Start a CAM Reconciliation Service for Commercial Landlords

1. 1

   Learn to abstract the expense provisions of a lease

   Pro rata share and how it is measured, the base year if any, expense stops, caps and whether they are cumulative or compounding, controllable versus uncontrollable expenses, exclusions (capital, leasing commissions, owner overhead), gross-up clauses for partially occupied buildings, and the notice deadline for issuing the statement. Abstract ten real leases before you charge anybody.

2. 2

   Build the reconciliation workbook once, reuse forever

   Expense pool by category, exclusions removed with the lease citation, gross-up applied where allowed, occupancy by month, pro rata allocation per suite, estimates billed versus actual, and the resulting credit or invoice. Every number should trace to a general ledger line and a lease paragraph. That traceability is what you are actually selling.

3. 3

   Design the tenant statement package for the audit that may come

   A cover letter in plain language, the category summary, the calculation of the tenant's share, and an index of backup available on request. Statements that explain themselves cut tenant disputes dramatically, and disputes are what landlords are afraid of.

4. 4

   Sell one building at a time to small landlords

   Your prospects own one to ten commercial properties and have no lease administrator. Find them through commercial brokers, CPAs who serve real estate clients, and local property manager associations. Price per building per cycle, quote the deadline you will hit, and take on two or three for the first year.

5. 5

   Hit the notice deadline as a matter of religion

   Many leases bar recovery if the statement is not delivered by a stated date. Build your calendar backward from each lease's deadline, and tell the landlord in writing what you need from them and when. Being the vendor who never misses the date is the whole reputation.

6. 6

   Expand into the off-season work

   Lease abstraction for new acquisitions, monthly escalation and estimate billing, budget preparation for the coming year's estimates, and tenant audit response support. This turns a January business into a twelve-month practice.

7. 7

   Systematize before you scale headcount

   Checklists, naming conventions, a review pass by a second set of eyes, and a per-property file structure. Reconciliation errors compound into refunds and legal exposure for your client, so quality control is the product, not overhead.

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