Over nine years of business, we have seen a lot. A lot of successes, along with a few failures.
There is a common denominator we see with both.
Planning.
The more planning – the greater the success.
The less planning – the greater the chance of failure.
Planning to Succeed
With the beauty of hindsight, we have the following advice for our clients looking to migrate to cloud-based technology.
Plan.
We have seen many agencies jump in head first, looking to cut costs and manage the process themselves without any forward-planning.
By all means, taking the migration process in-house is fine – just ensure you have a well-thought-out plan. Have goals and targets and KPIs in place to meet.
When migrating software, certain requirements must be met. If you fail to meet these requirements, it can have a severe impact on your audit for that financial year (in worst case fines from your local governing body). It can also impact your clients if they’re not on board with the process.
Your migration checklist
We always recommend engaging a professional 3rd party to manage this process for you. This will ensure no part of the process is missed.
However, for those who do want to manage the process themselves, we have some light reading for you to ensure you tick every box.
Start with our ‘5 to-do’s before you migrate’ then head over to our Inhouse Migration Checklist.
You can also download our migration checklist and keep it handy throughout the process.
Keeping Landlords on your side
An important part of the process is keeping your Landlords on-side.
Information is key.
Notify them in advance so they feel that they’re part of the process and the decision. It also helps to dismiss any negative feedback when you reach ‘go-live’ stage.
Below is an example of wording that you can cut and paste and send out as a mail merge to your Landlords.
DATE DD/MM/YYYY
Dear {Owner First Name},
ABC Realty is constantly looking at ways for improving our client experience.
From 1 July 2021, we will be migrating our current rental trust accounting to a new cloud-based software package that will offer many improvements for landlords and tenants.
At the end of July 2021, you will notice a different look to your monthly statement. This will offer a better and clearer understanding of the accounting information.
We hope you will like the new look of the statement. We will update you with some more enhancements shortly.
Please contact us anytime if you have any queries.
Yours faithfully,
ABC Realty Property Management Team
When all is said and done
Migrating to cloud technology may seem like a big leap from the outset.
However, once you have taken the jump and made the move, your business will be all the better for it, with streamlined processes and fewer, time-wasting administrative tasks
It is at this stage, we generally receive calls of thanks and gratitude from our newly migrated clients who are basking in the success of their move to the cloud. Is it your time?
Jane Morgan is the Director of End of Month Angels, a consultancy firm specialising in Trust Accounting. Jane knows the legislative requirements of running a successful Real Estate office through her 23 years’ industry experience. Don’t trust just anyone with your trust accounting. Book an appointment with an End of Month Angel today.