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Accounting and reporting is at the heart of S.F. Furniture Mart

The San Francisco Furniture Mart needed a way to track its frequently changing tenants and the inevitable remodeling that goes with every change.

Since the Mart comprises 1.3 million square feet of space in two buildings, making it the fourth-largest building complex in San Francisco and the West Coast's largest furniture mart, that's quite a task.

Software to accommodate varied leases
Wholesalers and manufacturers rent space at the Mart on a year-round basis to be ready for the two annual shows, which attract between 6,000 and 10,000 commercial furniture buyers every January and July. But the leases tend to be short-term — one to three years instead of the traditional commercial leases of five to 20 years.

When Ray Babcock took his job as CFO, he studied the situation and decided the Mart needed better communications between leasing, accounting and operations, as well as enhanced reporting capabilities.

Meaningful reports translate into better decisions
"We needed a system that could integrate the activities of each of these departments, and then take the information that they generate and turn it into meaningful reports that everyone could use to make better business decisions," Babcock says. "We looked at a number of software systems, and Timberline by far stood out as the one that could best do these things."

The San Francisco Furniture Mart was able to customize Timberline's Property Management so it could handle the short leases, tracking vacant spaces, tenant moves within the Mart and the remodeling work necessary for all the changes.

Babcock says the Mart got just what it needed in Timberline software — flexibility to customize the software for the Mart's unique needs.

Job Cost allows for easy tracking
"When a tenant leaves, we may move an existing tenant into the vacated space, and then put a new tenant into the existing tenant's old space. That calls for a lot of remodeling and tenant improvement work," he says. "The Job Cost interface is ideal, as it gives us an easy way to track it and manage the costs associated with it."

He's also happy with the way the software has evolved to keep pace with the Mart's growing needs. "But perhaps most importantly, Timberline is stable. We don't want to see our primary software vendor go away," Babcock says, noting a previous software maker went bankrupt. "We see Timberline as a business partner who's going to be around a long, long time."

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