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Facilities Management Software – or Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM Software) – enables property owners and facility managers to track, manage, and analyse building operations data in one system. This allows users to:
Facilities Management Software is primarily designed to store your FM and building data in a more organised and accessible system. This allows landlords and building owners to oversee all activities to help improve decision-making. A CAFM system is particularly useful when it comes to managing multiple properties, with over 80% of Comparesoft users being responsible for more than 1 site.
Ultimately, building management tools are utilised to sustain and improve the well-being of occupants – alongside improving employee productivity and implementing a cost-efficient facility strategy. They are deployed in schools, hospitals, warehouses, commercial and office buildings, manufacturing plants, real estate property, and retail stores.
Although some landlords and FMs may choose to manage their building operations using spreadsheets or notepads, they risk being left behind when leveraging technology to improve the facility management process as a whole.
Facility managers receive multiple work order requests throughout a single day, which can be overwhelming when working with spreadsheets or notepads. With access to a CAFM system, however, work order management becomes a lot easier. Particularly when assigning, planning, and scheduling work orders.
A CAFM system provides FMs with maintenance data, contractor and technician information, and real-time job-tracking capabilities to help carry out planned maintenance, inspections, safety checks, and equipment repairs as efficiently as possible. From one dashboard, they can:
See more about leveraging work order management
From schools and hospitals to offices and manufacturing plants, building spaces are packed full of valuable, moveable, and physical assets. Facilities Management Software has the asset tracking capabilities to ensure greater visibility when it comes to managing assets. Facility assets come in the form of common appliances, desks, printers, computers, tools, safety equipment, mobile devices, keys, and vehicles.
As well as tracking physical assets through the use of IoT devices and tagging options (such as Barcodes, RFID tags, and GPS trackers), asset tracking functions enable FMs to create an asset register that tracks the asset life cycle, maintenance, and depreciation values of each asset.
Learn more about tracking your physical assets
Modern CAFM systems come with built-in job-tracking capabilities. This allows facility managers to log and track jobs in real time to enhance their field service management and improve their workforce management – whether in-house or outsourced. This allows FMs to:
It can also be used by field technicians to see work order information, check spare parts visibility, and create invoices when a job is complete.
See our guide to mobile workforce management
Facilities Management Software makes it easy for FMs to plan and schedule a building’s maintenance activities. By collecting and reporting on maintenance and usage data, facility managers can report on when maintenance is required, how much it will cost, and how long it will be down. This streamlined approach allows for a planned preventative approach to maintenance – also known as PPM.
Preventive maintenance strategies can considerably reduce repair and breakdown costs and help avoid downtime of assets. In particular, equipment that promotes a good workplace environment such as HVAC units, elevators, and waste systems. Equipment downtime costs facilities between 5% and 20% of their productive capacity.
Discover the benefits of a PPM strategy
Health and safety protocols are in place to protect the well-being of employees and ensure the workplace is safe. Facilities Management Software makes it easier to conduct regular risk assessments of a building that focus on top health and safety challenges such as fire safety, electrical and gas, access to drinking water, and asbestos. Routine safety inspections can also be logged to ensure the safety of occupants.
CAFM systems have the functionality to store data that has been collected from IoT devices situated around a facility. Each system can link to temperature and vibration sensors, security RIFD tags, smart energy metres, space monitoring tools, and more. This makes it ideal for implementing condition-based or preventative maintenance strategies. As well as ensuring occupier well-being targets are being met when it comes to space management and design.
Effectively managing facility space requires multiple actions and data collecting. Including occupancy tracking, room scheduling, and space management. With Facilities Management Software, data is stored in one accessible system, allowing facility managers to organise, plan, and supervise physical spaces. With the goal to improve occupant productivity and well-being.
Space management capabilities are particularly handy for real estate and commercial properties such as office workplaces and self-storage facilities. Effective space management means large spaces don’t go unused, resulting in reduced costs. A CAFM system also provides an easy way to identify floor layouts for occupants and equipment to see when a room is over-occupied or underutilised.
Learn how to utilise your space management
Building owners are faced with unpredictable and often volatile energy consumption costs, with fuel bills increasing by 54% between 2021 and 2022. Depending on the size, a business’s annual energy bill ranges from £4,837 to £14,124. The best way to get a handle on energy usage and costs is by tracking consumption in a facility management system.
With the use of trackers and smart metres, FMs can identify where the most energy is being used and why. This helps to curb usage through a facility and helps promote a greener and more sustainable facility operation.
Learn how to manage your energy consumption
 | Work Order Assignment/Planning |
 | Asset Tracking |
 | Job Logging |
 | Space Management |
 | Maintenance Management |
 | Workforce/Contractor Management |
 | Energy Management & Tracking |
 | Data Reporting |
Facility Management Software provides the tools that enable office managers to improve and statin the productivity and well-being of office employees. From managing budgets and booking meeting rooms to refilling office supplies and maintaining IT equipment; an office manager can benefit from the use of a CAFM system. 73% of employees said well-managed office spaces helped them perform better.
With CAFM Software, warehouse managers can ensure they’re compliant with health and safety measures while also running a more cost-effective operation. A sophisticated building management system is particularly useful for outsourced supply chains, allowing floor managers to plan and schedule cleaning, fire safety, and hygiene solutions.
A Facilities Management Software tool can be to landlords, tenants, estate agents, and management companies, allowing for better communication when it comes to managing residential facilities. This allows for greater efficiency over cleaning services, property landscaping, pest control, and maintenance (such as lifts and roof repairs).
A digital building management solution provides a better opportunity for schools to perform facilities management within a limited budget. By effectively managing the condition of school buildings and sites, providing teachers with the right teaching equipment, and improving the safety of pupils, the overall teaching environment and level of education can benefit.
Learn more about how schools can leverage CAFM Software
Facilities management goes a long way to improving the customer and POS experience when implemented in retail stores. Shop managers can plan and schedule cleaning and maintenance during out-of-work hours. Ensuring the shop floor is clean and safe for customers while keeping restrooms and amenities available for employees.
The regular scheduling of cleaning and hygiene services is paramount in healthcare settings. Hospital and ward managers can use CAFM Software for work order assignment and planning to ensure clean and safe environments, which contributes to better patient care. Users can also track valuable medical equipment and manage the correct disposal of medical waste.
Like most facilities, a Plant Manager will use Facilities Management Software to plan for cleaning and safety services. They must ensure the health and safety of both employees and visitors while also implementing security controls. This helps to keep a plant running at its most efficient and productive.
Facilities Management Software can be as accessible or restricted as you want it to be. Access can be given to dedicated personnel regarding reports, maintenance plans, work order data, and contractor information.
 | Senior Figures |
| • Building Owners | • Property Owners |
| • Landlords | • Facility Directors/Managers |
| • Estate Managers | • Tenants |
 | Back Office Staff |
| • Administrators | • Receptionists |
| • Assistants | • Office Managers |
| • Space Managers | • Coordinators |
 | Field Staff & Contractors |
| • Engineers | • Technicians |
| • Electricians | • Plumbers |
| • Cleaners | • Landscapers/Gardeners |
| • Security staff | • Catering teams |
Accessing free trials and live demos can make the difference between choosing vendor ‘A’ over vendor ‘B’. Usually, an online demo will be the first interaction with a product and may be accompanied by a salesperson willing to answer your questions. You can use a free trial to highlight a product’s strengths and weaknesses and help to understand if the product will meet your facilities management goals.
Key areas to consider from a CAFM system include:
You need to be sure that a CAFM product will match your initial requirements. This can be done by cross-checking each requirement and asking questions like;
For a greater return on investment, a product shouldn’t cost more than it can provide. You should seek out pricing plans for each product as well as highlight extra fees for factors such as data storage limits and implementation.
Deploying Facilities Management Software can be a lengthy process. It requires data to be migrated, employees to be trained, and systems to be updated. Timescales can be extended if it is being deployed across multiple buildings.
Training can be time-consuming, but it’s an important part of deploying a new CAFM tool. To ensure a business is getting the most from its product, all staff need to know how to use it. This not only requires time but can also be an extra expense.
Most Facilities Management Software can be integrated with other tools such as CAD and BIM systems, email programs, calendars, and data storage. Integrating a new system can provide various challenges including time constraints and further employee training.
A building owner has various amounts of facility management data to hand. Whether that be floor plans, occupant data, or contractor information. Migrating that data to a new system can be time-consuming, especially if existing data is stored in files, on spreadsheets, or on notepads.
Marc Fletcher & Steven Downie combine their 35 years of experience in facilities management to talk about their roles as Senior & Regional Facilities Managers at Just Eat Takeaway.com.
Bhavin Patel talks about the importance of FM culture, plans, and maintenance activities at Mace Operate when working on the flagship London Cable Car project.
Kamran R. Zamir provides expertise in best facility maintenance management practices from experiences at Rolls-Royce, TIMET, and his current role at Doncasters Group.
Louis Atkins shares expert tips and advice from his time at Manchester City Football Club, The Ivy, and his current role as Facilities Manager at Red Engine Team – the team behind Flight Club Darts & Electric Shuffle.
Trevor Bundas shares his expert insight on the challenges of facility management in one of the harshest climates on the planet, as well as touching on the future of CAFM technology and why data collection is the most valuable part of an FM’s job.
Warren Duffy, Head of Estates at Manchester University NHS Trust, explains the challenges associated with maintaining buildings of varying ages while detailing how playing amateur rugby has helped to build a happy and trustworthy on-site culture.
Edward Taylor-Robinson, Head of Estates for National Museums Liverpool, shares his experience of ensuring compliance and health and safety for 21 heritage buildings that support over 4 million collections as well as the detailed processes involved when hosting exhibitions.
Christopher Ali shares his views on to-do lists, calendars, and daily building walkarounds as he explains how to “put your ego aside” when it comes to sustainably-led decision-making in his role as Facilities Manager at Greenpeace UK.
Maxcene Crowe, facilities industry expert and founder at MCFM Global, explores the importance of openness, transparency, and improving an engineer’s communication skills when it comes to building a positive FM environment.
Discover how the role and responsibilities of a Facilities Manager (FM) can help drive workplace productivity and increase efficiency within your property.
See how an all-in-one CAFM tool can be utilised for your multiple office management tasks to reduce an Office Manager’s workload.
6 tips to control your energy management consumption and reduce soaring energy costs including using a building energy management system.
To improve the teaching environment and the level of education provided to pupils, schools need to budget for a facilities management system.
Discover how Facilities Management Software coupled with preventive maintenance can help reduce the building maintenance costs that are impacting your bottom line.
Know the importance of putting employee productivity, health, and well-being at the forefront of space design when it comes to delivering a successful space management strategy.
Learn the difference between Hard and Soft Facilities Management services & how to manage each one with facilities management software.
Get an insight into why successful companies leverage facility and building management tools to drive workplace efficiency.
The Comparesoft CAFM market & insights report provides the latest trends, user requirements, and gaps in the facilities management market.
The best Facilities Management Software depends on what you intend to use it for. What may be the best facility management system for one business, may not be the best choice for another. Factors to consider when finding the best Facility Management Software for your building include:
The cost of Facilities Management Software ranges from £99 per month to £260 per month. The mid-point – or industry average – cost of purchasing CAFM Software is around £1900, or £161 per month.
Most facility management vendors will charge a fee based on the number of users, included features, and deployment type (mobile, cloud-based, on-premise, etc.).
Structured payment options (per user or device) are also available and provide a favourable cost solution, particularly for FMs that are responsible for 1-2 sites. With a structured pricing solution, the lowest cost for Facilities Management Software is just £1 per device, per month.
A CAFM system is implemented to assist facility managers with automating various facility management tasks. A CMMS, on the other hand, has a more narrow focus on providing tools for the management of maintenance within a building.
Although there are similarities between Computer-aided Facilities Management software and a Computerised Maintenance Management System (CMMS), there are also critical differences between the two when deploying them in the facility management industry.
A CMMS system includes features for:
CAFM is short for Computer-Aided Facilities Management. It is essentially the action of performing facilities management with the support of IT tools. CAFM is used by facility managers to assist them with the planning of facilities management tasks with the objective being to streamline workflow and improve workplace efficiency.
Being budget conscious and having to meet the continuous demands of Ofsted, schools will benefit from using some form of a facilities management tool. Not only can a facilities solution maintain and manage the upkeep of school properties, but also the ground too. It’s a great way to identify minor concerns that can be rectified as well before they escalate into costly repairs and sufficient downtime of essential equipment. Other benefits include:
The role of a facilities manager and their team within the healthcare industry is to keep non-clinical services running smoothly in order to help staff focus on delivering exceptional patient care. As well as ensuring hospitals meet standard requirements, a large part of facilities management in healthcare is cleaning. This is either from an outsourced group or a dedicated team of cleaning staff. Other important areas of facilities management in healthcare include:
Typically employed by councils and private investors in the UK, facility management tools are essentially required to provide ongoing maintenance to meet health and safety regulations. This provides facility managers to conduct maintenance plans, produce cost estimates, and maintain natural resources. All in a bid to enhance the lives of residents in the town, city, or community. Indoor and outdoor parks and recreation facilities can include:
In churches and other religious facilities, keeping maintenance costs to a minimum is vital. It’s also important to keep in mind that any management, maintenance or facilities team will be volunteers who are looking to give back to the ministry. There are a number of reasons why churches would need a facility management tool, including:
There are two main Facilities Management Software deployment options; cloud-based and on-premise. Cloud-based Facility Management Software is a SaaS solution where the software is owned and provided by a third-party vendor. Whereas an on-premise CAFM system is owned by the business and operated from on-site by purchasing specific infrastructure.
CAFM Software vendors will also introduce other forms of deployment and usage methods such as web-based, mobile, and app-based.
Most facility management vendors will provide a demonstration or free trial to customers for them to better showcase their product. It is highly recommended that all buyers and businesses should seek out a product demo or free trial before making a purchase. This helps to ensure the product works best in a specific building environment and fulfils the requirements of a facility manager.
Although Facilities Management Software provides the tools for a small business to succeed, it isn’t always a necessity. Whether responsible for one site or a handful of rooms, small business owners should weigh up if using a CAFM tool will generate a good return on investment.
For small businesses, it’s important to consider other tools besides software – such as spreadsheets, as they may not have a use for the features of a software solution. Spreadsheets are also cheaper, easy to use, and can cover the most basic FM services.
Key benefits of CAFM for small businesses include:
Whether you’re a small business of under 20 employees or under 5 employees, there’s a lot of work that needs to go into effectively managing and maintaining facilities. And, most of the time, all of these responsibilities fall to one or two people. But, with a CAFM tool, managers are able to delegate duties to other staff or outsourced teams. This produces an organised structure within the workplace and promotes a more coordinated effort to help the business grow.
Some facilities management solutions are coupled with an asset management tool, which is valuable for keeping business-critical assets working at an optimal level and avoiding unplanned downtime.
As most small businesses employ only a handful of staff, the need to outsource certain maintenance and management tasks is unavoidable. This can include anything from cleaning services and building maintenance, to waste management and catering. By having a facilities management tool, you’re able to store all data regarding tasks that have been outsourced. These include outsourced personnel details, maintenance schedules, and support channels.
Most Facilities Management Software vendors provide the capabilities for system integration. This allows a CAFM system to become a central hub for data management. Integrated systems include:
The main function of an asset management system is to track, measure and analyse the complete value that is provided by all assets throughout the company – both tangible and intangible. The typical functions of an asset manager, include:
Although a focus on assets in crucial for a facility manager, their priority is to improve productivity and efficiency within the workplace. While also handling workplace needs and demands. Typical functions of a facility manager, include:
Facilities Management Software comes equipped with the tools that allow FMs to manage and schedule maintenance activities within a building. A CAFM system provides tools such as Planned preventive maintenance (PPM), Energy performance analysis, Work order management, and Space management. All of which are essential for creating a building maintenance plan.
With an effective building maintenance plan in place, businesses can:
Typical building maintenance processes range from conducting M&E surveys and cleaning bathrooms to waste management and landscaping. Whether deploying a facilities management tool for offices, hospitals, universities, or residential properties, the building maintenance tasks remain the same.
With a mobile facility management solution, FMs can access data such as maintenance schedules, contact numbers of outsourced personnel, space utilisation, and energy-use statistics from anywhere at any time.
When using a cloud-based or web-based facilities management solution, you’re able to access all facility data via a mobile device. This could be your smartphone, tablet, laptop or other specific hardware. The ability to do so grants you and other teams members access to data when on the move and in the field. This is particularly handy if you need instant access to the system but are not within a distance of your work desktop.
Facility Management Software allows FMs to store and access all outsourced data from one single dashboard. This provides an overview of technician information, work order progress, and budgets.
By choosing to outsource facilities management processes (outsourced FM), you’re transferring the decision-making to third-party outsiders. When outsourced effectively, this can lead to better efficiency around the workplace and a general improvement of skills within the organisation.
Outsourcing FM processes with a CAFM can benefit businesses in a number of different ways. Including:
Taking staff training and operating costs into consideration, in-house facility management can be an expensive outgoing. Although outsourcing would require payments, these would be considerably lower in comparison.
Particular facility management processes are only required on a seasonal or cyclical basis, such as building and ground maintenance. So, instead of hiring staff and keeping them around just in case, processes such as these can be outsourced.
Outsourcing your processes and jobs to an experienced facilities management service provider will guarantee that the job gets done as intended. This experience proves crucial to making sure only the best maintenance staff and engineers are kept on the premises.
Moden CAFM software offers many benefits to an FM manager, including allowing the integration of multiple third-party applications. These can be email programs, data storage, fleet management tools, Building Information Modeling (BIM) services and Computer-aided Design (CAD) applications.
Having the option to use third-party tools with a newly installed FM solution can be beneficial in a number of ways, including:
Two applications that are beneficial to an FM manager are CAD and BIM services. These tools are used frequently throughout the facilities industry and provide greater efficiency for data and maintenance management when used with a CAFM solution.
Computer-aided Design and 3D modelling tools are used to assist architects and other professionals in the design of buildings and space. These applications provide a variety of imagery and simulations, allowing a large amount of a building’s technical data to be stored.
As well as architects, a CAD system can be a useful tool for an FM manager as well. With access, they’re able to:
Contrary to popular belief, knowledge of CAD or other 3D modelling tools aren’t required in order to use BIM. Now a mandatory requirement for public sector projects, Business Information Modelling is a process of using computer models to help design, construct and maintain a building.
By integrating a BIM system with your CAFM tool, FM managers are able to reap benefits such as:
A computer-aided facilities management tool is packed full of features and functionality to help FMs and executives gain a greater understanding of their expenses. This includes identifying how much re-locating employees is costing and understanding the business’s total churn rate percentage.
With the right FM solution, you’ll be able to:
Most facility managers will have experienced and dealt with the relocation of occupants within the workplace; also known as churn. But, without the use of an effective computer-aided facilities management tool, many FMs are unaware of their exact churn rate and the expenses that come with it.
A building’s churn rate is presented as a percentage to indicate the total amount of employees or occupants that have moved workspace. For example, if 300 occupants move workstations in an office building that has a total of 1000 people, that building’s churn rate is 30%.
Although businesses may strive for a lower churn rate resulting in fewer bottom-line expenses, there can be some benefits to having a higher churn rate. One advantage is being able to implement the latest workspace trends, such as effective move management through hot-desking.
Currently, the median churn rate for Corporate America organisations is 45%. But some facilities tend to experience percentage rates much higher than this, such as 100% to 200%. On the other hand, there are many facilities that experience low churn rates. Although this may seem ideal, it usually means there are moves taking place that aren’t tracked or FMs aren’t aware of.
Depending on your focus as either a dynamic workplace setting or a more stable business with long-term goals, poor management of your facility’s churn rate can be costly. For instance:
Whether an employee has relocated due to a companywide restructuring or because of business downsizing, the costs incurred can be huge.
These types of costs can also depend on the different elements and types of churn. For example, box moves (occupants moving to existing workstations in the facility) average a cost of $160 per move. Whereas furniture moves (reconfiguration of existing furniture or the addition of new fixings) average a cost of $729 per move.
One ‘soft cost’ that can damage a business’s bottom line as a result of churn is downtime. This occurs when an employee has relocated to the premises but is without the necessary tools to continue working. Such as waiting for the right data and network cabling to be operational.
As well as ‘soft costs’, the relocating process will incur expensive ‘hard costs’. Such as: