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November 20, 2015 11:23AM

Yowza, Yardi: The Fall YASC ’15 Takeaway

Oh, they grow up so quickly, don’t they? It seemed only yesterday (emphasis on “seemed;” it has actually been nearly two decades) that we began working with a precocious, 300-employee real estate software company called Yardi, which sought to provide cutting-edge, high-performance software solutions for the real estate industry.

Today, Yardi is undoubtedly an industry leader, with over 4,000 employees in 35 offices, and this exponential growth trajectory was on full display at the recent users’ conference in Anaheim, California. Nearly 2,000 clients—to say nothing of the scores of partners, consultants, and Yardi employees—descended on the Hilton Anaheim for the most recent Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference (YASC). (The venue change itself is a testament to Yardi’s growth, having outgrown Santa Barbara and with a view to move to even larger San Diego.) Sixty-one percent of Yardi’s 5,000 clients worldwide are now running Voyager 7s, 80 percent of whom have expressed their satisfaction with the platform so far. And, judging by the interactive feedback that characterized nearly every session at YASC, this satisfaction rating is destined to grow.

Yowza, Yardi. Those are some statistics.

For REdirect, the Fall YASC isn’t simply an opportunity to catch up with our clients—particularly our West Coast-based ones—or to meet potential new ones, but also a chance to glimpse into the future and learn what’s in the Yardi pipeline in terms of product development.

We spent most of our time at YASC ’15 deepening our knowledge and insight into two of what we feel are Yardi’s most impressive modules: (1) Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting and (2) Investment Management (IM).

In Budgeting & Forecasting, the capacity of Yardi’s models and formulas continues to astound. Running one model (which itself is a collection of formulas), on a group of budgets can execute tens of thousands of calculations on many accounts with just one operation! For clients who may still be budgeting and forecasting using static Excel sheets, this capability is truly game changing. There were other, particularly valuable formulas discussed at YASC, for both commercial as well as residential real estate property management firms, that we are eager to help implement for our clients.

And for investment managers, particularly those with more than two funds to manage, automation shouldn’t be elective: it is imperative. The electrifying presentation by Yardi’s indomitable Sheryl Y. demonstrated, through simple, engaging language and diagrams, how Yardi’s easy-to-learn interface can help distill and manage even the most complex transactions and financial reporting requirements. There is no doubt as to why Yardi’s IM module is quickly becoming an industry standard tool.

Overall, Yardi made it clear that they intend on continuing to maintain their laser-sharp focus on streamlining, facilitating, and simplifying the software, with a view not just toward functionality, but ease ease-of-use for a range of role-based applications. And at REdirect, we intend to continuing continue to helping Yardi users maximize their software’s capacity so that, when your next increased earnings reports come in, we can all say, “Yowza.”