As your operations grow, you need a reliable system to track your building space usage, resources and maintenance.
Facility management software (FMS) does exactly that, giving your team total visibility over your company’s assets and spaces in one place.
This guide covers the top seven FMS options for growing teams, what to look for before you buy and when to use a CRM rather than a full FMS.
Key takeaways from facility management software
Facility management software gives teams a single source of truth to track office spaces, organize work orders and plan for future changes.
The most valuable FMS features are workplace management tools, preventative maintenance scheduling, asset tracking, workflow automation and mobile device access.
If your needs are mostly customer-centric, a CRM like Pipedrive can manage service requests and tasks before you invest in a full FMS.
Try Pipedrive free for 14 days to organize your maintenance workflows without the complexity and cost of dedicated facility management software.
5 features to look for in facility management software
Before diving into specific tools, it helps to clarify which features make an FMS worth the investment.
A true FMS covers five core areas:
FMS feature | What it does |
1. Operations and maintenance management |
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2. Space and workplace management |
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3. Real estate and lease management |
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4. Capital planning and project management |
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5. Energy and sustainability management |
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Most facilities teams will eventually need all of these capabilities as their operations scale.
If your main struggle is coordinating a hybrid workforce, you should prioritize space management and desk booking.
On the other hand, if you manage multiple locations or aging buildings, tracking lease agreements and forecasting capital projects will be much more critical.
With that in mind, it’s time to explore the top seven FMS options.
7 top facility management software for SMBs
There are different types of facility management software, each focused on specific operational needs.
The following seven tools offer a mix of features to help growing teams organize operations and track assets.
1. OfficeSpace: best all-in-one workplace and facilities management
OfficeSpace brings workplace planning and core facility operations together into a single platform.
It suits teams that need visibility over space usage and the company’s physical assets.
How small businesses use OfficeSpace as an FMS:
Create and manage interactive floor plans for offices and facilities
Assign desks, rooms and neighborhoods for hybrid teams
Track assets and link them to specific locations
Submit and manage maintenance requests tied to spaces or equipment
Coordinate employee moves and department relocations
The takeaway: OfficeSpace is best for facility managers who are tired of jumping between different apps. It consolidates your desk-booking app, asset tracker and ticketing system, cutting down your software bill and admin time.
2. AkitaBox: best for asset lifecycle and capital planning
AkitaBox focuses on facility condition data and long-term planning.
It maps your physical spaces and tracks the long-term health of each of your assets. Instead of focusing solely on daily ticketing, the software helps you forecast budgets based on your equipment’s condition.
How small businesses use AkitaBox as an FMS:
Perform facility condition assessments and store inspection data
Maintain a centralized asset register with condition ratings
Forecast capital projects based on asset lifespan data
Prioritize repairs and upgrades using facility maintenance cost and risk insights
Track completed work alongside long-term asset management
The takeaway: AkitaBox is a good fit for operations directors managing older buildings who need hard data to justify their budgets. It shifts your focus from fixing what breaks each day to planning your spending for the next decade.
3. YAROOMS: best for workplace and hybrid office management
YAROOMS optimizes office space usage and supports flexible work environments with scheduling and booking tools.
It supports hybrid SMBs by managing daily employee flow while monitoring the environmental impact of the physical office and employee commutes.
How small businesses use YAROOMS as an FMS:
Manage bookings for desks, meeting rooms and other shared spaces
Set rules for usage limits, approvals and access control
Coordinate hybrid schedules across teams and departments
Track workplace usage and attendance patterns
Analyze attendance trends to adjust heating, cooling and cleaning schedules
The takeaway: Choose YAROOMS if you need to report on your company’s carbon footprint and hit specific targets. It solves two problems at once: organizing where people sit on any given day and calculating the environmental impact of your office maintenance operations.
4. Skedda: best for simple space and booking management
Skedda keeps things simple, focusing on scheduling desks, rooms and shared facility spaces.
It offers a straightforward entry point for businesses that want to organize space reservations independently, relying on rules and automation to handle bookings.
How small businesses use Skedda as an FMS:
Automate desk and room reservations using custom booking rules
Display available workspaces through interactive floor plan maps
Control access with user roles and booking conditions
Track usage patterns across rooms and resources
Generate basic reports on space demand and availability
The takeaway: Skedda is a solid online facility management software option for office administrators who need to prevent double-booking of meeting rooms. It skips maintenance tools and focuses on making reservations easy and automatic.
5. Spacewell: best for IoT-enabled smart facilities
Spacewell is a cloud-based facility management software that uses Internet of Things (IoT) sensors (a network of devices and appliances) and smart building data to manage facilities.
It pulls real-time data from sensors to monitor occupancy, air quality and energy use so you can deploy staff where it makes the most sense.
How small businesses use Spacewell as an FMS:
Trigger cleaning schedules based on live sensor data showing room usage
Monitor indoor temperature and air flow in real time
Navigate facilities via mobile tools to locate workstations or equipment needing attention
Manage space, energy and maintenance requests in one dashboard
Connect building information modeling (BIM) data for actionable insights
The takeaway: Spacewell suits tech-forward companies looking to reduce utility and operational costs. It tracks your building’s environment and live occupancy data, so you stop spending money on lighting, heating and cleaning empty rooms.
6. Planon: best scalable FMS for rapidly growing teams
Planon is an enterprise-grade FMS that covers everything from real estate portfolios to daily maintenance.
Its modular design lets SMBs start with basic facility operations and add features like lease management or carbon tracking as their companies grow.
How small businesses use Planon as an FMS:
Centralize requests and planned preventative maintenance
Manage commercial real estate leases, rent payments and property contracts
Automate facility workflows, including visitor approvals and vendor onboarding
Give field engineers a mobile app for work order management
Track workplace performance metrics using customizable reporting dashboards
The takeaway: Planon is useful if your business is scaling rapidly or acquiring new office locations. You can start small with basic ticketing and add key features like lease management when you open your next branch.
7. FM:Systems: best for space analytics and data-driven planning
FM:Systems analyzes space and supports strategic workplace planning
It tracks detailed occupancy data to show how your real estate performs, providing visual tools to plan and execute changes.
It’s worth noting that FM:Systems is an enterprise facility management software, making it more suitable for SMBs scaling quickly and in need of tools that match their growth.
How small businesses use FM:Systems as an FMS:
Visualize floor plans to spot vacant desks and unused square footage
Plan and execute multi-department employee moves with digital staging
Track space utilization metrics through hardware integrations and sensor data
Manage building assets and integrate them with routine maintenance schedules
Generate workplace insights to guide real estate lease decisions
The takeaway: FM:Systems works well for medium to large companies that make major real estate decisions. If leadership wants to know whether they should downsize the office or redesign the floor plan, this tool provides the data to make the right decision.
Do you need a full FMS yet? What to consider first
Many businesses jump into facility management software too early when a simpler setup could handle their current workload.
Before committing to a full FMS, it’s worth asking whether your current pain points actually require one. A dedicated platform is useful but also costly, with setup time and training overhead.
Your business can save a lot of money if it already has a customer relationship management (CRM) system that’s easily customizable. You can easily build your own pipelines and fields to track many facility management processes, like service requests.
Stay with a CRM if:
You only need to track tasks. If your daily work is a straightforward list of things to fix or check, a CRM can handle it through a simple pipeline.
You want to organize your vendors. A CRM centralizes communication and contact details. You can keep the full history of every interaction and invoice in one place.
Your office layout is simple. If your maintenance team has fixed desks and you only manage one location, you don’t need space utilization features.
However, if you’re managing hot-desking, leases or energy usage, you’ll likely need to upgrade to an FMS.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what each system can handle to help you assess your needs:
Capability | Platform |
Track building requests and tasks | CRM: ✅ (via deals and leads) FMS: ✅ |
Manage quotes and emails from vendors | CRM: ✅ FMS: ✅ |
Preventative maintenance processes | CRM: ✅ (requires custom setup) FMS: ✅ |
Manage seating charts and room bookings | CRM: ❌ FMS: ✅ |
View interactive facility floor plans | CRM: ❌ FMS: ✅ |
Track property leases and renewals | CRM: ❌ FMS: ✅ |
Forecast long-term repair budgets | CRM: ❌ FMS: ✅ |
Monitor energy and carbon footprint | CRM: ❌ FMS: ✅ |
If you decide that your business isn’t ready for a full FMS, you can start organizing your building operations today with a CRM you already use to manage customers.
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How to manage your facility with Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a sales CRM that, with a little customization, enables you to set up pipelines and custom fields to manage basic facility operations.
You can use Pipedrive’s custom fields to capture service or facility-related details, including key assets.
Here’s what you can do with Pipedrive:
Create custom pipelines. Build pipelines to track everything from maintenance requests to office renovations. With visual stages, you get a bird’s-eye view of every task.
Automate repetitive tasks. Pipedrive’s automation tools handle the tedious parts of running a facility, like sending notifications as issues arise. You can set automatic reminders for recurring safety checks or contract renewals to ensure compliance.
Centralize vendor and property data. Store every vendor and agreement in Pipedrive’s Organizations tab. Upload important files like insurance certificates and floor plans to these profiles, so your entire building history is always a click away.
Pipedrive also integrates with a range of useful tools, including inventory management solutions like MRPeasy. For anything not on the Pipedrive Marketplace, you can use Zapier or the open API to build a custom connection.
Pipedrive in action: Commercial janitorial company SiteForce switched to Pipedrive when it realized the CRM software was both easy to use and highly customizable. With over 100 custom fields, SiteForce can now run four departments – including operations – from the CRM.
Using pipelines to manage projects and custom fields to track key metrics, SiteForce doubled its revenue and tripled its field team in the following years.
“Having a contact timeline, a history of the activities they do, whether they’re taking time off, if they’re showing up late; it just kind of helps keep a good timeline on their activity, so that I’m able to share all the data with the area managers and they’re able to make better business decisions in regards to our employees.”
Learn more about Pipedrive’s customizable CRM software features to see how you can track customers and operations together until your business is ready to upgrade to a standalone FMS.
Final thoughts
The most effective way to run your building depends on what problems you’re currently dealing with.
If your staff is struggling to find a place to sit, a desk-booking tool is your priority. If you’re dealing with ancient equipment and high repair bills, you need a system that tracks asset health.
For most small and growing teams, the smartest move is to start with a simple hub that keeps every task and contact in one view. A CRM like Pipedrive can handle the basics without needing to upgrade to a full-blown facility platform.
Try Pipedrive free for 14 days and see how automated custom pipelines can bring order to your facility operations.
