Maryland Management Company CaseStudy

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Doris Campbell
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Maryland Management Company CaseStudy Efficient Property Management This property management company implemented DocuWare in order to speed the distribution of information between its corporate

Today, application processes have been automated and information is transferred electronically, drastically reducing the use of courier services and the associated costs and waiting time.

1 Maryland Management Company CaseStudy Efficient Property Management This property management company implemented DocuWare in order to speed the distribution of information between its corporate office and apartment communities. Today, application processes have been automated and information is transferred electronically, drastically reducing the use of courier services and the associated costs and waiting time. With over forty apartment communities the Maryland Management Company is a leading property management firm with a wide selection of quality housing within the greater Baltimore area and surrounding counties. The company owns approximately 65% of its units and manages the remainder on a fee schedule. Maryland Management employs 245 leasing property managers and onsite maintenance workers and has a staff of 50 in the main office. Maryland Management Company Industry: Property Management Location: Maryland, USA Application: Lease processing Document types: Leases, addendums and 1

2 Initial Situation Maryland Management needed a more efficient method for storing and transferring tenant applications and leases for access and processing by the corporate office. The company had an electronic document management system, but found their existing program inadequate because it could not import electronic documents or sort documents by their labels. As a result, finding a copy of a lease was a difficult process for a property management company with over 9,000 units and an industry average apartment turnover rate of 41%. The Task Speed the transfer of applications to the corporate office Improve document retrieval time Automate business processes Prior to implementing DocuWare, each apartment community was responsible for submitting their credit and leasing applications to the corporate office for review. Once applications were received via courier, it took over a week to process, file, and notify the apartment community of the decision. In turn, new and existing tenants had to wait a long time for notification of their application status. IT Manager, Bill Szczytko, knew the pitfalls and joys of document management and wanted to invest in a new system that used XML and could talk to his accounting and other systems. He needed to find a solution that was easy to use, implement and maintain that could bring together business critical information from over 40 sites. 2

As a result, finding a copy of a lease was a difficult process for a property management company with over 9,000 units and an industry average apartment turnover rate of 41%.

3 Solution The company worked with an Authorized DocuWare Partner to bring real changes to the way they processed applications and leases. DocuWare was installed at the corporate office and made available to the property offices through a Web browser. All of the scanning is done at the property level, so as part of the solution Maryland Management installed 40 Panasonic 1020 scanners, one at each property. The Benefits Transparent, efficient business processes Significant reduction in the volume of documents sent via courier speeds information flow Searchable database allows all document When an application is requested, the property manager types to be stored together simply prints the application containing a unique application barcode number. The completed application is scanned into DocuWare where it is electronically routed through a workflow process to ensure a credit check, criminal background check and manager approval Implemented Modules have all been completed. At this point, the onsite ACTIVE IMPORT property manager can check the status of the application and see if it has been approved or denied. If AUTOINDEX approved, they print the lease agreement which will have RECOGNITION one unique barcode that contains the application number and form code (each form a property manager LINK prints contains a barcode specific to each resident and CONTENT-FOLDER form type). WEB CLIENT Once the lease is signed, it is scanned and electronically routed to the bookkeeping department for further review and processing. Indexing is automated with the barcoded application number used as a match code. Any correspondence relating to a resident is also archived in DocuWare, streamlining an issue resolution with all the information in one place. 3

All of the scanning is done at the property level, so as part of the solution Maryland Management installed 40 Panasonic 1020 scanners, one at each property.

4 Benefits The ability to search our database has made a huge improvement in our efficiency. We ve eliminated at least 100 hours a month in our Bookkeeping and Credit departments alone. Finding our documents is tremendously easier. DocuWare saves us not only time, but paper and stress as well, said Szczytko. With DocuWare, Maryland Management can now locate application documents at any stage of the approval process and beyond. Previously, it would take hours or even days to manually retrieve and send documents, now it takes just a few seconds and is easily done from each apartment community s onsite office. Transfering documents via courier was a big bottleneck in our operation, said Szczytko. Self-serve access to any document, after the lease has been signed is where we ve seen the most dramatic improvements. The volume of documents delivered via courier has dropped significantly, resulting in better customer service by notifying applicants of their status in a timely manner and giving employees the tools they need to easily do their jobs well. By moving business processes to one central server, the information flow is now multi-directional. The corporate office and the apartment communities can both access and contribute to the important credit and leasing information quickly and easily. In addition, all addendums, such as pet registrations or additional parking space requests, are automatically indexed and added to the system using barcodes, allowing all the information for each resident to be in one place, simplifying business processes. For management, processing new leases can easily be distributed between employees and managers can easily monitor how many leases are being processed. Meeting document archiving requirements, as mandated by the state of Maryland is quick and easy. 4

With DocuWare, Maryland Management can now locate application documents at any stage of the approval process and beyond.

Conclusion Once our employees started using DocuWare and realized that they didn t have to deal with searching for records, the buy-in was complete.

5 Conclusion Once our employees started using DocuWare and realized that they didn t have to deal with searching for records, the buy-in was complete. Even our outside auditors are given temporary access rights to DocuWare making audit preparation quick and painless. We would never go back to our old system, said Szczytko. The ability to search our database has made a huge improvement in our efficiency. We ve eliminated at least 100 hours a month in our Bookkeeping and Credit departments alone. Finding our documents is tremendously easier. DocuWare saves us not only time, but paper and stress as well. Bill Szczytko IT Manager Maryland Management Company This document can also be found here: Enoch Office Equipment 2400 York Road Timonium, MD (800)

The ability to search our database has made a huge improvement in our efficiency. We ve eliminated at least 100 hours a month in our Bookkeeping and Credit departments alone.

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