Add-on Functionality

Cash Management

Automates the input of cash book receipts from your bank, and reconciles your PM&A cash book to the bank statement

We’ve developed many powerful ways to enhance your product and help it integrate more efficiently with your wider business processes.

Cash management automates the input and processing of cash book receipts from your bank, and is able to reconcile your PM&A cash book to the bank statement.

What does it do?

• import bank files containing electronic receipts and match them to demanded arrears
• create a balanced receipt processing batch
• import manual transactions
• match manual transaction imports to the PM&A cash book and set the status to reconciled

Benefits

• Increased efficiency in posting tenant cash receipts
• Less time, less cost
• Improved accuracy
• Deals with tenants in breach or on stop
• Self-learning to improve matching process
• Faster cash book reconciliations
• Complete control by end-user

One of our biggest clients, Countrywide, has automated cash management, and now regularly achieves match rates of over 95% – despite volumes of more than 3,500 receipts a month. Find out how they did it.

Or for more information on the Cash Management add-on, please contact your Account Manager, or give our sales team a call.

Data Load

A powerful, high level tool that allows you to restructure your database

Dramatically cut processing time with this quick and secure way to import data

Do you sometimes feel like you are duplicating work? Our data load module can save you time with a quick and safe way to upload data.

Benefits

• the ability to Import data from Excel or text files
• allow bulk loading and create static and accounting records into your Trace product
• dramatically cut your processing time
• reduce manual inputting errors
• once you have the core product you can purchase individual entities

Additional entities available

Data Load Amend functionality for Lease, Property, Debtors & Property Budget
Additional entities i.e. Banking Rules, Cashbook Receipt, Lease Review & more

See how CBRE used Data Load to automate how they set up new properties.

Or, for more information on the Data Load add-on, contact your Account Manager, or give our sales team a call.

Database management

This high-level and powerful add-on tool allows users to make data consistent across two databases, and to represent both sets of data with one reference or code.

The database management add-on also enables user to:

• view records across a single database and restructure them by renaming and replacing (i.e. merge two codes together) codes within most tables in PM&A
• compare two PM&A databases and amend the codes within one to be consistent with the other
• merge two PM&A databases together into one database
• remove excess period balances
• bulk replace creditors within the same PM&A database

Benefits

• easy to use Windows interface
• changes are immediate
• improves efficiency by allowing a number of creditors to be replaced at the same time
• business needs can be better reflected by changing your coding structures
• saves time by enabling you to merge two PM&A databases into one

For more information, please contact your Account Manager, or give our sales team a call.

Direct debit

Collects payments faster, more efficiently and more accurately – and gives you greater certainty in business planning

Our Direct Debit add-on gathers information that needs to be sent to BACS. And allows you to extract data, verify it, edit it and run reports on it.

Items that have been collected via Direct Debit are marked as paid, which automatically generates a balanced but unreleased Receipts Processing batch.

Benefits:

• control cashflow
• cut costs
• reduce Administration
• increase accounting efficiency
• maintain records
• improve control and security
• greater flexibility and convenience

For more information, please contact your Account Manager, or give our sales team a call.

Facilities Management

Retrieves and analyses information from the database to allow proper measurement and analysis

As an assistant for your business’ facilities manager, this add-on provides measurement and analysis of database information. It also includes a simple helpdesk facility to log maintenance calls and automatically manage planned maintenance.

The HelpDesk

The HelpDesk enables maintenance calls to be logged by phone or email. What’s more, calls can be prioritised and directed to an appropriate person, such as a surveyor or contractor.

Works Orders can be issued to deal with items already covered by Contract or Purchase Orders can be placed with the necessary approvals.

Any of the Facilities Management modules can be integrated with Workflow, meaning specific internal procedures or approval processes can be easily followed.

Helpdesk calls can be logged against property, unit, amenity and asset, as well as allowing you to record incoming accounts enquires by tenants or suppliers.

Asset Register

Full details can be recorded against each asset – where it’s located, when and where it was purchased, who it was purchased from, what warranty was supplied etc. This means a schedule of condition can also be attached to each one.

Planned Maintenance

Using the facilities management tool, a schedule of work can be planned and budgeted for as required. Comprehensive reporting provides a complete picture of the overall workload and likely future spend, thus allowing the most cost effective use of resources.

Benefits

• comprehensive reporting
• easy comparisons and KPI measurement allows you to spot trends quickly
• record full details of all assets in the asset register
• the planned maintenance process checks the system for events and automatically creates Helpdesk calls for these so you never have to miss an important deadline
• record and track incidents/issues relating to properties and other assets

General Ledger Exchange

Passes financial information from Trace Property Management and Accounts to third party systems, quickly and accurately

General Ledger Exchange (GLX) provides a managed file transfer platform that offers secure, fully automated processing of accounting data between systems.

Use GLX to pass information from your PM&A to any third party accounts systems quickly and accurately. Core functionality includes the capture and translation of actions and outputs in open (XML) format.

Core functionality also covers the capture and translation of transactions, and provides the output in open format (XML). Candidates for translation include chart codes, company references, property references, debtor references, creditor references and Categories (future).

Benefits

• no risk of missing anything as can be the case with subsequent collation of an export
• avoids date issues where demand or invoice dates are outside period range
• dataset can be filtered to exclude unwanted content at point of export
• XML output is generic and widely adopted
• provides a full audit trail

For more information about the service, please contact your Account Manager, or give our sales team a call.

Purchase Order Management

Controls all stages of expenditure from order to invoice, with multiple approval levels, order tracking and comparisons against budget

Like all good purchase order management systems, Trace’s POM tool helps you control expenditure, monitor future commitments and reduce bureaucracy.

Where the Trace tool excels, though, is in its specific features for the property industry.

In a typical property department, there are many invoices to be managed. Some are for one-off repairs, others may relate to a project of some sort. But a huge number are just repetitive; for example cleaners or landscapers with twelve month contracts.

As long as the invoice is within tolerance and there is no dispute with the supplier, then a purchase order system can provide significant time benefits and expenditure control.

Fully integrated with our systems for property management, facilities management and accounts, POM ensures that all recoverable costs are recharged and that any non-recoverable costs are dealt with appropriately.

How it works

POM controls all stages of expenditure from order to invoice, with multiple approval levels, order tracking and comparisons against budget.

Appropriate authorisation policies can be defined by the user as automated workflows.

POM ensures that any information entered by the professional who authorises the expenditure is carried through automatically to the accounts system.

Additional facilities

• multiple approval levels for creation of orders and invoices
• service charge budget checking at order stage
• goods received processing
• user defined payment ‘tolerances’
• fully CIS compliant
• creditors can be restricted by property
• full tracking of orders through various stages to receipt and payment of invoice
• handle contract (multiple line) orders
• advanced find tool

Benefits

No more surprises: control costs, budgets and future expenditure precisely
Automate more: remove whole levels of needless bureaucracy and speed up your systems dramatically

Find out how our POM software has helped transform Tideway Property Management’s purchase order processes.

For more information, contact your Account Manager, or give our sales team a call.

Retail Management

Provides a comprehensive facility to manage even the most complex of turnovers
Retail Management uses the turnover calculation to determine the total or additional rent to be charged for a period.

At the end of the certificate period, when the certificate is received from the tenant, the excess rent is calculated over and above the base rent that has been charged.

The turnover certificate details are entered into the system, which then calculates the rental charge to be raised. All data can be reported upon and be downloaded into Excel for further analysis.

Multiple letter templates can be defined and mail merged with the relevant data to enable the generation of debt-chasing letters to non paying tenants.

Benefits

• enhances control and audit of charges made to tenants
• reduces manual processes and calculations
• automatic certificate raising
• enables forecasting of rental income and turnover trends

Screen Designer

Adds the versatility of a bespoke system to your standard Trace package

Would you like to customise your own data fields within your PM&A system? With our Screen Designer module you can tailor PM&A to store the precise information you want to record.

Screen Designer gives you the best of every world; the most stable and reliable property and accounting system with the ability to customise and report upon the data that is important to your organisation.

You’ll be able to customise and report on data that is important to your organisation. New fields will appear on extra tab sheets denoted with the Screen Designer icon on the maintenance and Enquiry windows.

The different field types that can be added are:

• text
• dates
• images(.jpg)
• MS Word Documents
• numbers
• drop down yes/no
• AVIs(video)
• MS Excel document

Benefits

• you decide what information you want to record, how the screens will look and how the data will be displayed – all without programming knowledge
• quick and easy setup of new fields and screens by using the wizard to guide you
• create and link an unlimited number of fields to existing system records within PM&A
• customise reporting to meet your specific requirements
• increase flexibility through a purpose designed system
• define your own screen colours and border

Workflow

Give users the ability to define business processes within the property system, and then automate in an extremely sophisticated way

Key business areas such as invoice approval and payment, purchase order processing, budget approval, lease expiry and rent review, all lend themselves easily to the introduction of workflow processes.

Workflows can include email alerts and escalation features that ensure users receive timely reminders or warnings of critical events.

The individual steps which make up the key business processes can be defined and built to suit the needs of individual organisations. This means that sound business practice can be proactively invoked and followed.

When Workflow is implemented with Purchase Order Management, for example, the benefits include:

• Personal workflow task lists
• Cost savings where unnecessary expenditure is curtailed
• Improved document handling
• Full control of budget approval
• Improved skill efficiency for invoice approval and payment, freeing staff for more productive tasks

Additional utilities

Ask your account manager for details or login to our customer zone

We can also supply numerous minor utilities to facilitate electronic communications, data transfer, and other tasks
BACS output formats (for internet banking):

• Bank output formats (bank transfers, payment to client routines)
• Cash Management utilities
• Direct Debits: bank formats
• Demand printing codes
• International

Other

• Electronic sending of documents (Green Pack)
  A reliable means of electronically distributing critical documents
• Structured Data Load utilities