Under the covers of Intuit’s Real Estate Solutions

…lies the powerful, comprehensive property information and management IT solution, MRI™. This is a robust and scaleable suite of software modules, engineered with the capability to scale performance, capacity and connectivity to the needs of a property manager’s unique business and economic requirements.

The MRI package was developed by Intuit Real Estate Solutions (formerly known as MRI Real Estate Solutions), a 32-year old real estate software development company. In June 2002, MRI Real Estate Solutions was acquired by the US-based Intuit Corporation Inc. – a company quoted on Nasdaq with a market capitalisation of some $10 billion and current annual revenues of more than 1.6 billion.

MRI Real Estate Solutions first opened an office in South Africa in 1996. Today, as Intuit Real Estate Solutions, the South African operation forms part of the company’s global presence, in 40 countries on five continents. Intuit Real Estate Solutions is now acknowledged as the premier global provider of IT solutions for the property industry. The South African operation is responsible for Intuit Real Estate Solutions’ entities throughout Africa.

Says Bob Marsh, MD of Intuit UK: “Our proven range of targeted software is at the forefront of a rapidly evolving property and asset management marketplace. The acquisition by Intuit has enabled the MRI solution to achieve an improved vertical market penetration. Whereas before we were largely covering the management/asset management sectors of the property sectors within our geographical areas of operation, we now have the capacity to offer our software solutions to construction companies and to a variety of other users in other sectors of the property market.

“We are engaged in ongoing product improvement and innovation. This, coupled with the ability to tailor our product to unique business needs, our proven project management methodology and customer-driven support functions are hallmarks of Intuit Real Estate Solutions. Such attributes have enabled us gain recognition as a leader in the property management software industry.

“It is also worth noting that our products are fully compliant with the systems of the Investors Property Data Bank (IPD), the property benchmarking organisation. As part of its global network, IPD has a presence in South Africa. Therefore, should a South African property owner or portfolio manager who is using the MRI product wish to compare components of the performance of their property holdings in South Africa with comparable property holdings in the 13 or so IPD-serviced countries, this is wholly possible.

“In essence, MRI provides the ease-of-use of a modular system with comprehensive reporting and analysis capabilities. All key MRI reports include full drill-down capabilities, allowing the user to view supporting information, in addition to the ability to export required data to print, email, HTML and other Microsoft products.

“As our corporate presence and client base in South Africa indicates, we have a deep strategic commitment to the South African property industry – and, by implication, therefore, to the South African economy. To further reinforce this commitment, we have recently established Intuit’s EAME (Europe, Africa & Middle East) Help Desk in Johannesburg. We are also earnest proponents of employment equality in our South African operations, thus transferring technical and other specialist skills to previously disadvantaged people and are keen to introduce such people to careers in the local property industry.”

Apart from the basic commercial property management, general ledger, accounts payable and purchase order modules, the MRI suite includes the following:

*Enterprise Ledger – this extends the capabilities of the MRI General Ledger module to permit the management of the most sophisticated corporate and portfolio accounting procedures and requirements.

*ViewPoint – An executive information summary and management reporting tool that assembles all property data, to enable in-depth analyses of a given property portfolio, using any chosen composition of real estate data.

*Advanced Retail Sales – this is Intuit Real Estate Solutions’ specialist retail module, which allows shopping centre owners to track and integrate information about individual store performance, leases, special events, locations, expenses and taxes, including VAT. The system automatically calculates and bills turnover and rentals and calculates natural breakpoints on multiple income categories. Analysis of sales data can be processed by store, tenant, region, lease or any other relevant category.

*ForeSight – this module brings together complete budgeting, re-forecasting and projections functionalities in a single high- performance system, allowing short-term budgeting or long-range projections.

*LeaseFlow - controls pre-leasing from start to finish – and every step in between. LeaseFlow allows the user to create their own workflow processes, designed around their own unique way of working.

*JobCost – this module provides a complete construction management tool covering the entire project life cycle.

*Application ToolKit – this is a unique tailoring tool, which facilitates the customisation and creation of any field, table, view or menu to fit a specific business need. All changes made using this module are fully retained when system upgrades take place.

*Plato – this is an intuitive and accurate report-writing tool, which can be used by all levels of user. Plato can be used in conjunction with Intuit Real Estate Solutions’ ReportDesign tool to produce high level calculations and graphical reports.

Other software in the Intuit Real Estate Solutions’ property management stable include:

Audit Trail
Corporate Accounts Receivable
Facilities Management
Fixed Assets

The last named allows the complete and flexible management of fixed assets of any type using any depreciation factor; it takes into account all local and global accounting regulations, including the IFRS, plus other critical asset management processes.

All data in the MRI system is highly secured.

Please note that all names against which a bullet appears in this text are registered trademark names.