"Moving to Arthur Online has allayed any worries we had about growing our business."

Tell us about your business

Residential housing, mainly based in the Midlands.

What are your biggest operational challenges?

• Managing tenancies – We found it difficult to manage tenancies and identify when tenants were moving out. Good tenancy management is key to any letting agent and it was vital that we had a good grasp on our unit availability to minimise void periods.
• Monitoring maintenance – Another struggle that we faced was monitoring ongoing maintenance works on our properties. We needed to have a centralised system where we could invite contractors to take a job and keep up-to-date on the progress of each maintenance task.
• Lettings procedures – The ability to have a simple set of lettings procedures in one place that could streamline our internal processes was one of the main reasons we were looking to move systems. We needed to become more efficient with our processes to achieve scale.

How has Arthur Online helped you overcome these challenges?

• Managing tenancies – Arthur Online has allowed us to improve our tenancy management with each tenancy having dedicated areas for statements, document management and general tenancy information. We can now effectively manage the general day-to-day running of tenancies and monitor move-out dates to reduce voids.
• Monitoring maintenance – We can now monitor the jobs that our contractors are currently undertaking and monitor the progress of these jobs. This has allowed us to close maintenance jobs once completed so we can streamline our record keeping and only track the ongoing situations.
• Letting procedures – Arthur Online allows us to improve our lettings processes so we can now track our viewing schedules to ensure there is enough time to carry out our other daily tasks. It has also improved our letting agent management, as we are more effective in identifying when our letting agent needs to operate for us. One of the true benefits of Arthur has been cutting down the hours of our workers, allowing for scalable growth to take place.

What add-on features do you find most useful?

• Xero – The Xero integration was one of the major reasons we moved to Arthur Online. With Making Tax Digital beginning in April, it was vital that we moved to a software that could streamline our workload and reduce the chances of duplicating work. Arthur Online is perfect for managing tenancies and their workflow whilst Xero can deal with all financial transactions that property management firms encounter.
• Text messages – Text messages are a really useful way of keeping on top of tenant communication. Arthur Online allows messages to be sent directly from the system, which allows easy communication with tenants where everything is in one centralised software platform. It has completely changed how we carry out viewings as we can now more effectively update tenants on property locations and times.

How did you find the onboarding process?

We have a very large and complex portfolio that was difficult to import onto the system, however Arthur Online were very proactive with helping us input our data correctly. A lot of thought went into the process and the staff were really innovative in making sure that all our data could work on the Arthur Online platform.

You’ve been using Arthur Online for a while now, what do you think of their ongoing customer support?

How much has your business grown since you started using Arthur Online?

Moving to Arthur Online has allayed any worries we had about growing our business. The system has now allowed us to achieve scalable growth without our team members needing to work significant overtime.

How much time has using Arthur Online saved you and your team?

Arthur Online has saved us a huge amount of time. We are now much more efficient and can monitor our KPIs with ease. The move from desktop software towards cloud-based software has allowed us to work from all locations and on all our devices. It means that we are more responsive to our tenants’ needs and it has greatly increased our tenant satisfaction.