A major new business software implementation can be a daunting process. When the team at Colonial Properties Trust decided to make the switch to Yardi Systems, they were looking for a partner who could deliver a platform that would meet their day-to-day needs and grow along with the company. Ray Thornton, senior vice president of information technology at Colonial Properties Trust, explained it this way: “We wanted a partner in a company that was committed to the industry, had significant industry experience, and had a vision for the technology in the industry that went beyond just standard property management.”   Over the last three years, Colonial Properties Trust, a publicly-held REIT, has focused its efforts on residential property management, and as of the most recent quarter, managed a total of 116 multifamily properties totaling 34,959 units across the Sunbelt. The company also has a large commercial division, and wanted to move general ledger accounting, payables and procurement, and day-to-day residential and commercial property management tracking and reporting systems to a Yardi platform. After doing the research, asking plenty of questions and seeing the software demos, Colonial Properties Trust was ready to make the leap to Yardi, but the real test of this new business relationship would come during the Voyager implementation process. As Thornton puts it, “the proof was in the implementation pudding.” A successful working relationship between Yardi’s team and the Colonial Properties Trust staff, as well as third party vendors, made the process a smooth one. “Yardi has proven to us that they’re very client-focused and very success oriented,” Thornton remarked. “We’ve gone to them with a lot of crazy ideas and  they very rarely have pushed back. They’ve said ‘maybe not,’ but they’ve never really said no.” Adopting a more flexible...