Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Land Management Software Desired Features

By Cathy Mercer


Land management software (LMS) is essential for organizations and businesses engaged in extensive acquisition of lands and for managing development and use of said lands. It largely automates the complex legal, financial, operational and regulatory processes involved with such activities. Listed below are the desired features commonly found in a professional LMS used by oil and gas companies, brokerages, and government or records agencies that have massive spatial management needs.

In general, most of the functions or modules can be classified under either acquisitions or administration. Both categories have many components that are crucial to automating entire divisions of areas of operations. The lease module is a good example to illustrate how this works, since it has functions that help facilitate both the transaction and the subsequent management.

During the pre-lease phase, the LMS must be able to generate a ton of documents and forms that are required for the transactions. This includes offer letters, amendments, contracts and so on. The system should be capable of handling all kinds of leases, including standard agreements, third-party and remainder leases, receiverships, etc. Afterwards, it must be able to manage and generate all the paperwork such as LPRs and payment checks and drafts in a timely manner.

Scanned documents in different formats have to be saved within the system as data. The LMS must be capable of mass updates to all leases, if such changes are required across the board. Lease status tracking and custom workflow configuration capability are desired features.

The automation will be much more efficient if all the modules are integrated properly. Data that enters the LMS at any place must be made available across the whole system. It will eliminate the need to maintain paper files and move it around manually between isolated divisions. The integration improves the accuracy of the available data, and cuts down on redundant data entry costs. The lack of paper usage also makes the organization more environmentally friendly.

Apart from leases, specific modules that are essential include GIS mapping and tract management. The system also needs to have two separate system administration areas. One is for user security customization to create user groups that have clearly defined access levels and permissions. The other one is for report generation, which needs to have both standard and customizable reporting capabilities.

Every LMS has standard reporting capabilities that provide comprehensive details about leaseholds, rental payments, expiration, etc. These reports must be scheduled for delivery and the system should be able to generate and deliver the right reports to each user as required, and without any human intervention. Users with the necessary authorizations should also be able to generate custom reports to include tract and ownership data, along with exploration information.

Innovations and the latest cutting-edge technology have made land management software more productive and useful. An LMS package can now be made available to company users as a password-secured web-based application accessible on any device such as a tablet, laptop or smart phone. Given such unlimited availability round the clock at any location, LMS users will be much more productive and are able to make instant and informed decisions out in the field.




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