Published on the 16/07/2015 | Written by MYOB
AT A GLANCE
INDUSTRY
- Not for Profit
BUSINESS OBJECTIVE
- To manage thousands of properties across different states
- To streamline complex reporting demands and serve its tenants better
SOLUTION
- All property details into one database
- Consolidated reporting capabilities
- Integration with CHL’s tenancy accounting system
THE BENEFITS
- Time compiling government reporting
- manual asset management has been eliminated
- National call centre established for tenancy services
- Ablity to plan for growth well into the future
FOR MORE INFORMATION
MYOB//
E: biggerbusiness@myob.com
NZ: 0800 696 239
AU: 1300 555 110
https://www.myob.com/
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“We now have all our operational data available instantly, so we can plan our expenditure and investments across all the states we serve. We’ve also established a national call centre.”
Patricia Vaz is General Manager, Corporate Services, for Community Housing Ltd, a not-for-profit organisation that administers more than 5,000 residential properties in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia and Queensland.
“For 22 years we’ve been providing housing for those who are in housing stress and cannot afford private rental,” Patricia explains. “We do this through various government programmes, including long-term housing, homelessness and aboriginal housing services.”
CHL collaborates with all levels of government – which means stringent and frequent reporting requirements. Rent collection, property maintenance, funding programmes, tenant selection… CHL handles all of this. Its portfolio of properties doubled in size between 2011 and 2015, and so did the complexity of managing it all. It needed to replace time-consuming manual processes and get all its information into a single database. MYOB Greentree was the answer.
Fragmented operations
CHL started out providing housing services in NSW and VIC with an accountancy and tenancy management system, an aging piece of asset management software and piles of Excel spreadsheets.
“We lacked reporting capabilities,” Patricia says. “We couldn’t track work and we had no central database. Our operations in the different states were run in different ways and we needed to consolidate them.”
“With MYOB Greentree, we have a system that will evolve with the company.”
Patricia Vaz, General Manager, Corporate Services Community Housing Ltd
CHL employs more than 40 contractors in the various states it serves, carrying out maintenance on its properties. There were multiple variations in charges for the same jobs in different states, which generated large amounts of manual paperwork, risking errors in payments and purchase orders.
“We needed a standardised system for payments,” says Patricia. “Because of all the different schedules of rates and different data, it was difficult to do consolidated reports. We were spending too much time trying to collate data and had no tools for doing long-term asset planning, which is an important part of our job.”
Committed to social housing
Constantly changing regulatory compliance issues added to CHL’s burdens, so it went looking for a system that could bring all that data together and eliminate manual processes. The shortlist came down to Technology One, SDM (UK), Vision, and MYOB Greentree.
“MYOB Greentree was one of two products that really fit,” Patricia recalls. “The others were not developed for maintenance and would have needed a lot of customisation. We chose MYOB Greentree because of its established commitment to the social housing sector and its strong Partner network.”
The MYOB Greentree Partner already had system designs that suited CHL’s needs and was able to integrate MYOB Greentree with its tenancy accounting system.
“They were very flexible about meeting our needs and enabled us to manage our internal requirements and processes without forcing radical change on us.”
Quality assured
Today, CHL has one central database for managing its maintenance schedules. Thousands of different work items are now covered by a national bespoke schedule of payment rates and MYOB Greentree easily processes tens of thousands of purchase orders annually.
“We couldn’t have started our call centre without MYOB Greentree making all our data instantly available online.”
“We have quality assurance of each work order and our contractors appreciate the clarity that MYOB Greentree delivers about their jobs,” Patricia says. “We can do budget projections for years ahead across all states, we can plan each financial year properly, and review costs and performance accurately.”
All maintenance data is entered into MYOB Greentree and automatically replicated in the tenancy accounting system. Spreadsheets have disappeared and producing consolidated quarterly reports now takes a day, where it used to take a full week.
National tenant service
The other major development for CHL has been establishing a national call centre for tenants’ inquiries. Tenancy workers used to spend a lot of time inspecting properties and producing reports; now tenants phone in and get an instant response on maintenance and rent issues.
“We couldn’t have started this service without MYOB Greentree making all our data instantly available online,” says Patricia. “We’re introducing continuous improvements and innovations in the services we provide, so we’re now in a position to offer external maintenance service to other housing organisations. “One of our major needs was to acquire a business system that could grow with us. With MYOB Greentree, we have a system that will evolve with the company.”
Source: This article was originally sourced from MYOB
