The system we were using prior to Re-Leased was residential based, which didn’t take in every aspect of the commercial property side of things. It wasn’t a cloud-based system, so we can work from it wherever we are – we were using RP Data Mac Pro. I found the accounting side of it was difficult to understand, it sort of just threw everything in together. You couldn’t find a pattern of how things were transferred and you had to store documents in different places.
Initially, we were referred to Re-Leased by our IT managers who told us to play around with it. Then we requested a demo log in, so we could test it out and play around, and then we requested some reports to see if the system would work with what we’re looking for specifically. It proved quite quickly that Re-Leased was the right solution for us. It ticks all the boxes – it is easy to navigate. The Re-Leased team is really eager to work with our team to make sure we get everything we want out of the software.
We had key Re-Leased personnel guiding the end-to-end set up. The released team is always there – even if we had an urgent issue and said “call us” they responded so quickly. With previous systems we would have to sometimes wait a week [for support]. Sometimes we would have to keep calling to remind them that we have an issue. But the response speed is incredible with Re-Leased.
Initially, getting set up and integrating was a bit of a stressful time just to make sure everything was right and that we could still run the business. But we worked through it and Re-Leased was very supportive and did a lot of background work, which we probably only know half of (laughs). They did an excellent job with that.
For example, talk about your growth, your efficiency and the time you have saved. We have grown the size of our portfolio and now we’re getting new team members, too! Time spent managing arrears is saved, with reports and the ability to send an invoice directly to the tenant from the system. Our landlord recording is more efficient and the feedback we have received has been great. As I said to my director: as we get more information into the system, we will have a hub of literally every document required in the one spot, and I find that far more efficient.
I would say Re-Leased is intuitive and it is user friendly. An example of that is we have a new staff member who just started and finds Re-Leased easy to navigate and has had minimal training. Also, our director isn’t computer savvy but he can navigate around Re-Leased without any problem – it is a very easy system to use.
I have actually spoken to a few agents since we signed up, and I've said to them it is very simple to understand from day one. You can sort of run with it straight away. That’s what’s great – you don't have to wait for it to be all set up and there is no down time at all.
I think it has given us an improved service offering for both landlords and tenants, specifically by giving us the ability to manage everything in one program. If we get inquiries, for example, we don't have to sift through files – it’s all in Re-Leased. We used to keep our lease documents in our server and used to have information in the old system, and then there would be, you know, paperfiles in the filing cabinet so you would have to run around everywhere: invoices for expenses – absolutely everything – is in there. And that’s the same for tenants, they are provided the information they request straight away. And plus, it’s easy for them to understand and rental history is completely transparent. It’s all there, so there is no confusion.
