Scaling the Hiffman Standard Beyond 100 Million Square Feet

About Hiffman National

Crossing 100 million square feet marked a significant point in Hiffman National's growth. The independent property management firm now serves owners across 26 states and a portfolio spanning office, industrial, medical office and retail properties.

For Hiffman, the milestone also sharpened an operating question: how can the firm continue to grow while giving every owner the same standard of execution, regardless of market, property type or portfolio requirements?

Hiffman's answer begins with the operating discipline it has built since 1981. The firm establishes shared expectations for reporting, training, leadership and execution, then gives its teams enough flexibility to meet the needs of each owner.

Technology supports that model when it strengthens the standard instead of dictating it. Hiffman's work with Prismera shows how the firm is applying that principle to property onboarding, lease information and other document-heavy assignments.

Growth Put the Operating Model to the Test

Third-party property management requires consistency without uniformity. Hiffman must deliver reliable information and execution across the country, but each owner may have different forms, reporting requirements, workflows and underlying systems.

That tension becomes more visible as the portfolio expands. A process that depends on repeated manual work in one market can become a significant capacity problem when it is repeated across hundreds of properties. A rigid platform can create a different problem by requiring owners and property teams to change proven processes simply to accommodate the software.

Hiffman's management operations function evaluates those tradeoffs before a tool enters the broader organization. The team looks for technology that can remove meaningful work, preserve the source behind the information and fit the way Hiffman and its clients already operate.

“When you are responsible for operations across a large portfolio, you cannot roll out technology based on a good demo. We need confidence that the information is accurate, traceable to source documents and capable of standing up in real-world property management workflows.” — Erin Converse, Director of Property Management Operations

Technology Had to Fit Hiffman

Hiffman configured Prismera around its own workflows, forms, templates and structured outputs. Each owner's information remains organized within that owner's portfolio, and teams can prepare data for systems the client already uses.

This approach allows Hiffman to standardize the quality of the work without pretending every owner should work the same way. Employees can review the source language behind extracted information, validate the result quickly and move it into established Hiffman processes.

The distinction is central to Hiffman's technology strategy. The firm is not pursuing AI as a stand-alone initiative. It is identifying specific parts of property management where the technology can reduce manual effort, improve access to information and give teams more time to act on what they know.

“Many software platforms require organizations to change the way they work to fit an existing system. What stood out to us about Prismera was its ability to adapt to our processes instead of forcing us into a predefined workflow. Prismera allows us to maintain our standards while tailoring deliverables and workflows to each client's needs.” — Erin Converse

Property Onboarding Became the First Test

Every new management assignment begins with the same need: give the property team, asset manager and owner a reliable picture of the property. Before the new workflow, building that picture took more than four weeks.

Teams gathered the leases, amendments and management agreement, then entered the key details into a tracking spreadsheet. They recorded the tenant roster, suite numbers and square footage, along with lease commencement and expiration dates, renewal options, notice deadlines and property encumbrances. Someone also had to maintain the spreadsheet, flag approaching deadlines and catch missing, duplicated or expired documents.

Hiffman now loads the same documents into one property record in Prismera. The platform extracts critical dates, links each item to the source language and feeds the dates into Outlook calendars organized by team. New amendments update the relevant dates, while missing amendments and expired leases are flagged for review.

The property team still validates the result and applies its judgment, but it no longer has to rebuild the property record by hand. A process that once took more than four weeks can now be completed in one week.

“The value is not simply that AI saves time. The real value is that it helps our teams spend less time gathering information and more time acting on it. We are able to identify issues sooner, reduce manual effort and provide our clients with faster, more informed service.” — Carrie Szarzynski

Turning Document Volume into Team Capacity

Once Hiffman established a trusted approach to lease information, the same operating model could support other document-heavy assignments. The platform now covers 2,700 leases and 640 management agreements, while lease abstraction takes 80% less time.

The model also proved useful outside recurring property workflows. When Hiffman needed 1,062 brokerage agreements converted into structured information, the team completed the work through Prismera in two hours.

These applications differ, but they create the same operational advantage. Hiffman can absorb document volume without adding the same amount of manual work, returning approximately 12 hours to property teams on each assignment.

Results

“Every hour we can redirect from manual document review or data entry is an hour our teams can spend focusing on tenants, owners, property performance and strategic initiatives. The capacity gained through automation does not replace expertise. It allows our people to apply their expertise where it creates the greatest value for our clients.” — Carrie Szarzynski

Preparing the Hiffman Model for the Next 100 Million Square Feet

Hiffman's first 100 million square feet required the firm to build the processes, people and operating discipline needed to deliver consistently across a national portfolio. Future growth should build on that foundation rather than duplicate its complexity.

The opportunity is broader than one platform or workflow. Hiffman can use technology to make more of its institutional knowledge available across teams, absorb repetitive execution and bring a new assignment into the organization without rebuilding every process from scratch.

That capacity supports Hiffman's larger goal: taking on more properties, clients and complex assignments while protecting the service standard that made the growth possible. Prismera is one part of that operating model, helping Hiffman turn scale from a management challenge into an advantage.

“The opportunities ahead allow us to grow without compromising the service standards that have defined Hiffman for decades. Technology like Prismera helps us scale our knowledge, our processes and our operational discipline. That gives us confidence that as we continue to expand, we can provide clients with the same high level of service, transparency and execution that has fueled our success to date.” — Carrie Szarzynski