You might be hearing a lot about the benefits of connecting the accounting, operations and investor relations within real estate organizations in a single technology platform. It’s natural to wonder what the appeal to this approach is. The single connected platform strategy stems from a growing realization among investors and investment managers of the deficiencies of spreadsheets, inefficient communications and other outmoded tools. Entering data into multiple spreadsheets and relying on disparate investment, investor and accounting systems can be inefficient and error-prone for investment managers. For their part, investors increasingly expect on-demand service and self-service access to key metrics, capital transactions, documents and reports. Technology that facilitates these operations has become widely available to investment manager service providers over the past several years, improving collaboration among investment participants and increasing investor confidence. A single connected platform centralizes investment managers’ communications with existing and prospective investors, automates the management of capital call and distribution notices, and improves collaboration on investment opportunities. Such a platform also improves efficiency for internal stakeholders. Executives needing a report, can get it themselves from the centralized database without asking Accounting. Investor Relations has full access to investor information readily available from the platform. An added benefit comes in the form of a higher level of investor confidence that comes from the online delivery of timely, responsive data. Investors can view property-level metrics, and investment managers can communicate new investment opportunity information through a secure portal rather than email. Yardi Investment Manager is one example of how a technology platform can unite real estate investment activity. It provides a single source of the truth for investor and investment information that eliminates the need for disparate systems and manual data transfers. Investment managers are empowered to give their investors timely access to...