For 44 years, Santa Barbara-based Surgical Eye Expeditions (SEE) International has been providing restorative eyesight care around the globe. The non-profit organization, founded by local ophthalmologists in 1974, relies on volunteers, grants and donors to make its important work of reducing preventable blindness possible. And as it heads toward 50 years, SEE is endeavoring to treat more patients than ever before. “There are 36 million people in the world who are blind, up to 75 percent of those are blind from preventable conditions,” said Matt Wheeler, vice president of communications for SEE. “One of the major problems is that 80 percent of these people are living in areas of the world where access to care is not available.” Cataracts, one of the leading causes of blindness, can often easily be treated – but patients must have access to qualified ophthalmologists who can perform a simple surgery. Partnering with local ophthalmologists in every region where they work, SEE volunteers made 250 trips to over 40 countries this year, and performed 40,000 sight restoring surgeries. Volunteer doctors pay for all of their own travel and housing expenses and receive no pay for their work. By 2020, SEE aims to perform 100,000 surgeries a year. In the course of the organization’s existence, volunteers have conducted 4 million eye exams and performed a half million surgeries. Other work includes training regional doctors on cataract surgery techniques, providing supplies for clinics that don’t have access to proper materials, and conducting preventative eye exams in impoverished areas. In assessing the support it has received from corporate sponsors over the years, SEE staff realized that one Santa Barbara-based company was unique in terms of longevity and generosity of support – and happened to be a close neighbor, too. “Our leadership was...

In September, Yardi reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to Australia’s property industry by supporting—for the tenth year—the highly successful Property Congress in Darwin, Australia. As Principal Sponsor, Yardi was proud to join the Property Council of Australia in hosting nearly 800 delegates from across the property industry. The attendees discussed the latest challenges, trends and opportunities facing the industry—and the future for Australia that the delegates are helping to build. The event began with celebrations. On the conference’s eve, Yardi hosted a party at Darwin’s bustling Mindil Market that featured a spectacular sunset, sumptuous food, a fire dancer, a didgeridoo player (for those who might not know, that’s a wind instrument developed by indigenous Australians) and lots of good fellowship. With the party successfully wrapped up and new connections established, it was time for the main event. This year, The Property Congress was focused on major issues driving property development and investment in Australia and globally. With established and emerging leaders in the commercial, residential, retail, industrial, development, retirement living and investment sectors in attendance, it was a unique chance to hear from a wealth of thought leaders about the fundamental issues affecting our industry now and in the future. While all guest speakers from the two-day lineup were remarkable in their own right, highlights included: Headline keynote speaker Sir John Key, a former New Zealand prime minister, who touched on a range of current topics including leadership qualities, American tax and trade policy and housing issues. Noting the high growth rate of Australian urban developments, he urged a thoughtful planning process that integrates communities and connects them with transport. He also didn’t miss the opportunity to discuss the constantly-changing Australian political landscape, commenting that by the end of his political tenure he would ask...

Editor’s note: The following post was written for real estate and investment professionals in Asia by Bernie Devine, Regional Director (Asia) for Yardi. With 30+ years’ experience dedicated to real estate and technology, Bernie is a leader in digital transformation in real estate and using data to create a more competitive and collaborative environment. He supports real estate clients with Retail, Commercial, Industrial, Residential and Mixed Use assets, helping them to grow their operations, create efficiencies, and gain better insight into their business. His expertise includes asset and investment management, private equity, operations improvement, program and project management, finance, technology implementation and compliance. Currently responsible for the growth of Yardi Systems in Asia, Bernie lives in Hong Kong and is a qualified accountant and economist. He has published over 60 articles and has extensive public speaking experience. I’ve recently seen a lot of discussion around the tokenisation of real estate investments. Some has been sensible, but some has missed a few key points. Two key challenges of the real estate market for the last 400 years when compared to other investment asset classes are the slow pace of transactions (it takes a long time for ownership to be transferred) and liquidity (the purchase price is so large that only a limited market of buyers exists). There have been many innovations over the years (Such as private equity funds and REITS) that have sought to address these issues, but the proptech community now thinks it may have a better solution. Tokenisation of real estate investments is about changing the way ownership of an asset is represented. It’s proposed that this change in ownership model will open up how the purchase of the asset is funded and how ownership is transferred. Basically, if ownership can be...

Akshai Rao’s path to Yardi wound from Austin, Texas, where the vice president of Procure to Pay earned his bachelor’s degree before taking a job in Northern California. He then went to Michigan for business school and Boston for another job before landing back in Austin as a Yardi employee in 2013. Today Rao oversees client services for Yardi Procure to Pay, an end-to-end procurement, vendor management and electronic invoicing platform. He shared highlights of the platform with us in a recent interview. Q: What matters most to property managers who deal with goods and services procurement? A: They want to perform their back office tasks, especially procurement and accounts payable, more efficiently. That lets them spend more time on front office duties, such as building compliance and customer services. Q: Can you describe how the elements of Yardi Procure to Pay meet those priorities? A: We provide one platform for the entire procure to pay process—approval workflows for purchase orders and invoices that are consistent with the client’s process, plus online purchasing, vendor management, outsourced invoice management and vendor payment services. All of these processes are accessible in real time and built into the Yardi Voyager® property management and accounting platform. Yardi has documented client savings of up to 80% on per-invoice costs and 75% on per-invoice processing time. A single connected procurement solution makes day-to-day purchasing, payment and vendor management as simple as possible. In addition, we’re building a robust analytics package to help clients pinpoint areas in which they can make process improvements.  We can compare our clients’ processes to industry benchmarks, and make recommendations to improve their current processes. Yardi Bill Pay, which is part of both Yardi Payment Processing and the Yardi Procure to Pay Suite, outsources check, ACH...

Celebrating 20 years, Yardi Canada has come a long way. As a leading innovator that delivers technology solutions to move the Canadian real estate industry forward, Yardi Canada focuses on helping clients thrive through every change. We caught up with a few of Yardi Canada’s leaders to learn more about the company’s evolution. From DOS to Windows to Internet based web apps to mobile apps and now on to artificial intelligence, Yardi has always been there with a solution for its clients. Here are a few technological highlights from the past two decades. A Unique Market Mobility and the cloud might reign now, but it all began with DOS. Introducing real estate companies to new technologies to improve business operations has never been an easy task. As Canadians, we tend to be a little more conservative when it comes to change. However, Peter Altobelli, general manager and vice president of sales for Yardi Canada, found it was easy to bring Yardi’s three DOS products to market: Yardi Basic, Yardi Deluxe and Yardi Premier. “DOS was a great product to implement since it was reliable, simple and easy to use. It was a technology that property managers understood. Plus, it had all these great shortcuts, because we didn’t have a mouse back then,” recalls Altobelli. Altobelli set up Yardi’s first office in Canada in 1998, which started with four people and now has grown to a staff of over 200. Today’s multitasking generation, accustomed to multiple windows and screens, would feel restricted with a DOS platform. But back then, users could accomplish single functions at a time quickly and efficiently. It was exactly what the industry needed as a catalyst towards more technology and innovation. Moving to the Internet At every innovative milestone, Yardi Canada...

Yardi’s corporate culture includes a focus on community service. In the Yardi Boise office, a team of employees focused professionally on the senior living product suite decided to bring that value to life by participating in two local efforts aimed at combating hunger. First, staff partnered with Metro Meals on Wheels to serve 80 seniors in the community. Since many of the elders that benefit from Meals on Wheels are homebound and unable to prepare their own food, they rely on meal delivery as their primary source of nutrition. The Boise office team was happy to help with distributing food, cleaning, and socializing with seniors. Metro Meals on Wheels serves meals to nearly 1,000 Boise senior citizens each weekday and over 700 each weekend. Inspired by their work with Meals on Wheels, the team sought a new philanthropic challenge, this time joining with the Idaho Foodbank. The independent non-profit organization is entirely donor supported and is the largest food bank and distributor of free food assistance in Idaho. One in seven Idahoans are in need, and the food bank is making strides to not only provide meals but to promote healthy, locally-sourced foods. In fact, three quarters of the food distributed by the Idaho Foodbank is fresh or fresh frozen versus shelf stable, up from just fifty percent six years ago. So when the organization was hosting a food drive, the Yardi staff was excited to participate. This time, they volunteered to put together meals for the federally sponsored Seniors’ program and gathered donations of juice, cereal, milk and eggs into individual meal boxes. In all, the 60 employees assembled 15 palettes of meals, estimated to contain an amazing 14,000 pounds of food, to be distributed to local seniors. That’s more than enough to...

The senior living industry employs close to a million people, and the sector is expected to add nearly 300,000 jobs by 2026. With employee turnover already a worrisome—and costly—issue, companies need to arm themselves to keep up with demand. That means thinking not just about hiring, but also retaining key staff. What does it take to temper employee turnover? It’s not just about more money. If you want to keep employees in this competitive landscape, it’s about engaging staff by creating a truly employee-centric culture. Here’s how: Build an environment of recognition In order to realize the significance of their roles, staff need to feel appreciated by management, their peers and by residents. Sadly, only 21 percent of employees think they’re truly valued in the workplace. The good news? 44 percent say they’d regularly give peer-to-peer recognition if it were easy to do. Develop simple, quick ways to deliver acknowledgement, and make sure that it’s visible across the organization. You might be surprised how much feeling appreciated boosts morale. Promote balance with flexible scheduling Practicing work-life balance in the long-term care industry, where many residents require round-the-clock care, can prove to be more challenging than in other industries. But giving employees some flexibility is possible. Start by setting a quota on number of weekends and holidays worked, then allow staff to set schedules autonomously by working with colleagues to optimize their hours. Talk to standout staff Reach out to the best of the best on your team and ask important questions: What motivates them? Why do they stay? What could you be doing better? Find out what makes them tick, then apply these learnings to the greater organization. There’s no input more valuable than from top performers who are satisfied and come to work...

Until fairly recently, enterprise software platforms for real estate largely focused on accounting, finance and other back office operations. The advanced programming languages, mobile reach and internet capacity that enable automated workflows and remote access available for the back office hadn’t reached the front office. Things are different today—for the better. In an article originally published in Journal of Property Management, Todd Huebsch, Yardi vice president of commercial sales, explains why.   New software applications squarely target the front office, lending new dynamism to leasing, customer services, facility management, development and other operations. What does the evolution of technology dedicated to the front office mean in practical terms? For one, it means that property management technology has reached the point where remote access is both affordable and effective for managers involved in leasing, construction and facilities management. It also means leasing and asset management can work a deal together with a previously unattainable degree of collaboration. Development vice presidents can evaluate risk with instant access to project status, instead of waiting for a weekly report. They can leverage ERP data such as lease comps, revenue trends, contractor and job analysis, to make better decisions. Consider, for example, construction managers working to correct a problem with a building’s foundation. In an earlier era, they would call or email the back office, or even leave the site altogether to calculate the change order and negotiate the amount and cost code. Today, using apps designed specifically for their role, construction managers can enter the work order with just a few taps on a mobile device. The change order automatically flows to the back office and is recorded in the core property management and accounting platform. The adjustment is fully visible to all parties and the construction manager...

Editor’s note: The following interview originally appeared in GCUC UK and is reprinted with permission here. Tony Freeth has seen the evolution of the office space industry firsthand. Co-founder of Phoenix Broadband and creator of Medusa, a product that handles premises infrastructure, Freeth has played a pioneering role in bandwidth management and workspace wifi solutions since the late-1990s. Recently, Medusa was acquired by global real estate technology company Yardi. Freeth, who was at the first Global Coworking Unconference Conference (GCUC) in Austin, Texas in 2012, has now taken the role of Director of Coworking Europe at Yardi. With two decades of experience, Freeth provides a unique and valuable perspective on the now-booming workspace industry. We spoke with Freeth about the evolution of the industry, Yardi’s acquisition of Medusa, and how commercial real estate has now adopted coworking as an asset class. Here are the highlights of our conversation. What’s your coworking story, Tony? How were you introduced to what was then a small movement? Tony Freeth: In 2010, I was talking to someone at Steelcase who told me I needed to go to Coworking Europe. While there, I came across a bunch of people who had a very different idea of how people could work in a space, based on collaboration and community. We tried to sell that message to our conventional customers for many years, and for a long time their response was, “No that’s not what we do. Everyone wants a door.” We told them when you put millennials behind doors, it’s like depriving a plant of light—they just wilt. I met [GCUC producer] Liz Elam at Coworking Europe and she invited me to Austin for GCUC. It became clear that U.S. coworking seemed extremely vibrant and extremely well-organized. I imagine your...

Senior Living is headed to Portland as the Oregon Health Care Association (OHCA) hosts its Annual Convention & Trade Show, the largest long-term care conference in the state, on September 17 and 18. The event, expected to draw 1,200 attendees including owners, regional managers, administrators, nurses, department heads and direct care staff, takes place at the Oregon Convention Center. This year’s theme, “Experience the Music of Life,” is inspired by senior living staff and communities that encourage residents to live rich lives and enjoy each moment. A musical thread will weave its way throughout the conference: participants can observe music therapy best practices during the featured Music & Memory luncheon, which focuses on the use of music as a non-pharmacological remedy for residents facing challenges. Attendees are also invited to join the fun at an 80s themed dinner and karaoke event. The convention is set to close with an awards ceremony sponsored by Yardi. Keynote speaker Eddie Slowikowski, gold medal winner for the USA track and field team, will open the event with an address that encourages attendees be the best version of themselves in order to be stronger leaders. Over forty informative sessions, including many earmarked for continuing education units, are on the convention schedule. View complete session in the conference brochure. While exploring the trade show exhibitors, attendees are invited to discover Yardi’s single connected solution for senior living by visiting Booth...

Thought leaders and influential policy makers are headed to the annual Argentum Chief Executive Summit hoping to uncover ways to foster innovation and address the most significant business issues affecting the future of the senior living industry. The event is set to take place Wednesday and Thursday, September 12-13, in Boston, Massachusetts. A benefit of Premier Membership with Argentum, the summit provides networking opportunities as well as informational sessions and a lineup of inspiring guests. Speakers include Congresswoman Katherine Clark, Sociobiologist Rebecca Costa and Senior Economist and Policy Advisor Dr. Christopher Foote, among others. Program highlights include sessions focused on the impact of the economy on senior living workforce trends, midterm policy implications, the changing face of media communications and technology, in the form of a senior living science fair. Participants will also tour the MIT Media Lab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and take a private riverboat cruise on the Charles River. Attendees can schedule time to meet with Yardi to learn more about its single connected solution for senior living...

Lynn Topp, director of residential client services, has been key to the growth of Yardi Canada — and she started out as a Yardi client. A View from the Client Side While she initially thought it would be “just a temporary thing” before completing her CPA, Lynn’s career in the real estate industry began in property management 27 years ago. Lynn worked for a mid-sized company that managed residential, condo, commercial and non-profit assets. During that time, Lynn used Yardi software as a client, and learned firsthand how the right software can transform daily tasks and also businesswide operations. “When I came to Yardi in 2005, I had 14 years of property management experience, working in financial roles including property accountant and controller. I used Yardi software back then and implemented Yardi Voyager to manage 95 properties,” recalls Lynn. When Lynn joined Yardi’s Toronto office, it was a small group of 50 employees. Now she’s part of a thriving team of 200. “I’ve loved watching small teams at Yardi grow, and seeing clients embrace technology,” Lynn said. Known for her magnetic personality and sense of humor, along with being an awesome advocate for clients, Lynn also knows the importance of innovative technology to improve real estate operations. Game-Changing Tech “It’s really satisfying to see our more conservative clients — and Canadians tend to be a bit more conservative in general — become open to technology, to adopt it and develop their businesses with it and actually really like it,” says Lynn. In her role as director of residential client services, Lynn is dedicated to making sure Yardi’s clients enjoy every advantage that technology has to offer. Embracing the daily challenges that come with an evolving industry, Lynn is an expert on positive technology disruption...

With seventeen communities—and more on the way—each submitting 100-200 invoices a month, Linda Adams was shuffling a lot of paper. As the Accounting Manager for Northbridge Companies, a New England-based senior living provider, much of her time used to be spent digging up receipts or tracking down paper records across various decentralized offices. “When I had questions, I had to call another office and ask them. They’d have to find the invoice, scan it, send it to me for review. It was very time consuming on both ends.” But now, solving a discrepancy is “easy, easy, easy,” thanks to Yardi PAYscan. In 2011, Northbridge adopted Yardi’s Procure to Pay vendor management and electronic invoicing platform to streamline invoicing across all properties. The new system allowed the accounting department to access invoices and check whether payments had cleared without having to pick up the phone to call another office. In other words, team members could self-serve, reducing internal dependencies and churn. But time savings wasn’t the only benefit of a new system. PAYscan eliminates copying, mailing, and storing paper—and minimizes touch points that can lead to lost invoices and data entry errors. “There’s no need for us to use up valuable office space with paper invoices anymore when it’s all right there electronically. Once the tax returns are done, we can throw the documents out,” Linda says. “I can go back and look at invoices from 2012, and it’s right there. Plus, I work from home a few days a week, and it really cuts down on all that lugging paper back and forth.” The Northbridge team appreciates PAYscan’s versatility, too. “You can make the approval process as intricate or as easy as you want, which I love,” said Linda. Customizable workflows, flexible payment options...

Yardi Canada introduces Louise Steeves, product manager for Canadian development (and the residential modules in the Canadian market).  Louise was Yardi Canada’s first Voyager account manager and has been key to the company’s success — and it all started with an unusual interview. Jumping In Adaptable by nature with a desire to keep learning, Steeves has an intimate understanding of the needs of the social housing market. “In my past role over 16 years ago, I helped implement software for a large social housing provider in Toronto. I quickly became a subject matter expert, which led to a project management role,” says Steeves.   Software, however, was an entirely new realm for Steeves. “When I was working with the social housing provider, I recall one meeting that I had with Peter, where he mentioned that they had just signed a large deal which would mean that they would be implementing 40 clients all at once.”  That exciting news led her to make the impulsive decision to apply for a position at Yardi. Her interview with Peter Altobelli, vice president and general manager for Yardi Canada and Tom Kearns, senior director for global solutions, was not at all what she expected. “When I arrived at Yardi to meet Peter for my interview it was really early in the morning, around 7:00 a.m., and I was the first one there. Peter came rushing in. He had just gotten off a red eye flight. He grabbed some coffee and we sat down to start talking. I hadn’t had an interview in about 17 years at that point, and I thought to myself, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Steeves recalls with a big laugh. “Peter asked me some accounting questions, which I stumbled through and then he...

Demand for public housing assistance far outweighs the available supply in nearly every community nationwide, but the challenges can be especially great in California. The Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo (HASLO) and the Housing Authority of the County of Santa Barbara (HACSB) are prime examples of public housing agencies challenged with creating housing opportunities for low-income residents. There is never a slow work day for HASLO or HACSB, and the mere opportunity to join a housing assistance waiting list can create a frenzy of activity. “The vitality of every community is dependent on housing that is attainable for all income levels, and public housing agencies add incredible value to the regions they serve. The magnitude of their waiting lists, nationwide, is a great demonstration of the scarcity and value of affordable housing,” said Boone Atkins, vice president of affordable housing and PHA sales for Yardi. A PHA waiting list includes households seeking public housing units, housing choice vouchers and affordable housing. Given the local market conditions, those lists would grow daily if the HASLO and HACSB kept lists open to new names permanently. However, closing waiting lists to new households is just one way to keep the lists under control. Another way to maintain PHA waiting lists is periodically purging the names of households who are no longer seeking assistance. Purging PHA waiting lists has historically been a labor intensive process requiring envelope stuffing and data entry. PHAs also incurred costs for postage and paper to facilitate mailing forms to thousands of waitlisted households. RENTCafé PHA, and its embedded Save My Spot waitlist management feature, can mitigate those costs. Yardi is the only PHA software provider offering a modernized waitlist management solution, bringing relief to a longstanding industry issue. A Primer on RentCafe...

At one point, Georgia-based apartment community developer and manager Walton Communities’ mission to provide exceptional residential, affordable and active adult housing at a great value in a friendly neighborhood environment was awash in paperwork. Staff members from 20 Atlanta-area properties had to transport from 25 to 60 invoices each to the corporate office in Marietta every week. “Along with the money spent on paper, gas and car wear-and-tear, this obligation took our staff members away from leasing and resident service,” said Jennifer Price, IT systems trainer for Walton Communities. “As we moved to grow our portfolio by 50%, we knew the process would become even more cumbersome. We quickly realized that we needed a more efficient invoice processing system.” That was Yardi PAYscan Full Service, with which Walton Communities’ vendors send their invoices to a secure, centralized email or physical lockbox monitored by Yardi. The Yardi team scans and enters the account data, and the invoices show in the client’s Yardi Voyager platform as invoice registers, ready for review, approval and processing as payables. All the client’s site teams have to do is review, add details and approve—without driving anywhere. With invoice processing off their hands, Walton Communities’ staff members can focus on their core business of leasing, resident service and property maintenance. Yardi PAYscan Full Service adds even more convenience by automatically attaching purchase orders, a major time-saver for maintenance and procurement teams. Yardi PAYscan Full Service extends the benefits Walton Communities gains from the Yardi Procure to Pay Suite, an end-to-end procurement, vendor management, invoice processing and payments solution. “Leasing and customer service are the core of our business. Yardi PAYscan Full Service lets our staff concentrate on these activities, rather than dealing with invoicing and billing,” Price said. “The process of...

Yardi Canada celebrates 20 years with a spotlight on leaders who have helped the company grow. Today, we introduce Rob Podlesnik, director of Global Solutions  and PSG for Yardi Canada. Podlesnik has been integral to the development of Yardi Canada—and it all started over a cardboard box. Humble Beginnings Podlesnik, a York University graduate, began his career in property management. He joined Yardi Canada in 1998. At that time, Yardi Canada consisted of eight people in a brand new office space with absolutely no furniture. “When I went in for the interview, it was literally an empty office with a cardboard box for a desk,” recalls Podlesnik with a laugh. “They positioned it well, like ‘Yardi Canada is expanding. This is going to be the first office.’ I decided to give it a year. It sounded very entrepreneurial and the atmosphere was completely foreign to me but I loved the startup culture.” He contributed to that culture, helping to form a tight-knit group that operated as a family. Everyone wore multiple hats, helped one another, and maintained close relationships. They worked together to fulfill a grand vision, one where Yardi led the Canadian property management software industry. Podlesnik began as an implementation specialist, where he worked on training and consulting, which suited him since he once considered becoming a teacher. The opportunity to visit clients, share his knowledge, and learn ways to improve the products through client feedback excited Podlesnik. But it wasn’t always easy. As a young road warrior, Podlesnik found it difficult to maintain personal relationships but his passion for the work he did and the growth kept him going. He soon assumed a role on the client services team, which allowed him to put down roots personally and professionally. He was...

Peter Altobelli is the Vice President of Sales and General Manager at Yardi Canada Ltd., a passionate mentor for many employees, as well as a husband and father. Arriving at this point in his career has entailed 30 years of dedication, innovation and focus on the company’s clients. He began his career in the 1980s with a background in software development in the healthcare sector. “You all have it so easy these days,” chuckles Altobelli. “Back then everything was in DOS. Shortcut keys were a major breakthrough for users. These days, people don’t think that that could even be a feature worth mentioning given that everything is done with a mouse, even intuitive touch screen or by voice activation.” In the 1990s, Altobelli became an entrepreneur, developing software products for the home building, property management and real estate brokerage industries. Through software design, development, sales and implementation, the company created a strong presence in the market and was instrumental in promoting technology to support new ways of doing business. It was during this period that Yardi began collaborating with Altobelli and his company to establish a footprint in Canada. By 2000, Altobelli became an integral part of the staff at Yardi. His thorough understanding of the Canadian market and industry standards have been crucial elements for the growth of Yardi Canada as it offers comprehensive support, implementation, sales and marketing for real estate businesses. Innovation + Growth with Yardi Altobelli was responsible for establishing the first Yardi office in Canada and has grown Yardi’s market penetration to be the leading software supplier in the country. “I was excited to work with Yardi because it’s such an innovative company,” says Altobelli. “I also appreciate that the culture is very inclusive. There is diversity of experience...