ATLANTA, GA - The Rainmaker Group, the leading provider of revenue management and profit optimization solutions to the multifamily housing and gaming/hospitality industries, announces the acquisition of the industry’s only automated budgeting tool from Tappert Consulting Services, LLC, and the launch of LRO Budget™, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application leveraging a more robust, scientific, analytical approach to budgeting and forecasting. Multifamily housing owners and operators utilizing LRO Budget significantly reduce time requirements for data collection and analysis, as well as gain greater budgeting accuracy through unit-category-based growth assumptions and overall improved accounting data visibility.
“Budgeting is a vital component of any successful business; however, it is a favorite of no one as it is challenging, stressful, and requires significant time and dedication,” said Andrew Rains, executive vice president of Rainmaker LRO™. “LRO Budget brings mathematical sophistication and greater accuracy to budget forecasting. It’s the natural extension to our LRO revenue management system and will yield greater, much easier forecasting and budgeting capabilities to help our clients further improve their operations and revenue strategies.”
Designed to work with any property management system, LRO Budget requires little administrative oversight. Customers can be operational on the platform in as little as a few hours and no more than a couple of days, depending on how easily data can be pulled from the property management system and revenue management program if applicable. LRO Budget captures key budget/forecasting drivers, such as rent charges, move-in/out, and seasonality, and places them in more user-friendly formats. Additional benefits available through the offering include:
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Significantly less work to budget and forecast – it’s easy and intuitive
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Finer layer of detail – ability to forecast based on unit-category and build-out growth assumptions at the bedroom level
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Greater visibility – detailed variance reporting enables faster realization of the source of the variance
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Flexibility – users can conduct multiple budget and forecasting runs quickly and easily
Currently LRO Budget is being used by four Rainmaker LRO customers including GID, Home Properties, Simpson Housing, and Waterton Residential. Simpson has already witnessed the forecasting and operational benefits LRO Budget has to offer.
“LRO Budget is a first-of-its-kind forecasting tool that combines the data in a property management system with data from the revenue management system to deliver knowledge of the market. With LRO Budget, we are able to quickly and easily forecast almost 20,000 units in about five minutes. Furthermore, the process to set up the forecast – which would take days for our regional managers – can be completed by them within hours,” said Bryan Hilton, senior vice president of revenue management for Denver-based Simpson Housing.
One of the greatest impacts LRO Budget offers for Simpson is at the site and regional level. Hilton explains that LRO Budget has a similar methodology to revenue management in that is takes the emotion out of budget forecasting. “It delivers a more disciplined method to forecasting which can be implemented across an entire portfolio, helping to standardize procedures and further improve overall operations.”
He continued by saying, “The fact that Rainmaker acquired this automated budgeting tool can only mean great things. The power of The Rainmaker Group, their robust resources, and expert software teams will drive superior product enhancements and more growth.”
LRO Budget is the latest product obtained through the company’s active acquisition strategy. The Rainmaker Group will be adding more products to the LRO platform through new development and acquisitions. “The top of mind goal for The Rainmaker Group is to consistently deliver and develop new products and solutions to best suit the ever-growing needs and demands of our clients,” said Amar Duggasani, executive vice president of strategy & business development for The Rainmaker Group. “There are various ways for companies and organizations to achieve their revenue optimization goals, and we will be the ones to provide the products, solutions, and customer service to get them there.”
Rainmaker LRO™ is the leading multifamily lease rate optimization solution used to maximize revenue from apartment leases. The system calculates optimized pricing based on multiple factors that influence rate setting, including traffic and lease duration, move-in dates, competitive affects and other metrics. The system also produces enterprise-wide demand forecasts by measuring and analyzing historical and current market metrics and performing calculations necessary for occupancy predictions that are dynamically updated as market conditions change.
The Rainmaker Group is the market leader in profit optimization solutions for the Multifamily Housing and Gaming & Hospitality industries. Rainmaker software, coupled with professional business consulting services, enables multifamily housing operators to maximize revenue from apartment leases and helps operators of casino hotels and other hospitality enterprises secure the most valuable customers to increase their profitability. Rainmaker is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leverages cutting-edge research in order to bring customers the most sophisticated solutions to their revenue management challenges. Adopted by industry leaders and niche players alike, Rainmaker solutions provide clients a strategic advantage in achieving the highest profitability from their assets. Multifamily housing clients include leaders such as Archstone, AvalonBay Communities, Equity Residential, Gables Residential, Post Properties, Mid-America Apartment Communities and more. Gaming/Hospitality clients include leading casino/hotel organizations such as Atlantis The Palm Dubai, Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International, Omni Hotels & Resorts, Wynn Las Vegas and many others. Headquartered in northern Atlanta, GA, Rainmaker is an innovator and thought leader in the highly specialized revenue optimization field. In 2011, Inc. magazine ranked Rainmaker among America’s top 5,000 fastest-growing, privately-held companies.