Implementing SAP Flexible Real Estate (REFX)

By Joe Oppenheim
(B.Tech - University of Johannesburg)

What is SAP Flexible Real Estate?

  • SAP is a global reach company based in Germany that builds and implements business software
  • SAP Flexible Real Estate, or REFX for short, is a product within the SAP Business Suite of products

Why SAP Flexible Real Estate?

  • SAP Flexible Real Estate expands on SAP’s existing ERP product offering allowing owners of the system to manage real estate portfolios
  • It enhances the already very strong SAP ERP Business Suite by giving the existing financial system a real estate focused environment

Who should use SAP Flexible Real Estate?

You: You use property which you own or you lease in premises from a landlord…so you should be using it. It allows you to understand how you are using your real estate, maximise the use and reduce costs by collating all of this data in one place. If you have more than just your own or lease-in property, all the better: SAP Flexible Real Estate allows you to manage land, buildings, improvements, equipment and space for either your assets, or assets you manage on behalf of others, with SAP maintaining the legal and physical relationships and structures of these companies. It has been implemented globally and in South Africa for financial asset managers, shopping center owners, property managers and manufacturing & service companies

What can SAP Flexible Real Estate do for me?

    Represent your land, buildings and other real estate structures as it is structurally and how you report on it

    • floors,
    • offices,
    • apartments & flats,
    • houses,
    • shops,
    • gardens,
    • parking etc.

    An incredible amount of detail

    • financial asset values,
    • building values and dates,
    • sizes, capacities and dimensions,
    • qualities, characteristics and even fixtures and fittings!
    • Insurance values
    • Market values (which can be used to produce leases directly!)

    Represent all of your business partners, both financial and informational

    • Landlords,
    • Tenants,
    • Service providers,
    • Contractors,
    • Employees,
    • Agents, etc.

    Represent all of your contracts and legal agreements

    • Lease agreements
    • Service contracts
    • Accounts

    Financially process your contracts and agreements

    • Produce, print, email and fax invoices
    • Pay vendors
    • In an automated and integrated fashion through to the general ledger, accounts payable/receivable and management reporting systems

    Pay service providers and recover these utility and service charges from tenants automatically using recovery factors and meter readings

    • Security
    • Landscaping and gardening
    • Water & electricity
    • Refuse / Garbage / Rubbish
    • Advertising and management fees

    Adjust rentals and other charges based on sales (turnover rent), indices and manually specified factors

    Upload all documentation associated with these elements

    • Draft lease agreements (e.g. Microsoft Word)
    • Signed lease agreements (e.g. Adobe PDF)
    • Floor Plans (e.g. CAD)
    • Photographs and images (e.g. JPG's)
    • ...and others

    Produce and email correspondence

    • Adjustment and increase letters
    • Requests for sales data
    • Others which you can define yourselves!

    Automatically output lease agreements!

    • Using Microsoft Word templates
    • Multiple templates can be defined

    Search and allocate (reserve) space using mobile devices such as the Apple iPad

    Report and extract data for all of these solution elements

    • Past historical data or time specific periods
    • Plans, budgets and forecasts
    • Customised reports
    • Exportable to text files and Microsoft Excel

Does it have a process?

With SAP ERP and SAP Flexible Real Estate implemented, you get the whole real estate process including

  • Planning and budgeting of prospective projects
  • Project management of acquisition, construction and materials management
  • Fixed asset management of balance sheet assets
  • Spatial and usage management
  • Maintenance (both reactive and scheduled)
  • Financial reporting (income statement, balance sheet) and management reporting (profit centers, cost centers, etc.)

What are the benefits of the SAP Flexible Real Estate system

One integrated and automated ERP solution including financials, HR, purchasing, maintenance, asset management, you name it, and now with real estate!

  • Control space, capacities and availability for office, retail, industrial, residential parking and other specific revenue generating areas (such as advertising)
  • Control all parties including designers, contracts, architects, municipal services, landscaping, tenants & landlords, signatories, guarantors, etc.
  • Control all contracts, such as landlord lease agreements, tenant lease agreements, service provider agreements, rights and obligations
  • Control all revenues from rent, advertising and parking
  • Control all expenses from utilities (water, electricity, refuse, security, etc.)
  • Control the sources whether external such as customers/vendor or internally from departments, cost centers etc.
  • Control resources such as lease agreement templates, signed leases, training material, policies, procedures directly on the system

Is it secure?

SAP implement business software for oil, gas, manufacturing and defence companies and government globally.

  • Globally certified authentication and authorisation systems
  • Low and high level security allocation
  • Data change tracking and reporting

How much do I need to change

SAP Flexible Real Estate enhances an existing financial environment. You just link the real estate elements (land, buildings, floors, rooms, shops, space, contracts and parties) to your existing balance sheet, general ledgers, accounts and management reporting areas.

The solution is logical enough to continue doing what you do. You just do it in one place, fully integrated and reported live.

But we dont use SAP...

That’s ok, SAP can be installed on site with various levels of implementation to support SAP Flexible Real Estate. And now would be a good time to consider SAP as a one-stop-shop for all your company controls and information reporting.

Can we do it?

You must do it....
My job is to help YOU implement the system. Be it the operational personnel (who will be using it), management personnel (who will be reporting from it) or the IT personnel (who will be supporting it).
The philosophy of such an implementation is to educate your organisation on how to implement the system and support you all the way through until you are comfortable running it and customizing it on your own.

How long will an implementation take?

Not long at all. A basic setup of SAP Flexible Real Estate for a single South African company can be done in a week! There are various factors that you need to consider which will determine the implementation time:

  • Is it for one company or multiple companies?
  • Is your organisation regional, national or international? SAP Flexible Real Estate caters for almost all countries globally…on one system!
  • Is your company a financial or manufacturing company, product-driven or service-driven company? SAP Flexible Real Estate ties into your existing environment with little need to change
  • Do you have 10 staff members or 10,000? SAP Flexible Real Estate caters for both complex processes or small teams with comprehensive oversight
  • How much data do you need to move and from what systems do they need to move from?

What does it cost

Running SAP Flexible Real Estate requires a once-off license from SAP which gives the user full access to the whole of SAP Flexible Real Estate.
Implementation costs you need to consider:

  • The number of companies that make up your organisation
  • The number of different type of real estate portfolios within your organisation
  • The number of people your organisation uses to manage your organisation
  • The complexities and uniqueness of your company
  • Your chosen hardware and software platforms (SAP works with all major operating systems and database platforms)
Implementing SAP Flexible Real Estate can be done as just a computer system, but consideration of the following needs to be included in your decision making:
  • Analysis of your existing environment and processes
  • Setting up according to your company (invoice and lease agreement formats, balance sheet and income statement reports)
  • Moving data from your legacy systems into the new system
  • Producing training material and training your staff

What about the future?

  • SAP is continually improving all their products and as a customer of SAP, you will have access to all support and upgrades to your product. The SAP Flexible Real Estate system is currently running on the ERP system version 6.0 with enhancement at a level 8…and continuing.
  • SAP is also driving the latest trends and technologies. SAP Flexible Real Estate can be accessed via the internet through a web browser on computers, laptops, phones and tablets.
  • The SAP Flexible Real Estate Mobile Broker app of Apple IOS and Android allow access to your portfolio via mobile devices and the SAP Fiori platform allows access to most ERP functions via the same mobile devices.
  • SAP is already enabled for internet-of-things, web, cloud, email, etc.

Can you give me help and documentation?

Of course I can help and there is comprehensive information on the following website:

SAP has a fantastic online community of users, consultants and support staff accessible in the SAP Community Network with a dedicated Flexible Real Estate area

Contact Joe Oppenheim