The Company
Salt Lake City-based Bridge Investment Group is a leading alternative investment manager, diversified across specialized asset classes, with approximately $48 billion of assets under management as of March 31, 2024. Bridge combines its nationwide operating platform with dedicated teams of investment professionals focused on select verticals across real estate, credit, renewable energy and secondary strategies.
The Challenge
Time-Consuming Budget Tracking
Prior to onboarding Yardi, Bridge tracked invoices and project schedules with data entered manually in spreadsheets. This required significant resources to reduce exposure to inaccurate fees and contingency calculations. Additionally, aggregating data was challenging and time consuming at the portfolio level.
The Solution
Yardi Construction Manager
Yardi Construction Manager, part of the Elevate suite of products, helps Bridge improve cost control, budget oversight and profitability for construction projects with full, real-time visibility into job progress. Project managers can compare jobs based on various metrics and drill down to detailed analytical components. Custom reports are prepopulated with contract and change order information, eliminating manual data entry.
The Story
Budget Discipline, Accessible Data, CAM Reliability
By replacing spreadsheets, Construction Manager helps Bridge identify and prevent over-budget invoices from being approved.
“Construction Manager automatically makes sure our budget formulas are correct, which is much easier and faster than checking spreadsheets,” said Keith Everett, director of construction management. “We can easily track costs against contracts, process change orders and manage project schedules.”
Another benefit is the ready availability of project budget and schedule status. Rather than relying on back-and-forth phone calls and emails, asset managers and other employees can see a project within Construction Manager on their own. “The visibility we have across our organization has been our biggest achievement with Construction Manager,” said Brittany White, the company’s vice president of technical applications.
The solution also automatically populates Bridge’s lien waivers, saving time and improving reporting. “Our construction managers no longer have to go into the system and manually fill out a lien waiver,” said White. “Also, automating our fee process to give us CM fee payables and cross-entity charges at the click of a button has been a game-changer, saving our accounting team significant time in processing those fees.”
The automated workflows established by Construction Manager encompass contract and change orders as well as invoice approvals. The workflows that encompass all personnel needing to sign approvals, “helped streamline approvals significantly,” Everett said.
“Construction Manger saves us a lot of time and allows us to focus on what’s most important — managing projects,” White added.
