The Maryland Management Company is a leading property management firm in the greater Baltimore area. The company owns approximately 65% of its units and manages the remainder on a fee schedule.
Top property management company better keeps up with processing tenant information
Maryland Management needed a more efficient method for storing and transferring tenant applications and leases for processing by the corporate office. Finding a copy of a lease was a difficult process for the property management company which has 9,000 units and an industry average apartment turnover rate of 41%.
Barcodes and electronic indexing speed up the leasing process
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 chose DocuWare because he wanted a solution that used XML and integrated with his accounting software. With DocuWare, the property manager prints an application and adds a barcode. The completed application is scanned into DocuWare where it is electronically routed through a workflow process to ensure a credit and criminal background check along with manager approval have all been completed.
If approved, the property manager prints a lease agreement which is also barcoded. Once the lease is signed, it is 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 email correspondence relating to a tenant is also archived in DocuWare, streamlining issue resolution.
Faster document retrieval
'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, explains Szczytko. Previously, it would take hours or days to retrieve and send documents. Now it takes just a few seconds.
