Let’s begin a hard truth: Where there’s data, there’s going to be dirty data.
This is particularly true as it relates to commercial real estate data, where you are managing data across many stages across the lifecycle of the asset. New data is constantly entering the scene, from the investors, to the underwriters, to the asset managers, and back to the investors. If that data is compromised, then every subsequent stage is compromised, as well.
So where are you most likely to spot dirty data within your organization? We’ve identified a few common themes from our clients.
1. Property-Level and Lease-Oriented Data
Although any of this data can be dirty, property-level and lease-oriented data tends to be the dirtiest of all.
Lease-oriented data includes everything from inaccurate summations of the lease (reflected in Yardi or some other platform) to misspelled tenant names.
Imagine you own several multifamily housing developments. Now perhaps you have accumulated a few slight variations on the spelling of tenant names, or a misplaced digit in a few phone numbers. Not only does this mean your lease data is incorrect, it means you probably have some duplicate data, as well.
Once you discover these data inaccuracies and irregularities, you have to assign someone to sort through the mess and reconcile everything. This means either your productivity will decline, your headcount will rise, or both.
The relationship between inaccurate data and human cost is directly proportional.
2. Accounting Department Data
Another place you are likely to spot dirty data is the accounting department.
The team at Pereview has seen this scenario play out more than once: an asset manager, anxious to produce a report or complete a task, bypasses the accounting department and grabs numbers from wherever they can be found.
Are those numbers up-to-date or properly contextualized? Who can say? (Well, accounting could say, of course – but they were bypassed.)
The result? At best, inaccurate data, and at worst, shadow accounting. At the end of the day, reports and actuals will not reconcile, which increases reputational risk.
Spot Dirty Data Before It’s Too Late
So, how do you spot dirty data and solve it? Turn to the experts.
The team at Pereview can help you identify existing dirty data, clean it, and keep it clean by aggregating it into a Single Source of Truth.
An all-in-one solution for commercial real estate asset management, Pereview is the only Life of the Asset® solution on the market today. It integrates siloed systems and processes, allows for push-button reporting, creates a single source of truth, and establishes standard workflows and guidelines for asset and data management.
