"Since using Arthur Online’s apps and communication platform, disputes have fallen dramatically, saving us countless hours"

Tell us about your business

We’re a social housing company that manages close to 500 single lets.

What are your biggest operational challenges?

Organization

Our day-to-day involves managing hundreds of properties, tenants, property owners and contractors, so one of our biggest challenges is keeping everything organized and everyone up to date.

Communication

Sometimes messages aren’t received or are interpreted incorrectly; failing to keep proper communication records can lead to time consuming and costly disputes.

Information management

Operating in a large organization, having documents and other important information available to all employees is extremely important, but at the same we don’t want to share everything with everyone, which means employees are constantly hassling management for access.

Handling tenant arrears

Due to the nature of our tenancies, rent collection is often complicated. Most of our tenancies receive housing benefit. This means dealing with different rental payments on different schedules. The council pays every 4 weeks, whilst tenants are likely to pay biweekly. Rent payments are also generally unreliable. This means that keeping track of rent arrears is extremely important.

How has Arthur Online helped you overcome these challenges?

Communication

All our stakeholders use Arthur Online’s dedicated suite of apps to communicate with us and with each other. The tenant can report an issue by using the app to send images and a description of the issue. We then pass that information on to one of our contractors, who will receive job details in their app. Once completed, the contractor can notify all parties via the app. Since using Arthur Online’s apps and communication platform, disputes have fallen dramatically, saving us countless hours.

Document management

Arthur Online uses a cloud-based platform to store and organize information, and an intuitive permissions tool to restrict user access. This means that the right information is always available to the right employees.

Handling tenant arrears

We use Xero and Arthur Online together to reconcile and keep track of rents; Xero’s live bank feed combined with Arthur’s invoicing system allows rental payments to be easily reconciled and marked as paid. Arthur Online’s property management functionality allows underpaid or unpaid rent to be followed up easily; reports allow tenants in arrears to be identified, whilst the automated events feature automatically sends payment due reminders to ensure that tenants are aware of being in arrears. This has really saved us a lot of time. The Arthur/Xero solution is much more efficient and easier to use compared to our previous management software.

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

Arthur Online’s customer support is second to none, I’ve never experienced such great service from any software provider. Always available to speak, their team really go the extra mile to resolve your specific issues. On top of that, new features are constantly being added, which makes us feel confident we’re making the most of the latest advances in web technology.

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

By not being bogged down in disputes and time-consuming simple tasks which Arthur Online has automated for us, we are free to focus on the important jobs that make our service standout. Not only have we saved countless man hours, we’ve seen a real improvement in staff and tenant satisfaction. A great investment overall, highly recommended.