New Gorbals Housing Association – Live Case Study
New Gorbals Housing Association (NGHA) who manage 4,600 properties in Central Glasgow signed a contract for HomeMaster in June 2022 and went live on 1 October 2022, only four months later. And less than two months after that HomeMaster was already delivering significant efficiency benefits compared with their previous systems.
Their legacy systems were based on-premise and restrictive with housing management, finance and repairs requiring three different systems. HomeMaster brought all their business functions together into a single, cloud-based solution that is simple to use.
We spoke to three members of the project team in Housing, Maintenance and Finance on the benefits that HomeMaster has already delivered.
Lisa Crawford, Housing Assistant, explained there was naturally some apprehension amongst staff prior to the Go Live date but HomeMaster was very well received. She says: “Most of the team have managed to pick up their key/core processes really quickly and the general consensus is that the system makes these processes so much more intuitive, quicker and easier than before. I think this is one of the main reasons why the majority of the team have been so welcoming of HomeMaster. Some people even said: ‘Surely it can’t be this easy!’”
Delivering time savings and efficiencies in maintenance services
The Total Mobile integration with HomeMaster enables anyone out in the field to access and input information in real time. Planned maintenance and works orders can be managed much more efficiently and processes have been streamlined.
Tracey McCauley, Head of Maintenance Services, explains: “Under our previous system, we would put a call out to a contractor, then manually input details into a spreadsheet. In addition, invoices would be received by email, keyed onto the system, checked and then authorised. Now the whole process is completed within HomeMaster. For example a Housing Officer can directly raise a repair request while visiting a property and can attach photos to a job. This is picked up by the contractor, who completes the work and submits the required evidence and an invoice directly into HomeMaster. We have all the details relating to the job in one place so we can check it has been completed satisfactorily and approve the invoice for payment.
“The tenant also receives a better service as there is much less going backwards and forwards: Jobs can be completed faster and the tenant receives progress reports by text. They don’t have to phone the office to find out what’s going on.”
Tracey adds: “We also have a facility where invoices under £50 can be authorised automatically, which is a great help. For example, we authorised 170 invoices at once yesterday, this would have taken us three days before!”
“HomeMaster is very easy to navigate and another benefit is that you can customise your own screen. By selecting the tiles that I want on my dashboard, I can see the bigger picture and manage workflows more easily. I also highlight jobs to be prioritised.”
More transparent financial management and control
There has been good feedback from all departments as financial management and control can be done within a single system. Previously, users had to log into separate systems for finance, housing management and maintenance. In addition, staff were continually having to find ‘work-arounds’ with the old system, but now HomeMaster makes processes more efficient and transparent.
Amanda Irwin, Finance Manager, cites some specific examples where HomeMaster has resulted in clear time savings and operating efficiencies.
Firstly, on the monthly debit run: NGHA has two monthly charge groups with debits applied each month and the legacy system required an 800-page debit run report to be produced, which had be to trawled through manually if there was an imbalance. Now HomeMaster automatically extracts the figures and inputs them into the financials. Any imbalances are highlighted and are easy to solve because the system is so easy to interrogate. This saves a least a day’s work each month.
Second, DWP payments had to be processed manually, updating the nominal ledger with each individual payment. This can now be done automatically with HomeMaster. NGHA previously needed two people to manage Housing Benefit and DWP payments, now one of them can be re-deployed to important customer-facing work.
Third, financial analysis is much easier. Budgeting for specific projects, such as Wider Action community projects is straightforward. All invoices are stored in the system so you can drill down to find as much detail as you need. You can apply nominal or analysis codes so you can easily pull up the required information. There is full transparency from start to finish.
Fantastic support
The whole team has been very impressed with the support provided by HomeMaster as this was a particular issue with their previous provider.
Lisa Crawford comments: “Regarding support, this has been fantastic both throughout the project itself and through the support helpdesk. I have used the helpdesk a lot since Go Live to raise some queries that have needed resolved; it is night and day compared to what we had in recent years. Support calls are acknowledged and responded to extremely quickly which is great. The responses themselves are very clear, explained very well and the support team have been great to deal with. Any issues we have raised so far have been resolved very quickly and to our satisfaction. The online portal is also very useful for checking manuals/FAQ’s before raising a support request.”
Craig Brock, Chief Operating Officer for Designer Software commented “Historically the expectation within the housing sector is migrating to a new system is a challenging and painful process. This has proven to be a barrier for organisations to benefit from the adoption of new technologies. HomeMaster is revolutionising the implementation timeline and enabling customers to quickly deliver new ways of working and engaging with stakeholders. It is testament to the team at New Gorbals to have achieved an ambitious project in the timescales. I am delighted that New Gorbals are already realising tangible financial gains from the adoption of HomeMaster and we look forward to a long and successful partnership.”