You mapped out every detail of the project: timeline, scope, materials, labor. You even built in a buffer. And yet, halfway through the build, the numbers are already going over budget. Sound familiar?
Budget overruns in real estate development and property management are more common than not. But in most cases, the issue isn’t poor planning. It’s poor visibility.
Without a clear way to track job costs in real estate projects, even the most experienced teams can find themselves in the red.
Root Causes That Lead to Projects Going Over Budget
When you’re trying to keep a development or renovation on track financially, these are the stumbling blocks that tend to throw things off course:
- Your systems don’t talk to each other. You’re managing AP in one platform and tracking budgets in another. That disconnect means someone has to manually reconcile everything. And with fast-moving projects, errors are almost guaranteed.
- You can’t see what’s happening in real time. If invoices pile up before they’re entered or coded properly, you’re left looking at outdated data. It becomes hard to tell if a project is following budget or quietly going off the rails.
- You can’t compare projects side by side. Say you’re building out two similar multifamily properties. One comes in on budget—the other is 12% over. Without a clean way to compare job costs, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint where the overage happened or how to prevent it next time.
These challenges create a reactive environment, where you’re constantly playing catch-up instead of leading the project with confidence.
How to Track Job Costs in Real Estate More Accurately by Connecting AP
Now imagine this instead: Every invoice that hits your AP system is automatically coded to the right project and cost category. You log in and see exactly where each project stands in real time. That includes committed costs, actual spend, and remaining budget.
That’s exactly what happens when you use AvidXchange integrated with MRI’s Job Cost software. You get a direct link between your accounts payable data and your project budgets, so you don’t have to guess, dig, or reconcile by hand.
For example, if you’re a property manager overseeing capital improvement projects across multiple buildings, you can immediately see which ones are tracking over budget and which are under. That allows you to reallocate resources proactively, not after the fact.
Or, if you’re a developer managing multiple ground-up construction projects, you can use the data from a completed project to forecast and adjust the budget for your next one.
And if that next project does start to run over budget, your increased visibility into the job costs makes it easier to pinpoint what went wrong. Then you can take steps to avoid the same issue moving forward.
What Happens When You Can Actually See the Numbers
When you have visibility, you know where to tighten up and where you have room to move. You can spot trends, avoid repeating mistakes, and hold vendors accountable. All without adding more hours to your workweek.
Better yet, your team can stop chasing paper trails and start focusing on high-impact work.
That shift creates ripple effects across your business. Projects come in on budget more often. And your reputation for delivering on time and on budget gets stronger with every build.
Ready to Take Control of Project Budgets?
If your job costs feel like a black box, there’s a better way. AvidXchange’s integration with MRI Software helps you track job costs in real estate by connecting AP and budgeting in one streamlined experience.
Want to learn more about how that works? Then your next step is to read our article, “Job Cost Integration with MRI Is Here.”