“Mentioning Unity in our presentations when we tender for a complex has given us the upper hand. When we explain the tracking that Unity offers to the Trustee’s, they immediately want our services.”
Effective Estate Management (EEM) offers complete estate management solutions for Sectional Title complexes and Section 21 freehold residential housing estates. Their services include the financial and administrative aspects, as well as the hands-on, day-to-day running of each estate.
They are responsible for the management of over 2,000 Sectional Title and Homeowner’s Association units in over 30 complexes in the northern and north-western suburbs of Johannesburg.
Their challenges
Managing so many complexes comes with a lot of admin. There are also always a few balls in the air. Apart from the usual monthly financial and administrative aspects, there’s also consistently new maintenance projects on the go. And don’t forget about the daily tracking of issues and complaints.
Before Unity, the team at EEM relied on paper trails, email chains, historical documents and good old human memory.
As you can imagine, this wasn’t an efficient way to work. Not only was a lot of precious time wasted, but there was always the possibility of critical information getting lost or slipping through the cracks.
How EEM uses Unity
“The best thing about Unity is its history tracker. We can load tickets and items onto different assets, and in three or four years time when we have a problem again in any particular unit, we can easily see if it is something that has happened previously or if it’s a whole new issue. For me, that is the biggest benefit.”
EEM uses Unity as their to-do list. As new projects come up, the team will load a ticket for it.
Each morning, they go onto Unity to get a quick overview of recently completed projects and still what requires action. The tickets that require action work as the to-do list for the day. It helps them with knowing what to prioritise and how to organise their time.
They use Unity for four aspects of their business.
- Logging day-to-day issues, serving as the to-do list for each day.
- Invoice and financial tracking. The team logs a ticket for each invoice and then sends a ticket to trustees for approval. Once approved, they send the ticket to the management company that handles payments. They will not pay any invoice that doesn’t have a Unity number.
- Maintenance tracking. End-to-end process tracker.
- An accurate history of trustee approvals. They don’t go ahead with any project without approval. Having a digital record of the trustee approvals ensures that they are in the clear should anyone question anything later on.
EEMs estate managers are all hands-on with Unity, using it every day to work on their tickets. It’s part of their job description and is incorporated into their daily work schedule.
Why Unity has been beneficial
Using Unity has helped EEM build stronger relationships with the trustees that they work with. They’ve found that trustees are always surprised that there’s actually something out there that has been specifically designed to help property managers manage complexes.
Their trustees use the online platform for approvals as well as to monitor what their estate managers are doing. They see it as a way to check-in and get a quick overview of what queries/projects are completed and what is still outstanding.
While the trustees don’t physically use the platform (in terms of logging tickets), they’re just happy knowing that their estate manager is using it. It’s created an open and honest communication stream between trustees and estate managers (a huge benefit for this type of relationship).
Unity gives EEM a unified approach
Using Unity allows the team at EEM to have a unified approach. Because all of their estate managers work the same way, it’s an easy transition if they have to move between complexes.
It also saves time and cuts out doing double work, benefiting everyone in the work chain.
Contact Unity today to find out how your team can get a competitive edge in your next pitch.