Managing social housing is a complex balancing act with countless financial responsibilities. Though the workload can be overwhelming, there are solutions to simplify the colossal task of managing finances.
Simplifying day-to-day operations and reducing stress is no mean feat, but can be done by automating critical processes.
Managing payments
Accounting can be a time-consuming task in a property manager's schedule. Streamlining this process with Arthur's Xero integration can free up time to dedicate to other jobs, making for a hassle-free experience.
With the integration, financial information will be sent between Arthur and Xero. This means that when the council makes bulk payments of Universal Credit, it can seamlessly allocate multiple tenant invoices. Arthur can follow payment periods, so allocating a bulk payment is easy.
With Arthur, tenants on housing benefits can comfortably underpay with a hassle-free system. The software can handle underpayments easily, allocating the part-paid receipt to the system and automatically generating another invoice. Housing benefit providers sometimes struggle with setting up multiple recurring charges per tenancy. A common example is rent owed by the housing benefit and a top-up made by the tenant. Arthur's simple solution of creating custom transaction types can make it easy to distinguish between both charges. This becomes increasingly useful when reconciling payments and generating financial reports.
It is no hidden truth that dealing with rents paid in arrears can sometimes be stressful to deal with. This can lead to confusion on which tenants are overdue on payments and allocating receipts to invoices if payments are made earlier. Arthur can help by creating a recurring charge that generates an invoice on the due date while considering the expected payment date/arrears date. This lets you know who is overdue on their payments and simplifies reconciliation for payments made before the arrears date.
Custom fields
No property manager is the same, so why should their preferences be?
Arthur's custom fields allow a property manager to generate their own bespoke categories for a property, unit, or tenancy. Data can be entered into these to generate reports based on their business's performance.
This is an easy way for them to follow how each service they offer is progressing or can be used to keep track of other data. This could include updates on a tenant's behaviour with a drop-down list of options. Property managers could also use it to keep a record of caretakers, creating a custom field to mark which tenants are under their care.
Layout
When it comes to social housing, there is so much information to keep an eye on. A property manager must be able to track housing benefits and emergency housing with ease. To have this scattered in no particular order could lead to complacency.
Arthur divides these into different sections as part of its layout. However, if it's not to a property manager's liking, this is completely customisable depending on what they wish to be visible. For example, within social housing are daily rates and invoices. The software also provides the option to input a daily rate, from which Arthur can generate a charge based on that rate. For example, if a property manager charges £50 per day, they can input this into the short-stay tenancy daily rate, and then, if they wish to have just one invoice per month, the system will automatically calculate how many days are left within that month to create an invoice.
This is beneficial to clients because rather than having, for example, 31 invoices for £50 for August, they will have one invoice for £1,550. The system will automatically adjust this based on the number of days within that month, so a property manager can input this information and have the confidence the system will automatically trigger the correct amount each month for their tenants.
Closing the tenancy
It's a well-known fact that tenants who break their agreement make life difficult for everyone, most importantly the property manager. But if this happens, Arthur can automatically calculate an invoice for them rather than let the property manager mess around with numbers.
This is most useful to property managers who manage emergency housing, as tenants frequently leave the property without providing notice. This results in property managers spending a lot of time calculating the actual amount owed. Arthur can offer a checkout feature that automatically calculates the amount owed based on the checkout date the property manager inputs. This not only saves time but also makes the whole process less prone to human error.
Ability to report on tasks
Housing benefits providers must upkeep their tenancies. There is no end to the value in being able to record when work orders for this are due by, when the work is completed, and how prompt they are in achieving these jobs. This feature is bespoke and designed to be able to create any task type. Arthur can also organise their tasks into types, such as refurbishment, boiler fixes, and social wellbeing.
This can limit the time a property manager spends inputting this information manually, freeing them up for more critical tasks.
Tenant satisfaction rates on service providers and repairs and maintenance are key performance indicators for social housing providers. This is why it is becoming increasingly important that your system can track, document and report on this. Arthur allows users to customise task types for use within the organisation and when tenants from their apps raise them. A checklist can be embedded within each task type, allowing clear visibility of progression. This, in turn, allows effective communication when jobs are offered to contractors from the system. Throughout the process, dates, times, activities, communication and more are automatically logged. So, required performance reports can be generated with a couple of clicks. Coupled with automation that will alert your tenancy every step of the way, helps you achieve top-notch reviews.
Final thoughts
Arthur offers a solution to streamline a property’s managers operations to maximise productivity and empower them to focus on what really matters.
