Financial Module

Although facility management activities mostly involve technical operation work, they are still cost-intensive and require dedicated staff. Besides performing excellent quality work, other important aspects are

• who does the work
• how much it costs
• how fast it can get done.

In case of a delay, the penalty may be quite high. The contracts relating to the type of work determine the tasks and the unit prices of the work, and in many cases, it defines the SLA, too.

ArchiFM handles all important financial data that is closely related to technical work. As there are various other ERP systems available for handling financial data, we recommend integrating our software with these systems. SAP integration, for example, is not simply for transferring over the price of the jobs completed and initiating payment through ArchiFM, but it can be used for financial and resource planning, which then can be synchronized with ArchiFM. Although, in some cases, integration may require continuous online connection, in most cases it is sufficient to schedule periodic data transfers. The content and the method of data transfer always needs to be determined on a company and project basis, as there are no two companies that find the same data important, and the availability of new data is typically different.

Most often, we would create an interface to the following data groups in other financial systems:

Typically, ArchiFM would feed the following types of data into the company’s financial system:

• Leased areas broken down per tenant
• Other lease-related costs, e.g. miscellaneous service or repair costs, utility costs broken down by area or on the basis of individual agreements
• Inventory of physical assets and their location
• Maintenance worksheets and their values
• Once work has been completed, the “ready for payment” status of such work can be attached to the worksheets
• The values measured by smart meters, e.g. for accounting for tenants’ consumption in proportion with the area they rent)
• Penalty amounts related to SLA contracts

Of course, any other type of data can be transferred back to an ERP that would be necessary for each client to have.

The data set of the integration is typically defined in the introductory phase of the implementation when our clients determine exactly which data groups they intend to transfer between the two systems and in what form. Following this, our CAFM system specialists investigate how it can be performed, and, of course, how frequently it needs to get synchronized. The two systems will then exchange data automatically, while there is a background check to make sure the data is consistently of good quality.

ArchiFM will then record and log documenting the successful transfer. In case of any system failure, however, ArchiFM would immediately deliver an error message to a given user or group of users.

It is important to emphasize that ArchiFM should not be considered as an isolated solution but should be treated as an organic part of the company’s existing ERP system. That is when ArchiFM can have the greatest effect on facility management costs and on service quality.