How Can You Get a Competitive Advantage in Selling Reserve Fund Studies?

Your clients always see the Reserve Fund Study as an expense.

As a building engineer or architect, would you think it is possible to change this perception using tools to increase the value of a building.

A building's market value will increase if its maintenance is certified. This certification is only available if the customer can demonstrate that he has maintained his buildings in accordance with the Reserve Fund Study recommendations and the activities outlined in the maintenance log book.

Let's take a step by step look at how your interactions can increase the value of your customers' buildings.

 

1. Software selection

Several conditions must be met before you can certify the quality of a building's maintenance:

• The inspection of a building must be carried out in accordance with important rules.
• The Reserve Fund Study has to be successfully completed. These studies are governed by a multitude of rules and regulations. In the industry, missing mandatory audits and maintenance activities is common.
• The Maintenance Log must include all assets as well as all interventions requested in the contingency fund study.
• The customer should be able to easily follow each of the activities in the maintenance log.
• The client must be able to indicate the completion of each activity and attach supporting documentation demonstrating that the work has been completed.
• In order to issue a certificate indicating the quality of a building's maintenance, you must be able to easily verify the information entered by the customer.

You must be able to easily verify the information entered by the customer in order to issue a certificate indicating the quality of a building's maintenance.

The majority of available software and platforms produce fund studies report and maintenance logs in either electronic or paper format. This way to work impacts the quality of a building's maintenance extremely difficult and costly.

Fortunately, the new PlanGAB.com platform simplifies certification considerably. It enables to:

1. Capture building inspection data in various of ways.
2. Ascertain that the Reserve Fund Study is complete by suggesting various possible interventions on each asset.
3. Consider all assets by proposing various possible interventions on each of them
4. Assess all tasks requested in the Reserve Fund Study.
5. Create an up-to-date task schedule that clients can easily access and follow.
6. Modify each task and attach any necessary supporting documents.
7. Create a detailed report on a building's maintenance history.

This new generation of platform allows you to know and share the status of your customers' preventive maintenance in real time and at all times.

 

2. Reserve Fund Study

The Reserve Fund Study is typically completed in four (4) stages. PlanGAB.com adds more steps like, the interest rates and investment returns to finally simplifies the report output.

Let's see what PlanGAB.com can do to create this document.

Interest Rates and Investment Returns

Interest rates and investment returns have been relatively stable in recent years. All signals indicate that this will be very different in the near future.

Most in-house professional tools and current software forecast a flat interest rate for the next 25 years.

One key feature, PlanGAB allows you to do, is to change and modify new interest rates and investment returns forecast data for the next 25 years.

A $10,000 repair in today's dollars will cost $11,040 in five years, assuming a 2% annual inflation. The same repair will cost $14,026 in 5 years, assuming a 7% annual inflation rate. That's a difference of 27%.

With the current situation, it is possible that the fund studies conducted over the last year will not reflect the real replacement costs.

Inspection and Condition Report

PlanGAB.com allows you to create and split assets. As an example, if a building's south side of the building is more damaged than the other side, it's possible to define the "South side windows" asset to schedule an earlier time frame to replace south side windows before the north side windows.

Work List and Evaluation

The platform reflects the total lifespan of the asset as well as the estimated duration of the task for each asset. Furthermore, the platform displays all of the possible interventions for each asset type, ensuring that nothing is overlooked.

Annual Contribution

PlanGAB.com provides two algorithms to calculate contributions. The user can adjust the contribution formula based on over time investments periods ranging from 25 to 70 years. The algorithms ensure that there will always have enough money to cover the insurance deductible.

You can also manually change the contributions to the platform. The platform then will ensure that the calculations are rerun for subsequent years.

Reporting and Information Sharing

The majority of the report are generated from data entry. All that is left to do is to enter a quick text introduction for each client. PlanGAB.com proposes already pre-formatted texts you can use if needed.

When the report is complete, you can give access to the report online via the PlanGAB.com platform.

The Next Report's Production

The platform can let you create a new study contingency fund from any existing older version.

PlanGAB.com will not copy the previous report. It will create a new one from the new start date of the new analyzed period.

All figures and dates will be adjusted according to the new analyzed period, as well as the new interest rates.

Because the majority of the building condition data entered, let's say 5 years ago, is still valid, create a new report to answer the new building inspection is extremely quick.

 

3. Maintenance Log

The Maintenance Log propose to consider all assets possible for each intervention. Also, it will plan the requested tasks from the Reserve Fund Study.

As a result, we can ensure that the Maintenance Log is complete.

With PlanGAB.com, creating the Maintenance Log will only take two hours.

4. Task Schedule

PlanGAB uses, among other things, the maintenance log, the list of the client's collaborators and the various periods for carrying out work to generate a calendar of tasks.

This schedule provides not only for the work as described in the Reserve Fund Study, but also for preliminary activities such as the production of the estimate, the search for suppliers, the signing of the mandate and so on.

The calendar's creation enables:

• Limit omissions and delays to allow the client to assign tasks to you immediately (advantage!)
• The task calendar is accessible online at all times.

Each task can be modified to indicate:

• The work's actual start and end dates
• The work's actual costs
• The current state of the work (upcoming, in progress, completed, postponed, cancelled, etc.)
• The detail nature of the work performed
• Proven reports to show completed tasks (contracts, invoices, quotes, etc.).

 

5. Task Reports

A report generator allows you to create a list of all past and future tasks, along with their statuses.

An available completed tasks report from the previous year will allow you to quickly determine whether the activities specified in the Maintenance Log have been completed.

6. Certification

Using PlanGAB will allow you to certify that: 

• All preventive maintenance requirements are met by the Reserve Fund Study and the Maintenance Log.
• Each of the planned activities were completed.
• Each activity allows access to support documents to prove they were completed.

As a result, you can provide your customers with annual certification of their building's preventive maintenance.

 

Conclusion

Buildings and condominium units buyers became more and more demanding these days. They want to know everything about the building's history.

If the seller has a certified, preventative maintenance report to show, this will increase the security level for potential buyers.

Fortunately, a new platform makes it possible to achieve this goal with minimal effort.

In addition, PlanGAB is developing a new paid service for building engineer and architect firms client's. This service will let you charge annual fees to help increase your client's loyalty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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