Simplified Screening

ScreeningWorks Pro Delivers

By Lee Ann Stiff on Apr 27, 2018 in News

Screening applicants manually and using paper reports that require further research slows your staff down — and can cost you your best prospects and valuable leases. Here’s some good news: replacing a paper-based process for qualifying applicants and converting them to residents is easier than you might think.

Clients already know that approving quality residents as part of their automated leasing workflow with ScreeningWorks Pro saves time and money. The system includes advanced functionality to help clients not only easily select low risk residents who improve their bottom line, but also get more detailed analytics about individual applicants, local area renters and overall property performance that aids in decision making for the entire organization.

Scoring for leasing wins

Landmark Realty Controller Larry Busgeon said that one of his favorite features of ScreeningWorks Pro is the ability to select unique screening criteria for every property type in Landmark’s nationwide portfolio.

“Our Albuquerque properties are lower end so we’re not worried so much about credit score as we are history of tenancy, For San Francisco, of course we want (strong) credit scores because the rents are much higher there, and we want to see some history on that credit score,” Busgeon explained. Landmark also has a mixed portfolio of apartments in Kansas City, Mo., a market that presents its own set of challenges.

Using the most reliable data available, ScreeningWorks Pro provides automated recommendations that minimize risk. In San Francisco, Landmark uses it to screen long term residents, and has also expanded use to short term residents who stay for just 30 days. In Kansas City, Landmark screens both HUD and market rate prospects.

“ScreeningWorks Pro is an excellent choice — you can fine-tune criteria by market and offer self-service convenience to applicants, with mobile access for leasing agents using tablets,” Busgeon said. “Once it’s up and running, it stands alone. We haven’t had to go back and adjust.”

Making life easier for leasing staff

Banyan Living takes great pride in providing high-touch customer service for its apartment communities in Ohio, and uses ScreeningWorks Pro as part of its Yardi Voyager full-business platform. According to Amanda

Smeltzer, Banyon’s executive director, “ScreeningWorks Pro streamlines our screening process with easy to read reports and automatic renter approvals. The solution makes life easy for our staff, while it provides convenience for our customers.”

More good news: the system was enhanced with new features in 2017 to make it better than ever. ScreeningWorks Pro now provides single sign-on from Voyager and a responsive user interface with an enhanced Executive Dashboard that lets clients work more quickly to access data and navigate the entire system. New reports give deeper insight to property managers and owners, and a new property performance feature provides a snapshot of application volume and demographic information. To discover which local employers provide the most in volume or the highest quality applicants, the new Applicant Employer feature tells you all you need to know.

When an applicant is rejected based on the criminal background check, the system now provides detail about the type of conviction(s) that resulted in the rejection. And to continue to ensure and improve accuracy, applicant middle names are required for all screenings. For bulk letter sending, a convenient sending and auditing function is available for FCRA Adverse Action Letters.

Also new: a scoring simulator along with screening policy change requests and the ability to calculate “what if” outcomes to predict the impact of screening policy changes on approval and decline rates.

And for fee managers, there is functionality to view all ScreeningWorks Pro analytics under one account, even across multiple owners’ Voyager databases.

Keeping occupancy high

Canada-based VHP (Vionell Holdings Partnership) is another client seeing great results with Yardi’s screening platform. VHP now approves quality applicants quickly to sign more leases, and also gains business insight with real-time analytics and screening reports. Jason Roblin, CEO at VHP, reported, “Yardi’s screening platform reduced our vacancy rate from 13% to under 3% and helps us approve the best applicants with an efficient screening process that also saves us time.”

With the combined power of the Yardi platform, VHP is engaging a wider range of prospects while reducing calls to its leasing offices and eliminating tedious paperwork with an efficient online marketing, application and leasing process. “Our best applicants are getting approved right away. We’re not at risk of losing them to the competition anymore because of paperwork or a slow response time,” Roblin explained.

Learn more about ScreeningWorks Pro and discover all the benefits of making it part of the Yardi Voyager full-business solution for multifamily property management.