What software/apps do you use?
The CRM thread is what inspired this question along with my personal interest in finding a central system that has the ability to integrate all facets of an investment/development shop from various systems. So what apps or software do you guys in the industry use? Most real estate firms are pretty archaic and the systems are segmented from my experience. Curious what systems people are using for each facet of their business and if they integrate with each other. Feel free to add additional categories and apps.
Probably helps to state what your firm does and size, ie national investment sales brokerage, local/regional developer focusing on high-rise apartment developments, 3-man value-add shop, commercial or residential focused, etc. Interested to hear from perspective of large corporations down to people managing their own small portfolio.
Property Management - Yardi, MRI, Appfolio, Buildium
Asset Management - VTS, MRI, Yardi
Contact Management/CRM - Cloze, Podio, ZoHo Salesforce
Accounting - MRI, Yardi, Quickbooks, Freshbooks
Project Management - Microsoft Project, Smartsheets, Podio, ZoHo, Wrike
Financial Analysis - Argus, Excel
Property/Market Data - CoStar
Storage/Cloud/Filesharing - Dropbox, Box, Google Drive
Integration - Zapier, IFTTT
I'll add what our firm uses.
Family office investor/developer with about $1B AUM across the nation, 100 employees.
Property Management - MRI Asset Management - none really besides MRI, looking into other more robust reporting systems Contact Management/CRM - None currently, Cloze from the other thread looks interesting Accounting - MRI Project Management - none really, everyone manually tracks their own projects Financial Analysis - Excel and Argus Property/Market Data - CoStar Storage/Cloud/Filesharing - Dropbox for most things, our department also uses Google Docs for shared reports we manually update Integration - no apps specifically as we don't have multiple systems to integrate. May become an issue as we explore additional apps (Asset Management, for example)
Evernote was big when I was with the real estate developer (~15-man shop). It was used for almost any event that required notetaking along with personal uses. In the event that pen and paper were used due to its quickness and ease, the written document would just be transferred to Evernote when time permitted.
Debt/Equity Brokerage with regional focus, 4 employees
Contact Management/CRM - HubSpot, interested in Cloze, passed on Clientlook Accounting - Quickbooks Project Management - G-Suite, OneNote, Slack, have considered Dealpath Financial Analysis - G-sheets, Excel, have considered Argus developer on-demand, Lucro, Fuel, Assess+RE Property/Market Data - Reonomy, Credifi, Crittenden, Buildcentral, have considered Preqin, Recity, SNL, Trepp Storage/Cloud/Filesharing - Google Drive Integration - Integromat (G-sheet + HubSpot), passed on zapier
Development Manager here.
I use MS Office, Bluebeam, and our office's cloud server. I also use FileBrowser for accessing that server on iPhone/iPad. I use Dropbox to send drawings to people. I use my iPhone's camera and Mail apps a lot too...
Some of y'all's lists are pretty wild.
What software do you guys use? (Originally Posted: 12/14/2017)
I am at a multifamily shop with about 2K units and we manage in house. We use basic yardi for pm but I feel like we are lacking overall in the technology space. I think we can do better than excel with construction management, project management, asset management and acquisitions
I'm in a similar situation, also very interested to hear what software people might be using to manage construction/project management etc!
I work at a local PERE firm. We use YARDI, Argus, VTS, and timerbline (accounting software but i'll pop in there from time to time)
What software do you need to know how to use? (Originally Posted: 11/30/2011)
What kinds of software do you need to know if you're working in an industry coverage group in IBD?
I thought it was mainly Excel, but I've seen a bunch of people's resumes which state they know stuff like VBA, MatLab, Stata, C++ etc.
If you could, please describe what the software does, and also why you need it on the job.
Also, how much Excel do you need to know?
Wasn't aware that C++ or VBA were considered software. Learn something new everyday I guess.
As to what each software package does, this site does a pretty good job at explaining it. http://tinyurl.com/cqvga Just type in what does XXXX do? and click "I'm feeling Lucky".
I took it upon myself to learn VBA for an internship I had. It didn't quite help a lot then, but once I got to my SA, everyone was impressed at my proficiency in excel. Look, the more you can learn, the better - this goes for any field you're involved in. The most important thing is to show your interest and ability to prove you've gone above and beyond yourself to make yourself to make you the most qualified/efficient at the position.
In the war against you and the other qualified candidates out there, the best arsenal is to prove that you have outdone yourself.
VBA I can see as being of some value, especially for data manipulation. But it is very hard to leanr from scracth and is surely not NPV positive investment
What Accounting Software Does Your Fund Use? (Originally Posted: 06/29/2015)
Our back-office is currently looking to change over to new accounting software but I really dislike the program they picked out.
Just looking to get some feedback on what other accounting software is out there for funds?
What does your your fund use to generate monthly reports, balance sheet, income statement, general ledger, etc.?
Thanks for the feedback.
Portia
It would be great if you guys can share your personal experiences with such accounting software. To start things off: Whats the pros and cons of the software? Are there any quirks/things to take note of when using the software? What's your experience of product support offered by the software company?
Thanks for the information! Any idea on pricing? We are being quoted $45K per year for the system we were looking at.
That is for 2 user access (the internal and external accountant). Just trying to gauge if this is even a reasonable price?
I did fund accounting for my first job at a major firm that hedge and mutual funds outsourced to do keep their books and records, we used InvestOne enterprise by Sunguard.
Geneva, worst app ever.
Stock Software (Originally Posted: 06/10/2008)
This probably isn't the right forum for this question, but since its the most active one ill post anyway. Does anyone know a good real-time stock software program that continually runs without manual refresh?
i heard metastock is a good one. do you have real-time data feeds?
Software to Know (Originally Posted: 09/10/2010)
Was wondering what all programs people use and what people are expected to know. Has anyone hear of, or currently use, RPM, TPS, and/or DPS?
You need to put the new cover page on those TPS reports.
Seriously, have never heard of any of those programs - the main programs you will use in IBD are Excel, PowerPoint, FactSet and/or CapitalIQ, a little bit of Bloomberg and whatever custom macros/toolkits your bank has (if any). There are some websites as well, but that's easily picked up.
Graphic Design Software? (Originally Posted: 06/30/2011)
Hey I'm looking to create an image/model similar to the one found on this page:
http://postimage.org/image/2cyuwrig4/
Can anyone recommend the best software for the job?
illustrator.
But if you have no experience with graphic design and need this thing fast, I'd suggest hiring a designer. You can easily find one online and I would expect it to run you anywhere from $50 to $200
nowadays adobe lets you buy subscriptions to their CS products. you can pay either month-to-month or annually.
https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&
[quote=sayandarula]nowadays adobe lets you buy subscriptions to their CS products. you can pay either month-to-month or annually.
https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&[/qu…]
just pirate adobe CS5 and play around with it. i'd recommend illustrator.
thepiratebay.org
Real time sentiment analysis Software (Originally Posted: 07/27/2011)
Hello all, We are a company that is currently developing a software that can depict Real-time sentiments on stocks the user wishes to look at. Does anyone know if there is a market out there for this type of software? Or is anyone interested ? please let me know thank you. Anthony
How are you going to collect that "sentiment" in real time?
When we get the data in real time from several sources off the Internet from News Government and financial web sites, RSS feeds especially Twitter in real time we bring that data to our real time analytical engine which aggregate and categorize every important messages then we apply National Language Processing technology to find the real time sentiment. This process is done in less than a second every important event can be seen in our front end dashboard.
Trading/Charting Software (Originally Posted: 08/15/2011)
What's some good free/low price windows based streaming charts software? Looking for something to chart technical analysis, incoming breaking news, streaming charts, and alerts. Pretty much everything besides trading.
ThinkOrSwim. You'll get 2 streaming chart packages (TOS + Prophet).
Performance Analysis Software (Originally Posted: 03/16/2012)
My firm is looking for a new performance software, and I was curious what is regarded as the best, and what most firms use? This would be for fixed income, equity, and pension consulting clients.
FactSet Research Systems, Informa, Lipper, Mercer, Mstar Direct, MPI Stylus, PerTrac, Strategic Insight, Wilshire, and Zephyr Management
Are the options I've seen. I think BlackRock uses Zephyr
Thanks for posting this, it was exactly what I was looking for.
I currently use mechanica which does have performance reporting features, but it's more systematic trading, backtesting and automation focused.
Wealthbench has great risk analytics tools
Developers program everything in my place...
Bank Hardware and Software (Originally Posted: 04/23/2012)
My boutique runs on terrible hardware and I'd like to collect some more color as to what the rest of the street is using. I'm running a 4-5 yr old HP Compaq laptop with 75gb hardrive, 2gb RAM and a 1.8GHz processor.
Oh yeah, and we converted everything to Office 07 this year. Seems like a backward way of doing things in that we might as well have made the jump to office 10.
IMO we have some horrible equipment here
Would you rather have nice hardware/software, or higher compensation?
http://chzscience.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/funny-science-news-experi…
I'd rather have hardware that let's me get my work done at a pace competitive with a broken macbook.
We're also running XP
Two big heavy models open and my computer starts to have trouble, it's not cool and honestly does hinder your work.
To the hardware or comp argument: as a % of comp. kit is small.
4GB RAM running on XP.
Not too bad, but lags a bit.
At my SA bank, we had shiny new HP laptops with great spec's... but they downgraded them by installing so much company-specific crap and forcing us to use specific programs that it didn't even matter. Ran slow as balls.
Algo Trading Software to make easy $$$ (Originally Posted: 06/21/2013)
Sup Monkeys!!
I am working FT and dont have time to actively day trade. Are there any swing traders among us who are using any Automated Algorithm trading software to make some side income?
What I am looking for:
-Something easy to use -No programming knowledge required -Easy to deposit and transfer money
Thanks in advance for your input and trolling. I am out of SB's but if you want I can throw some fresh monkey shit :D
They'll have some bridges to sell you as well.
I have several of them. Send me a check first and then I'll send my software your way.
DEAR SIR,
I am Prince Kufour Otumfuo the elder son of the late King Otumfuo Opoku ware II whose demise occur following a brief illness. Before the death of my father, King Otumfuo Opoku ware II, I was authorised and officially known as the next successor and beneficiary of my father’s algorithmic trading software according to African Traditional rite. Unfortunately his untimely death led to an uprising and the seizure of the code. Although it is invaluable, I need about three fiddy to post as bond for the software. If you can send this cash to my PO box in Abuja, Nigeria I will share the code only with you. Please send the money to the care of: LOCH NESS MONSTER.
MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE
ahahahaha "Unfortunately his untimely death led to an uprising and the seizure of the code." AHAHAHAHA "LOCH NESS MONSTER"
This is fucking hillarious
is srs? or is not srs
I switched to automated trading since manual trading became to time consuming for me to be compatible with university. (You can find some information about what I did at www.smartstone-capital .com )
Most of the software for trading automation should come with some kind of strategy wizard that lets you implement ideas without programming. However, this will put some limits on the complexity and sophistication of your strategy. Also as a novice in automated trading it is easy to make mistakes (such as strategy overfitting and/or misinterpretation of backtest results) which only become apparent in hindsight after something bad has happened.
For deposit and transfer of money, it really depends on what kind of software to use. A few firms like Tradestation are also a brokerage, while others such as NinjaTrader only provide the platform for your strategies and you need an API connection to your broker, data provider, etc.
Expect to invest quite some time before you get something useful out of it. Bottom line: No easy $$$ ;)
seems legit.
Best affordable financial software for individuals? (Originally Posted: 10/20/2013)
Hi, we know Bloomberg/cap IQ/Factset are quite expensive for individual investors or students, if your school does not provide any, then what are the best options, within affordable range?
morningstar is eh, but much cheaper than the other things you mentioned. Thompson One is another option (though probably more than you'd like to shell out by yourself)
I would recommend you to go with Replicon. My financial structure is being taken care by the cloud based Replicon's expense reporting software.
Suggestions for trading software (not broker)? (Originally Posted: 12/15/2013)
Could you share your knowledge on some good trading software. Mostly concerned with charting capabilities and real time reliability. I trade using technicals, so a wide basket of indicators would be a plus.
Yes, I've done research, looking for a more personable opinion from actual traders. Keep in mind I cannot open a US brokerage account because I am not a US resident. Thinking along the lines of a thinkorswim platform for a monthly fee from a company that is not a broker itself. Something like EquityFeed but with much better charting capabilities.
Thanks
Tradestation is the best overall. Tradeking is second IMO. Take a look at Tradestation, or compare the brokers via google tradestation vs thinkorswim vs tradeking.
Time and billing software advice? (Originally Posted: 11/05/2014)
What do you use for time tracking and billing for your business- that's affordable and integrates with paypal?
paypal
Try these following tools:
Sage Timeslips CosmoLex MyCase AbacusLaw Clio Amicus Attorney Premium Billing FreshBooks Bill4Time BillingTracker Pro AdvantageLaw
I used Bill4Time. At the end of the day, you want to present an invoice to your client. You want all your hard work organized, itemized and professional. Everything tracked in Bill4Time is organized along the way in detail, down to the billable minute. Producing an invoice in Bill4Time only takes a matter of minutes and comes in many forms, including email, PDF, and LEDES.
Saw this while hunting around- you might want to check out accountsight -- 10/month and is integrated with paypal. Works great.
Excel recovery software (Originally Posted: 01/20/2015)
Hello everybody, I'm having a big problem at the moment in Excel 2010. I have a spreadsheet that can not open and i need recover all the data. I need an excel recovery software that can work well. Can someone make me a recommendation? Thanks a lot.
If your recovery is urgent, call Microsoft and see if you can save it in another file format and export it back in properly.
Hi flyngmonkey. Thanks for your reply. I can't save it in another file format and export it back again, I've already tried. I need recover the data as soon as possible and the only way is recovery the same corrupted file. I saw many recovery tools, but I need an advice because these tools are not free and I do not want to be wrong in buying this tool.
Hi again, I'm happy because i could repair my spreadsheet with ExcelFIX. So if anyone has a similar problem, I recommend it.
Thanks anyway for your advice. Regards!
Which software (desktop or mobile) do you use at work? Which software do you HATE??? (Originally Posted: 07/24/2015)
TL;DR- if you could wave a magic wand and improve any single job-related software application (desktop or mobile), which app would you pick?
I'm a mobile app developer currently building payment features for the in-store point-of-sale app at a major retailer (3000+ stores and 135,000 employees worldwide). It's not as challenging as it was when I was a noob, so I'm on the lookout for big problems to tackle in non-retail industries. Wall Street seems like a good source for tough software challenges, so here I am.
Specifically wondering if there are any apps you already use but that you absolutely hate using because it's needlessly complicated, offers a terrible user experience, is a pain in the ass to operate, take forever to learn, etc. I'm especially interested in the following domains:
-venture capital -hedge fund management -Asset Management -trading -debt and equity research -investment banking
Or alternately, if there is a non-software pain point or bottleneck that you wish could be streamlined or eliminated, talk about that instead.
Bloomberg
Thanks for replying! I've heard of Bloomberg, but am not familiar with it since I don't work in the industry. I'll go do some homework on it and come back with questions.
In the meantime, would you mind giving me your opinion on the Bloomberg terminal as a solution?
-How long did it take you to learn? -How intuitive and user-friendly is it? -Which of its features do you use most often? -What job or jobs did you "hire" it to do, and how well is it doing? Put another way, if it were an employee, would you need to reprimand it for anything?
For Asset Management software we use Freshservice. Tried Lansweeper but it fails at maintaining items not on the network (disconnected computers, projectors, loaner laptops)
Fund Software (Originally Posted: 12/14/2015)
Anyone know a good software that keeps track of investors capital and determines what they own, net of fees. Using an excel sheet can get tedious considering you have to manually adjust everything, so a software that does everything atomically for you is convenient (aside from the fact you still need input data).
I did try finding some software online, but I do not know which one is legitimate and if it is any good.
Aladdin by BlackRock is a good standard for institutions. Assuming you're a sole operator, I would look into Interactive Brokers, I believe that have some PM capability that allows you to manage multiple portfolios. I've heard of FinFolio as well, but never seen/used.
https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=accountConfiguration&…
Software to Manage Deals and Dealflow (Originally Posted: 10/31/2017)
Which software does your bank use to manage deals and dealflow? I’ve seen some banks use Deal Cloud. I’ve seen some banks that do a lot of Capital Markets that use Deal Logic. Some use Salesforce. What does your bank use?
Hey RE Dev, I swear if I had a silver banana for every lonely thread I posted too I'd be richer than @compbanker ...
More suggestions...
Hope that helps.
Start-up Investment Shop - Management/Accounting Software? (Originally Posted: 01/08/2018)
Hi All -
Wondering if anyone has any recommendations on accounting/management software which is suitable for a smaller investment/development firm investing in both apartment & commercial products?
I'm familiar with Onesite (owned by Realpage like everything else). I was wondering if anyone has encountered anything different?
Hi IOnlyBuy4Caps, just trying to help:
Or maybe the following pros can chime in... SilverBullet17 Josemherrera David-Jung1
Hope that helps.
I would recommend this softwares for project management:
Zoho
QuickBooks
Procore
That software program will your own financial institution make use of to handle offers as well as dealflow? I have observed a few banking institutions make use of Offer Impair. I have observed a few banking institutions that lots of Funds Marketplaces which make use of Offer Reasoning. A few make use of Sales force. Exactly what will your own financial institution make use of?
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