How to Improve Budgeting and Forecasting with Yardi AB&F
Budgeting and forecasting are critical to effective financial planning, but managing the process across multiple properties, stakeholders, and data sources can quickly become complex.
Yardi Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting (AB&F) can help real estate organizations streamline these processes, improve consistency, and build more accurate financial plans using data already available within Yardi.
Whether you're preparing annual budgets, updating quarterly forecasts, or modeling different financial scenarios, understanding how to take full advantage of Yardi AB&F can make the process significantly more efficient.
Using Yardi Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting
Yardi Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting is a powerful financial planning tool for real estate organizations. It can help teams save time, improve forecasting accuracy, reduce manual errors, and build greater flexibility into budgets and forecasts.
Yardi AB&F integrates with Yardi Voyager, allowing organizations to use existing property, tenant, and financial data as the foundation for their budgeting and forecasting processes.
For commercial properties, teams can create model properties using existing tenant data as the starting point for the rent roll. From there, users can edit the rent roll and layer in general or property-specific leasing assumptions.
Market Leasing Assumptions (MLAs), for example, can be used to model factors such as renewal probability, estimated downtime, rent, tenant improvements, commissions, and other leasing terms. Inflation tables can also be incorporated when using the model for multi-year forecasting or discounted cash flow (DCF) valuations.
AB&F supports multiple forecasting methods and data sources. Organizations can use historical data while accounting for inflation, spread expenses using seasonal schedules, and project expenses based on relationships between accounts.
Another important capability is scenario modeling. Yardi AB&F allows users to model the financial impact of potential outcomes, such as tenant renewals or early terminations, without affecting the unit and lease records associated with the actual property.
This makes it possible to evaluate different "what if" scenarios and better understand their potential financial impact before making decisions.
If your organization uses Yardi but isn't taking full advantage of AB&F, there may be opportunities to make your budgeting and forecasting processes more efficient, consistent, and repeatable.
Save Time During the Budgeting Process
Budgeting and forecasting can be labor-intensive, particularly when managing a large portfolio or gathering input from multiple stakeholders.
Yardi AB&F provides several features designed to streamline that work.
For example, multiple users can work on different areas of a budget simultaneously. By enabling Check In/Check Out functionality and using Account Trees, teams can divide responsibility for revenue and expense general ledger accounts.
When several stakeholders contribute to budgets and forecasts, this can make collaboration more manageable. Workflow functionality can also help teams monitor the status and progress of each user's work throughout the budgeting process.
AB&F also allows organizations to create budgets and run functions in bulk across a portfolio. Automating repetitive tasks can give teams more time to review their budgets, investigate variances, and identify potential errors.
The Rent Roll function provides access to commercial and residential unit and tenant data created through the model property system. That information can then be adjusted to create more accurate forecasts.
Users can also take advantage of the Roll Up function to review the individual property budgets that contribute to the organization's overall budget.
Create Greater Consistency Across Your Portfolio
Consistency is particularly important when budgeting and forecasting across a large real estate portfolio. If different properties or teams use different processes and assumptions, discrepancies can quickly appear in the final numbers.
Using standardized processes within Yardi AB&F can help organizations apply assumptions and forecasting methodologies more consistently.
Transfer Totals and Update Projections
The Transfer Totals from GL (General Ledger) function allows users to incorporate historical data from previous periods into the budgeting process.
Teams can define the parameters for the data they want to pull, determine how that information should be treated in future budgets, and use the Budget Selection tab to identify the applicable budgets.
The same function can then be used to project expenses across multiple budgets.
Applying standardized parameters across a portfolio helps reduce manual work while decreasing the likelihood of inconsistent assumptions or data-entry errors.
Those projections can still be adjusted when necessary to account for known changes in the upcoming period. Yardi AB&F includes formulas that can be used to refine forecasts, while the Excel Copy/Paste functionality makes it easier to update multiple expense lines efficiently.
This provides a balance between standardization and the flexibility required for property-specific circumstances.
Build Formulas and Forecasting Models
Forecasting models allow teams to create formulas and apply them across multiple revenue or expense accounts.
These models can incorporate scenarios such as vacancies, fee changes, rent increases, and other factors that may affect future performance.
Users can include or exclude different components of a model depending on the needs of a particular property or budget.
The result is a more standardized forecasting process without eliminating the flexibility needed to account for differences across a portfolio.
Make Budgeting Processes Repeatable
One of the most valuable aspects of an effective budgeting process is repeatability.
Instead of rebuilding calculations and processes each time a forecast is updated, Yardi AB&F allows organizations to establish workflows that can be reused throughout the year.
Batch processing, for example, allows teams to group recurring tasks and reports together based on property or budget attributes.
More intensive processes can also be scheduled through Task Runner to run outside normal working hours, helping teams manage system resources while reducing manual effort.
Use Function Groups to Automate Recurring Tasks
Function groups are collections of forecasting functions that AB&F runs in a specified order through Task Runner.
For example, a budgeting process might include modeling expenses, forecasting rental revenue, and forecasting management fees for each property.
Instead of completing those steps individually for every property, function groups can be used to apply the same sequence of tasks across a portfolio.
This functionality is particularly valuable for recurring forecasting exercises. Quarterly reforecasts can be completed without repeatedly entering the same formulas and parameters, helping teams save time while maintaining consistency from one forecasting cycle to the next.
Get More From Yardi AB&F
Yardi Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting offers far more than a place to enter annual budget numbers. When configured and used effectively, it can help real estate organizations standardize financial planning, automate repetitive work, improve collaboration, and evaluate potential scenarios more efficiently.
The key is ensuring that AB&F is configured around your organization's budgeting processes and that your team understands how to use capabilities such as forecasting models, function groups, batch processing, workflows, and portfolio-level budgeting.
Need Support With Yardi Budgeting and Forecasting?
If your organization uses Yardi and wants to improve its budgeting and forecasting processes, REdirect Consulting can help.
Our Yardi consultants can work with your team to evaluate existing processes, identify opportunities to better utilize Yardi AB&F, and create more efficient and repeatable approaches to financial planning.
Contact REdirect Consulting to learn how we can help you get more from Yardi Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting.
