When looking for business property, it’s normal to negotiate for an affordable lease or rent. The idea is to reduce the expense as much as possible for your business to remain profitable. However, after attaining the lease or rent of the business property, the cost doesn’t end there. The risk of an over and above expense isn’t completely eliminated due to the property’s operational expenses, upkeep, and maintenance.
For instance, the cost of heating, cooling, lighting, and running other maintenance utilities in your business property is one of the most expensive operational costs. This is especially true since the cost of some of these utilities, such as power and water, are unpredictable. Having recurring billables is one thing, but the cost of maintaining these systems and the overall property is another.
That’s why businesses need to adopt cost-effective measures for maintaining their property. To help you get started, here’re some business property management tips that can help you trim down your expenses:
1) Hire Professionals For Your Property Maintenance Needs
Perhaps, one of the common mistakes most property owners and landlords make is to try and handle the property maintenance needs on their own. Granted, tasks like general cleaning and landscape upkeep may seem to do. However, you may end up spending more time and energy on maintenance tasks than you would’ve if you hired professionals.
Several companies have majored explicitly in business property maintenance. Usually, their services come as a package which means once you hire them, all your property maintenance needs can be met and addressed. And more so, if they don’t have a specific service you’d want to be done, in some cases, they can outsource the work at their cost. With such an offer, it can be cheaper to hire a professional.
Aside from being more cost-effective, here are other reasons why it’s highly advisable to hire experts to maintain your property:
- Property Managers Can Help Make Auditing Easy
Working with contracts is much more efficient than hiring a one-time business property maintenance professional. This is because, with the yearly contract, you can bargain the cost of maintenance to favor you and the professional team.
Additionally, it can be easier to record the property maintenance costs done by one company than to keep records of random professionals for different maintenance projects. This record comes in handy during auditing. You can easily tell the effectiveness of the expert. If their service doesn’t match their pricing, you’re at a better place to cancel the after its lifetime and hire more effective professionals.
- Contractors Have The Skills And Tools
For starters, you can’t conduct all maintenance services on your own, especially the tasks needing technical knowledge and expertise. Professionals, being exposed to their line of practice for so long already, have the skills and tools necessary to ensure that your property’s utility systems are working well and in good condition.
For instance, if your property needs to maintain or replace building components such as pneumatic blowers, seeking professional advice can go a long way. You can check sites such as Nwflowtech.com or other technology and engineering companies to help you with this task.
- Construction Professionals Can Ensure Building Code Compliance
Essentially, building codes are created to ensure the safety of the building or property and its occupants when in use. That said, when renting or getting a lease on business property, the most important thing to review is if the building complies with the local building code. However, it’d be good to note that these building codes apply long, even after you have occupied your property. This is because, with time, you may conduct upgrades that may defy these regulations.
It’s therefore essential to make sure that these upgrades comply with your locality’s building code. For instance, if you want to update or replace your electrical wires or plumbing lines, a professional team can help you with this task while still ensuring that you aren’t violating any regulations. This is critical since failure to do this may risk you facing charges for going against the law, which may also force you to dig deep into your pockets to pay for legal service during a court processing.
When choosing a reliable maintenance service provider, consider asking for recommendations from colleagues or people you know in the business. Chances are, they may have already commissioned a team to do the repairs and maintenance of their property. You can also head over to the service provider’s site or social page to help you gauge whether or not they’re the best team for your business.
2) Have A Maintenance And Repair Program Or Plan
When you own a business property, a way to manage your business finances is by having a maintenance and repair program or plan. Doing so can help you anticipate maintenance and repair works and costs in the future.
But aside from scheduling the regular preventive maintenance and repair schedule, a program or a plan will also allow you to prepare the rest of your property should a downtime happen due to maintenance and repair works on the site. It can help ensure that your business stays operational. And with your business being functional, you can avoid losing any income, and the enterprise remains sustainable.
In addition, having detailed maintenance and repair plans means that your property will be serviced consistently and on a timely basis. When preparing the maintenance schedule and repair plan, consider the following areas of your business property:
- HVAC and ventilation system
- Plumbing system
- Electrical systems
- Landscaping
- Infrastructure
- Security systems
- Building Code Adherence
- Tear and wear around the property, such as faded paint or drywalls
- Deep Cleaning needs
- Pest Control
- Upgrades and replacements
3) Invest In Computerized Maintenance Management Systems
As mentioned, property management encompasses a lot of sectors to consider and manage. And for each section, you need to keep a record of the following:
- The repair requests made
- The maintenance suggestion added in the maintenance plan
- Preventative maintenance schedules
- Budgeting for the maintenance services needed
- The actual execution of the property maintenance and the performance feedback
This is a lot of information needed. Furthermore, the effectiveness and success of property maintenance rely on this information being accurate and updated.
Therefore, while having manual records for each type of information can help, it’s worth noting that they may not be reliable at all times. First, there’s a risk of error and inaccuracy. And considering the information is a lot to process and encode, you may need more than one employee to collect and manage it.
Luckily for you, technology is the gift that keeps giving. Experts have come up with computerized systems that can help automate these processes. For example, if the property maintenance program reads that the plumbing system should be checked after six months, the automated system will remind you when the six months reach. This can save you the hustle of keeping dates and potentially forgetting to execute the maintenance on a timely basis.
Your employee can also log in any repair and maintenance requests that weren’t scheduled. The employee doesn’t have to attend an annual general meeting for this, which would otherwise derail the maintenance process. Also, the new requests are automatically added to the planned maintenance routine
This computerized system has come to reduce the need for employees to handle such records. This means you can reduce the cost for wages and salaries that have to be paid. All you have to incur is the cost of installing the systems, and after that, you can automate your property maintenance record needs without necessarily running up additional costs.
4) Track Maintenance Expenses
Another way you can manage your maintenance costs effectively is to track every expense you make. You can hire a property manager, in this case, to help you oversee both the operational and financial aspects of your business.
A reliable property manager can assist you in preparing a financial plan for maintenance and repair costs. Your company can then work with a budget that fits its finances. As such, it’d be unlikely that your business will spend more than it had budgeted for on property maintenance.
In addition, managing your maintenance costs also include doing checks and balances to review your business’s expenses at the end of the business year. And in case they’re inefficient, you can make the necessary adjustments so that you get value for your money.
5) Schedule Preventative Maintenance
The saying ‘prevention is always the best cure’ is also applicable to your business property. This is because, in most cases, it may cost you more since the longer you wait to address an issue in your property, the bigger the damage gets. Thus, the more expensive and time-consuming it is to have it repaired. That’s where preventive maintenance comes beneficial.
Preventative maintenance can be a great way to help you predict and prevent critical property maintenance issues before they even occur. While having random maintenance works on your property from time to time can be good, a regular schedule to inspect your property can certainly go a long way. Moreover, preventative maintenance can also help predict possible repairs needed in your property.
For instance, you can schedule regular inspections by professionals to check the heating and cooling system of the building once a year. Not only does this help you avoid more urgent concerns with your property needing costly repairs, but doing so also allows you to take care of the systems in place.
If you’d like to use preventative measures for maintaining your property, consider implementing the following;
This is the first step of preventative maintenance. The property is inspected to identify areas that require repair or servicing. For example, you may notice that the escalators installed in your building need to be lubricated. With regular inspection, you can better manage possible issues and take urgent action to prevent further damages.
Through regular inspection, you can also assess the condition of your building’s systems and machines. Doing so can help you ensure that they remain functional and energy-efficient. Thus, you can reduce your electrical consumption, which can then help you save on operational costs.
Once the property damages and possible system issues are identified, the next step is to fix and address them. As mentioned, it can be less expensive on your end to fix a problem while it’s still new, as compared to when the damage is advanced. As the damage becomes more advanced, it may require more technical solutions and skills to repair. Therefore, if you’re looking to save on maintenance costs, it’d be best to fix the problem in time.
Aside from ensuring that your building systems are functioning smoothly and in well-condition, conduct deep cleaning within your property as well. Having your property thoroughly cleaned can help reduce the rate of its wear and tear, as well as its deterioration.
6) Conduct Regular Upgrades
One of the most efficient ways to manage the cost of your property maintenance is by having regular upgrades for your property systems. While it may seem expensive to upgrade your property constantly, practicality-wise, it can be a cost-saving hack.
For instance, the safety and security measures of your property. You can get a team that can help ensure that your security features are always up-to-date and efficient. They can identify new technologies that your business property can benefit from. And if you’re constantly up-to-date with such features, there will be hardly a need to run any repair or maintenance on the security system of your property.
However, suppose your security system still has to be maintained. In that case, the cost of adding another feature will be relatively more affordable compared to upgrading from an old version of the system security.
Maintaining the condition of your business property from its physical structure to the different building components and systems comprising it is essential for your business. This is because a well-maintained and functioning property can ensure the smooth running of your business operations and the stability of revenue.
But, maintaining a property can be costly, especially if critical and urgent repairs have to be done. However, you can make your property maintenance cost-effective by hiring professionals to handle your property’s maintenance needs, having a concrete plan in place, investing in maintenance management systems, tracking your maintenance expenses, scheduling preventive maintenance, and conducting regular upgrades on your property. And with these six tips, you’re set to maintain your business property without digging a hole into your wallet.