Roscoe Properties

Solutions for Growth + Efficiency

By Erica Rascón on Sep 20, 2016 in People

The semi-annual Yardi Advanced Solutions Conferences (YASC) take place on the West and East Coasts, providing clients with the opportunity to attend an event close to home. Each conference offers specialized courses on product features, networking opportunities, and one-on-one consultations with Yardi representatives.

At YASC in Washington, D.C., Yardi sat down with Mariana Estrada, VP of Operations at Roscoe Properties. The company has had the opportunity to explore several products since joining the Yardi network in 2008. Estrada updated Yardi on her experiences with the software.

Estrada began with Yardi Procure to Pay (P2P), a centralized platform that offers complete spend visibility, streamlined invoice processing, centralized MRO purchasing and vendor onboarding. 

“The concept of P2P is exactly what we believe in – a paperless, time-saving option. We have a decentralized payables process so our onsite teams are responsible for processing payables and expense management at the site level. The time they used to spend filing and processing paper invoices is now time they can spend serving current residents and attracting new residents,” says Estrada.

“And now with the Marketplace, we’re gaining even more time savings and streamlining our purchasing process even further. We just implemented one of our major vendors and Yardi was able to create an online catalog for us.”

Yardi Marketplace furnishes access to more than 1 million MRO products and building materials. The program also delivers the best available discounts from nationally recognized suppliers.

“The Marketplace has an Amazon-like interface everyone knows how to use,” Estrada explains, “so there are virtually no issues with training our maintenance and site teams. A few mouse clicks and the PO is created and the order placed. Since the users don’t need to re-populate line item details, they are able to move invoices through the processing cycle quickly and efficiently. We’re seeing a lot of satisfaction with the implementation [of Marketplace] and have plans to expand our catalog with more of our established vendors.”

Though Yardi has established relationships with prominent vendors, Procure to Pay users are welcomed to add their own vendors. Yardi sets up the relevant catalog so that users gain easy access to their favorite vendors and products.

“It’s all available through the single interface, making it very efficient. For our properties undergoing renovations, we are able to create shopping lists containing all the necessary parts, by unit type. We’re talking about hundreds of items. We set it up once, and it’s done. It’s been a boon for both our management and maintenance teams,” say Estrada.

Roscoe Properties has also experienced great success with Yardi Payment Processing, a system that helps companies manage accounts receivable and accounts payable.

“We’re not only saving a lot of money not having onsite staff processing paper payments, but we are also able to offer our residents the convenience of making payment anywhere, anytime, at their own convenience,” says Estrada.

Roscoe Properties does not traditionally accept paper payments. Instead, the company offers several convenient electronic payment options through Payment Processing. Options include online payments and auto-pay through the RentCafe Resident Portal, text payments, and the Walk-in Payment System (WIPS). Through WIPS, residents can submit rent payments while shopping at major retailers. The fee is nominal compared to other service providers.

Estrada continues, “For the month of May, we collected 95% of payments, on time and electronically, thanks to Payment Processing. That’s massive! That’s money in the bank without any staff intervention.”

In addition to collections, RentCafe serves as a multifamily marketing and leasing solution packed with smart multichannel marketing tools and innovative SEO and SEM capabilities.

“We use RentCafe extensively and do a lot of training on it. The Yardi team is continually improving functionality and incorporating client requested product enhancements. The social media management tools really drive interest and help us push applicants through the sales cycle a lot faster,” says Estrada.

Estrada noted significant improvements in site conversions since implementing RentCafe’s latest marketing tools, “A recent nudge marketing campaign increased leads to one site around 20 percent. It was a helpful push during the typically slower time leading up to the summer months.”

To keep Roscoe Properties team members abreast of the latest software developments and rollouts, the company turned to Yardi eLearning in January 2016. As the company grows—doubling in size every two years—the software makes new employee training and continuing education easier and more efficient.

“With eLearning, we’ve been able to reduce time spent training new hires onsite from weeks to days. It’s a solution that will allow us to grow our portfolios by the next 10,000 units without endlessly expanding our training department. eLearning doesn’t have limitations with regard to time and travel. We assign our team members online classes and they learn everything they need to do to perform their jobs onsite. And they can get started on day one.”

Estrada elaborates, “Previously new hires had to wait to attend the next available training sessions and it could be weeks away or too full or they couldn’t travel to attend. Now we move as many people through training as needed with eLearning.”

YASC Anaheim 2016 begins today. Join us on social media for conference updates, using #YASC2016.