How much are you spending to operate your facility? Do you know if there are trends that could impact your budget or identify an issue (i.e. a water leak due to increased water usage)? Are you consuming more electricity, gas, or water in one building on your campus than in another or on another campus?
We have a solution to mitigate these questions (hint: our Operational Cost Tracker — keep reading). But let’s dive into common problems first.
Not Connecting the Dots
As Facility Stewardship “Evangelists,” we constantly ask these kinds of questions from the hundreds of churches we serve. Unfortunately, we often learn that the data churches have at their fingertips is not utilized to effectively steward their facility and resources.
We have seen how churches do not understand the fluctuations in cost and how it could be evaluated, mitigated, or planned for the future. They often do not connect the dots to:
- Electric spikes to facility usage increase
- Utility spikes to inefficient equipment or devices
- “Poor behavior” by staff and congregants with the utilization of systems
- Water spikes due to water leaks
- Significant increases in Mb usage on the internet with an increase in Sunday attendance
The list could go on and on.
The Common Challenge For Churches
The challenge in too many instances is that the finance department gets a bill. They then log it into the accounting software and obtain appropriate approvals. Then finance pays the bill. If there is an anomaly, it may not be caught until the end of the year, which could be too late to make a substantive change.
Solution: Operational Cost Tracker
As a reminder, we are not a software company. We develop and offer software, but that is not who we are. We are Facility Stewardship Specialists. Our team is comprised of professional Facility Managers, church operations staff, and church members. And yes, software developers. We are not in the “church” market because it is a cool place to be. We are church people serving churches.
To that end, the team at Smart Church Solutions has been working on a tool to equip your church to be more effective. We are pleased to announce the release of a new feature to our eSPACE suite for our Premium and Ultimate tier Work Order Management subscribers.
It is the Operational Cost Tracker (OCT). This tool will allow you to:
- Track electricity costs, including demand costs
- Track gas costs
- Track water/sewer costs
- Track cell phone costs
- Track internet costs
- Track garbage collection costs
But Wait, There’s More
Man, I have always wanted to say that. Not only can you track recurring operations costs, but you can also track the following:
- The unit of measure (KW, gallon, Mb, etc)
- Track by campus or building and/or meter
- Compare costs and usage per location
- Compare costs from previous time periods
- Compare your costs per square foot to the national benchmarking
If you need to gain control of your recurring operational costs, you will want to check this out! And, if you do not have the eSPACE Work Order Management module or are not on the Premium/Ultimate Tiers, contact us to learn how to upgrade your account.
