Introduction
Joe Hiller started working in June of 2021 at Ely HRA as their new Executive Director. This is his first time working in housing and it’s been a learning experience. He has prior background in sales and management and has earned a bachelors degree in accounting as well.
The Opportunity to Simplify
Ely was using another software platform previously and it was very difficult to learn and maintain. Their prior executive director had been looking into switching to Doorways but hadn’t yet made the decision. When Joe inherited the position, he felt it made sense to continue the upgrade process to the more advanced Doorways system. He says, “Things in Doorways are easier to learn and navigate. In the previous software, processes were disjointed, you had to go all over the software to accomplish a given action. On the other hand, Doorways is a lot simpler, and processes are fluid.” He continued, “Everything became simple. That was the overall success we realized. It’s so easy to work with. Additionally, my housing manager appreciated how smooth the transition to the new system was.” Using the previous system was described as “not user friendly” and they never had any formal training. This created disruptions in their workflows and frustrations amongst the team. After making the jump to Doorways, Joe was free to focus on running housing operations, or as he put it: “Everyone at Kanso has been great to work with. Now, the biggest challenge we face is managing the dynamics of the tenants that live in our units. This means adjusting and working with the various personalities and fixing housing issues as they arise. Most days are great!”
Why Ely Chose Doorways
“After seeing Doorways in action, I knew that it made the most sense to adopt it when I saw how easy it was to do data entry – it’s so simple to go into a tenant’s account and make adjustments. Even with the reports you can quickly jump around, identify which ones you need, and get them generated. I use them to monitor account balances… it’s great. The work orders feature is too – the maintenance technicians get emails as work orders are assigned to them and they can keep up to date as information changes or is added.”
How Kanso Helped Ely Make the Transition
“In the beginning it was a challenge, all transitions are difficult, and I was worried… in the back of my mind it was always lingering. There’s a lot of legwork that goes into a software change and we knew it was coming regardless of where we went to… however, once we got started and past the initial phase we felt fine – that we were in good hands.”
The Results
“First off, Doorways saved us a lot of time. Second off, we’re tracking down our rents better and have gained more insight and control over our collections. Since we made the switch, we’re just collecting more and it’s apparent when we miss a collection. From there it’s very easy to generate late fee letters on past due balances and send those out; it’s been healthy for our organization.“
See For Yourself
Are you looking to simplify your experience like Joe? Give Kanso a call to see how we can save you time, money, and make your everyday operations a breeze! 303-308-1000 Ext. 5
