Bringing Pre-Acquisition Land Management into JD Edwards: A No/Low-Code, Configured Solution for Homebuilders, Land Developers and More

In the homebuilding industry, timing and clarity are everything, especially when it comes to land acquisition. Before any home is ever designed, sold, or constructed, there's the often overlooked but critical phase of land pre-acquisition. This phase is where prospective deals are evaluated, vetted, and either approved or abandoned. And yet, many developers and homebuilders still manage this process outside of their ERP systems, tracking due diligence costs, site attributes, and vendor commitments in spreadsheets or third-party tools.

At MASYC, we knew there had to be a better way, one that was native to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, highly visible to key stakeholders, and built entirely using configurable tools already available within the platform. So, we created a Pre-Acquisition Land Management solution that lives in JD Edwards.

In traditional setups, the pre-acquisition phase is typically handled outside of the ERP. Teams might track land opportunities and due diligence activities in spreadsheets, shared folders, or separate databases. This fragmentation often leads to:

• Duplicate data entry and manual reconciliation

• Lack of visibility for finance and operational leadership

• Missed opportunities to capitalize on early-stage budget data

• Audit trails that are incomplete or scattered

• Limited reporting and oversight

As organizations scale, these limitations can become increasingly risky. Decision-makers are left working with incomplete information. Teams lose time chasing down details. And the process of moving from "potential acquisition" to “active project” becomes a manual patchwork of approvals, journal entries, and cleanup activities amongst various departments.

Our goal was to bring this phase fully into JD Edwards; making it trackable, auditable, and manageable from the moment a prospective land deal is identified.

Built Inside JD Edwards – Not Around It

What sets this solution apart is how it is designed and configured. There is no custom code, no modified applications, and no external modules to maintain. Every component of the Pre-Acquisition Workbench is created using the JD Edwards toolset:

• Personal Forms

• Grid Formats

• Queries/Watchlists

• Café Ones

• Composite Pages, and

• Orchestrations for process automation

Accordingly, vanilla EnterpriseOne applications have been repurposed by an assortment of aforementioned UDOs without any vanilla modifications or deployments necessary.

This ensures the solution is:

• Sustainable:

  It won’t break with future JD Edwards updates or ESUs.

• Extensible:

  New data points, rules, and views can be added with minimal effort.

• Cost-effective:

  No development hours spent on custom code or ongoing retrofits.

• Standardized:

  Built on the same platform and security model you're already using.

Because everything is built on-the-glass using UDOs and orchestrations, your Pre-Acquisition users can work entirely within JD Edwards in a modern, intuitive way – with dashboards, alerts, queries, and real-time updates guiding every step of the process.

A Clear Lifecycle for Pre-Acquisition Land Deals

The lifecycle of a prospective land acquisition is rarely linear, but our solution provides a clear and structured framework that maps to the reality of how land deals move forward, or do not.

When a new land opportunity is identified, it can be logged directly into JD Edwards. Users can input relevant information such as:

These data points can be stored using existing system fields, User-Defined Codes (UDCs), and supplemental data.

As due diligence costs begin to accrue – legal fees, environmental surveys, consulting invoices, and so forth – the costs are tracked directly against the land prospect. This eliminates the need to retroactively allocate costs later or guess at totals when reporting to leadership.

At every step, stakeholders can view real-time reports and dashboards reflecting the total spend and the status of each prospect, as well as the financial impact of ongoing due diligence because budgets, commitments, and actual costs are clearly visible and easily audited.

Once a deal is approved, costs can be transferred quickly and accurately into new project/community land development jobs. If a deal is abandoned, costs can be allocated to the appropriate divisional financial accounts, ensuring clean books and transparency.

Automation That Accelerates the Process

One of the most powerful aspects of the solution is how automation is used to drive consistency and efficiency, without user guesswork.

With orchestrations embedded directly into the JD Edwards application screen, users can initiate key actions such as transferring balances or deactivating inactive land prospects with a single click. These orchestrations prompt users for required inputs, validate data, and update records in a controlled, repeatable way.

They also provide immediate, informative feedback to the user; whether a success message, error message, or a validation warning.

For example, when a land deal moves forward, users can select it and initiate the transfer process. The orchestration will prompt for required financial data, update the necessary records, and kick-off a process that ensures all balances are transferred to the correct job accounts and updates the status. Once the transferred balances are posted, another orchestration closes the loop by preventing further postings.

This eliminates manual journal entries, reduces the risk of financial misstatements, and ensures your EnterpriseOne system reflects the true status of all projects at any given time.

Visibility and Control Through Configured Dashboards

Central to the solution is the ability to see the whole picture.

Dashboards, composite pages, and queries/watchlists are configured to provide actionable insights for Pre-Acquisition managers, finance teams, and executives. Whether reviewing potential deals by:

• Status

• Stage

• Priority

• Tracking total due diligence spend, or

• Watching for open commitments

Users can drill into real-time data without waiting for static reports.

This visibility also creates accountability. With everything tracked inside JD Edwards, users are more likely to follow the process, data integrity improves, and audits become far less painful.

Perhaps most importantly, this visibility breaks down silos between departments. Land, finance, and executive teams can all work from the same source of truth, thus making faster, better informed decisions on which deals to pursue and which to walk away from.

Built for the Way Homebuilders Operate

While the solution was built within JD Edwards and avoids customization, it was also designed specifically with homebuilders in mind. The unique challenges of homebuilders and land developers were all accounted for in how the tools and workflows were structured, these include managing:

• land pipelines

• Vendor invoices

• Deal attributes, and

• Project funding strategies

From handling multiple divisions and regions to reconciling spend against open commitments and preliminary budgets, this is a solution that works the way land teams already work – only smarter and within the EnterpriseOne system.

We also designed the solution with scale in mind. Whether your team manages 10 land deals a year or 100, the process remains consistent. As your team grows or regions expand, the tools are already in place to accommodate new users and new data without requiring any rework.

A Foundation for Future Automation

Finally, this isn’t a one-and-done solution. It’s a foundation. The Pre-Acquisition Workbench opens the door to additional orchestration-driven enhancements, such as:

• Automatically creating project/community-level job records with necessary accounts after deals are approved (before transferring balances).

• Converting open contracts to new project/community-level job commitments.

• Flagging aging prospects that haven’t progressed within a given timeframe

• Integrating external GIS or market analysis data into the land prospect record.

These enhancements can be layered into the existing framework, further improving efficiency and insight without breaking the configured solution.

Trends and Moving Forward

As Land Banking continues to gain traction across the homebuilding industry, the need for tighter financial control and greater visibility into early-stage land investments has never been more urgent. Builders are no longer just acquiring land to develop immediately; they're entering long-term agreements, holding inventory for future projects, or (more recently) are partnering with third-party land banks to preserve capital while securing pipeline opportunities.

This industry shift requires more than spreadsheets and manual tracking. It demands a system that can:

• Capture and monitor due diligence spend

• Track detailed land attributes

• Minimize financial exposure

• Display up to the minute deal status

All of this can now be done within JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, and all without introducing operational complexity or risk. MASYC’s Pre-Acquisition solution enables homebuilders to meet this challenge head-on.

By embedding a fully configured, no-code framework into JD Edwards, companies can track land prospects, manage costs, and support decision-making from the moment a parcel is identified; whether the land will be:

• purchased outright

• held via a land bank, or

• integrated into a long-range pipeline strategy

The ability to manage Pre-Acquisition land activity at scale, within a standardized and auditable environment, positions homebuilders to make smarter, faster, and more confident land decisions in a highly competitive market.

In an era where land availability, interest rates, and long-term strategic plays are more volatile than ever, the builders who embrace system-driven visibility and automation will be those who maintain an edge: financially, operationally, and competitively.

MASYC’s Pre-Acquisition solution provides that edge, right inside JD Edwards.

Ready to simplify your pre-aquisiton process?

Reach out to our team to learn more about how MASYC can simplify your pre-aquisition process and bring it into JD Edwards where it belongs.