Having been using Mobysoft’s RentSense software for its income collection processes since 2012, Adactus Housing has recently been working with Mobysoft to automate their rent arrears’ case management processes in order to remove further cases from its income officers’ inboxes.
Mike Murphy, head of income and leasehold services, Adactus Housing Group, said, “We are a development organisation and very focused on building, with almost 400 new properties scheduled to be built by the end of 2018. We are therefore always looking at how we can further improve things and deliver efficiencies, so we very rarely leave things unchanged and always look to work in a smarter, more streamlined manner.
“There is also the challenge of universal credit. By March 2018, every Adactus housing officer will have properties in fully-UC areas, and we’ve already found that UC cases typically take three times longer to manage than ‘normal’ arrears cases.”
As the project was scoped out, Mobysoft worked with Adactus to review its processes, with the aim of the automated solution to remove more cases and free up more time for the income officers. RentSense would use its predictive analytics to forecast if tenants would pay their rent that week. If it was predicted that the tenant would not pay, and that would breach their agreement, then RentSense would move that tenant automatically along the process to the next stage. RentSense would then communicate the new stage to Adactus’ housing management system.
Murphy said, “The predictive nature of the automation gives us information about our true levels of arrears, enables us focus on money outstanding to the organisation, and it reduces the need to look at some cases because the system automates them.”
The RentSense auto-escalation processes synchronise with Adactus’ other systems as a file gets uploaded into their housing management system, enabling them to batch print letters rather than on an ad-hoc basis as well as enabling automated calls and texts to tenants.
Murphy said, “RentSense, coupled with the auto escalation, is helping us maintain our performance, Our arrears are currently 1.76 per cent, in spite of universal credit, and we’ve freed up the equivalent of two members of staff.
“It is not unusual to get to the notice of seeking possession (NOSP) stage and then a tenant pays. If the arrears are paid off, tenants go back to the start of the process, and this really saves staff a lot of time.”
