There are many advantages of fleet management when everything is done correctly. In addition to the direct monetary incentives of proper fleet maintenance asset management, there are also multiple advantages in insurance, safety, and repairs. Here are seven tips to help you manage your fleet like an expert. Use company provided vehicles rather than having your employees use their own vehicles and reimbursing them. There are multiple advantages to this including presenting a uniform image, ensuring a proper vehicle for the job, and reduced liability issues.
Annual figures for even a single-family home can be intimidating - when you look at the numbers for multiple units over the course of 12 months, they can look staggering, but never fear! These costs are divided among all units (usually based on square footage) and are payable monthly - whew! So, having established what the budget is and how it is paid, we'll need to address the components of the budget (which will also help you to understand how you can help to save money on fees in the future). The Operating Budget Expenses usually involve several categories and for the purpose of simplicity, we will only look at some basic summaries, rather than detailed descriptions: Administration Expense: this category plans for expenses such as the Management Company's fees, Auditor fees, insurance premiums, bank charges and things like photocopies and postage. Utilities and Contracts: fairly self-explanatory, this section covers common utility costs (depending on your property, this could simply be for irrigation water and parking lot lights OR could include the heat, water and even electricity and cable TV for every unit), as well as contracted services such as snow removal, boiler maintenance, landscaping, etc.
Satellite equipped tracking solutions provide the most reliable and expedient transmission of asset data, but come at a higher cost of capital equipment on the vehicle and a higher cost of monthly communications subscriptions. However, very quick awareness of asset data on the order of seconds can be achieved with systems that use all satellite communications and are based on systems such as the Iridium network of 66 cross-linked satellites. Driver Communication- When the decision for satellite enabled fleet management solutions is made, the transmission benefits also apply to the two-way messaging and custom location-tagged texting that is provided with these systems. This allows personnel to continually communicate from remote locations and can be especially important for compliance with Work Alone programs or where continuous awareness of asset location and status is critical to the mission of the organization and efficient operation of the fleet.
Allow me to digress for an unscheduled educational opportunity at this point: we often hear owners ask, "Why should I keep putting money into this fund if I'm not even going to own my unit in 15 years?" Good question! The short answer is: Property Value. The longer explanation involves a potential purchaser's concern that without this prudent financial planning, they will be buying not just a unit, but the likelihood of a substantial debt - who wants to take possession of this large investment and receive notice of a special assessment the following month? In order to maintain the value of everyone's units, it's important to show fiscal responsibility, so that no one is faced with this situation at any point. And now, back to our regularly scheduled lesson on budgets: The bottom line, is that it costs money to maintain the property (just think of the costs for a single-family home, multiplied by many homes and then shared by everyone). The real lesson in all of this? The more owners are cost-conscious, the more everyone can volunteer time, contribute materials, assist with tasks... the less it costs the Corporation. This in turn, reduces the costs for everyone and voila! your monthly fees are not subject to uncomfortable increases! I point this out because I still hear people saying "they increased our fees again this year, so I'm going to take longer showers and leave my lights on all day to get my money's worth"!?? When I ask who they think "they" is, lots of owners will say "the Board" - FYI: "the Board" is comprised of people who also own units and also pay monthly fees - they don't want increases any more than anyone else. Make a point of knowing what the line items in your budget are for, what the costs are and take the time to compare this year's to last year's numbers - it will help you to understand why "they" are increasing your fees; which brings us to a final point:
It is extremely rare that costs ever go down. Utilities will fluctuate, once in a while we'll see snow removal costs lower than expected, sometimes we can find a better price on repairs, but generally, the price for almost everything keeps going up (if nothing else, remember that your property gets older every year!). We never recommend lowering a budget (read: fees) and rarely advise that fees can remain at the same rate as the previous year (without sacrifice of some sort) - this practice will very likely create a financial deficit, which is far more difficult to resolve than if a modest corresponding increase is implemented each year. As an existing or a potential owner in a condominium, its important to understand that while no one likes to pay more, it is easier to keep up with expenses and its far better for your re-sale value, than to have unrealistically low fees and be faced with a Special Assessment - which, even if you have this money sitting in your bank account, never has a good connotation for potential purchasers and therefore, impacts your property value negatively.
Annual figures for even a single-family home can be intimidating - when you look at the numbers for multiple units over the course of 12 months, they can look staggering, but never fear! These costs are divided among all units (usually based on square footage) and are payable monthly - whew! So, having established what the budget is and how it is paid, we'll need to address the components of the budget (which will also help you to understand how you can help to save money on fees in the future). The Operating Budget Expenses usually involve several categories and for the purpose of simplicity, we will only look at some basic summaries, rather than detailed descriptions: Administration Expense: this category plans for expenses such as the Management Company's fees, Auditor fees, insurance premiums, bank charges and things like photocopies and postage. Utilities and Contracts: fairly self-explanatory, this section covers common utility costs (depending on your property, this could simply be for irrigation water and parking lot lights OR could include the heat, water and even electricity and cable TV for every unit), as well as contracted services such as snow removal, boiler maintenance, landscaping, etc.
Satellite equipped tracking solutions provide the most reliable and expedient transmission of asset data, but come at a higher cost of capital equipment on the vehicle and a higher cost of monthly communications subscriptions. However, very quick awareness of asset data on the order of seconds can be achieved with systems that use all satellite communications and are based on systems such as the Iridium network of 66 cross-linked satellites. Driver Communication- When the decision for satellite enabled fleet management solutions is made, the transmission benefits also apply to the two-way messaging and custom location-tagged texting that is provided with these systems. This allows personnel to continually communicate from remote locations and can be especially important for compliance with Work Alone programs or where continuous awareness of asset location and status is critical to the mission of the organization and efficient operation of the fleet.
Allow me to digress for an unscheduled educational opportunity at this point: we often hear owners ask, "Why should I keep putting money into this fund if I'm not even going to own my unit in 15 years?" Good question! The short answer is: Property Value. The longer explanation involves a potential purchaser's concern that without this prudent financial planning, they will be buying not just a unit, but the likelihood of a substantial debt - who wants to take possession of this large investment and receive notice of a special assessment the following month? In order to maintain the value of everyone's units, it's important to show fiscal responsibility, so that no one is faced with this situation at any point. And now, back to our regularly scheduled lesson on budgets: The bottom line, is that it costs money to maintain the property (just think of the costs for a single-family home, multiplied by many homes and then shared by everyone). The real lesson in all of this? The more owners are cost-conscious, the more everyone can volunteer time, contribute materials, assist with tasks... the less it costs the Corporation. This in turn, reduces the costs for everyone and voila! your monthly fees are not subject to uncomfortable increases! I point this out because I still hear people saying "they increased our fees again this year, so I'm going to take longer showers and leave my lights on all day to get my money's worth"!?? When I ask who they think "they" is, lots of owners will say "the Board" - FYI: "the Board" is comprised of people who also own units and also pay monthly fees - they don't want increases any more than anyone else. Make a point of knowing what the line items in your budget are for, what the costs are and take the time to compare this year's to last year's numbers - it will help you to understand why "they" are increasing your fees; which brings us to a final point:
It is extremely rare that costs ever go down. Utilities will fluctuate, once in a while we'll see snow removal costs lower than expected, sometimes we can find a better price on repairs, but generally, the price for almost everything keeps going up (if nothing else, remember that your property gets older every year!). We never recommend lowering a budget (read: fees) and rarely advise that fees can remain at the same rate as the previous year (without sacrifice of some sort) - this practice will very likely create a financial deficit, which is far more difficult to resolve than if a modest corresponding increase is implemented each year. As an existing or a potential owner in a condominium, its important to understand that while no one likes to pay more, it is easier to keep up with expenses and its far better for your re-sale value, than to have unrealistically low fees and be faced with a Special Assessment - which, even if you have this money sitting in your bank account, never has a good connotation for potential purchasers and therefore, impacts your property value negatively.
