HomeMaster Ticks All the Boxes for Horton Housing
Horton Housing went live with HomeMaster housing and financial management system on 3rd April 2023. The not-for-profit organisation provides a range of housing, training and support services across Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and North Yorkshire.
The organisation has grown significantly in recent years and wanted a modern system that would enable it to modernise its processes while continuing to grow and meet the changing needs of its customers.
Darren Butler, Head of ICT at Horton Housing explains: “We were looking for more functionality on a modern hosted platform that users can access through a web browser on any device. HomeMaster ticked all the boxes as well as providing us with a high level of automation that can take the organisation forward in the future.”
Hitting Compliance Targets
For example: “HomeMaster allows us to keep to a robust and rigorous repairs and maintenance schedule to hit compliance targets,” adds Darren. “It also enables much easier communication with third party contractors. We can interact with them digitally, making everyone’s life simpler: We no longer need to process paper works orders or invoices. Consequently repair and maintenance work is managed much more efficiently.”
“We’re also looking forward to growing how we interact with customers. In the future, HomeMaster will enable our customers to talk to us however they want to, as more people prefer to use digital channels.”
Agile Housing and Financial Management
Horton Housing provides a range of support services and accommodation from ‘crash pads’ which can be occupied by a resident for just one night, to tenancies of a few weeks, months or years. Therefore they need an agile housing and financial management system.
Darren adds: “There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach for our customers or the different schemes and services that we operate. HomeMaster allows us to automate entitlements making them so much easier to manage.”
Clear Implementation Plan
Darren found the experience of working with the HomeMaster team very positive. He says: “It’s difficult to transition from such a large and complex housing and financial management system to a completely new one. The HomeMaster team were very patient with us and have an established process that works really well. They supported us and guided us through all the information-gathering processes.
“They set out a clear implementation plan over nine months as we needed to go live by the start of the new financial year. All parties were clear about their responsibilities and there were checks and balances at various points. We had some internal staffing issues during the implementation so we adapted the plan to ensure we still met the go live date. HomeMaster were able to fill in any knowledge gaps and help us to review our priorities. The implementation team at HomeMaster carry so much knowledge that they can answer questions straightaway. They are always contactable, available and flexible.”
Although Darren expected a few teething issues, the transition to HomeMaster was very smooth. He adds: “We have around 400 staff at Horton Housing, who are not IT specialists. However, there was no tsunami of support requests! Everyone has been able to pick up the HomeMaster system and run with it really well. After only two months it’s already bedding into the organisation.
“We have around 150 Housing Officers and the ‘train the trainer’ approach worked well for us. We were supported by the HomeMaster team initially then ran training sessions internally.”
Darren concludes: “It’s been a really positive experience and our conversations and close relationship with HomeMaster have carried on since going live. They are always willing to have a conversation about extra functionality or how the system could do things differently.”
