Peterson Companies has led the way with many outstanding retail properties including Fair Lakes Center, Milestone Center, Fair Lakes Promenade, Washingtonian Center, Marketplace at Centre Ridge, and The Colonnade at Union Mills. For more information, please visit their website at www.petersoncos.com.