Fuji Xerox provides great tips on how to run a smoother back office.
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How much valuable space are paper documents taking up in your office? How long do you spend going through filing cabinets looking for them? How much are you spending on stamps, envelopes and couriers? How long do documents sit on people’s desks waiting to be actioned while a prospective vendor or landlord waits? |
Getting on top of the endless mountains of paperwork that tie up so much time and effort in the real estate industry should be a top priority for any agency – even the most technologically advanced. In fact, the more things change the more they stay the same. While the digital age has transformed many of our back office procedures and sped up dealing with clients, it brings its own set of ‘paperwork’ issues, such as having to work with both digital documents and old fashioned paper contracts and agreements.
Here’s a few ideas for getting your paperwork systems better organised to save time and money, so you can focus more time on meeting prospective vendors and getting more listings or even relaxing in your own home instead of someone else’s!
Top tip
The top tip is whatever size agency you run, the old industry saying of ‘location, location, location’ should apply equally to your document systems.
You need to analyse the way you scan, file, store, create and share key documents. A lot of support effort goes into scanning – digitising – paper documents such as signed leases, revised contracts or tenancy applications. Scanning documents one page at a time is extremely inefficient compared to batch scanning them multiple pages at a time.
More importantly, consider what information you will capture from each document you scan, and how will that information be used to name and store the digitised document so it’s easy to find later. Many of us fall into the same trap we fell into with paper documents – dumping everything into a big digital filing cabinet without any organised structure.
So make sure you use the latest character recognition scanning software with your scanner properly networked to your computer set up. Otherwise you still waste a lot of time doing things manually when documents could easily be scanned and located in the right place in just a few seconds. This then helps speed up your other procedures – such as trying to find copies of key documents from your mobile when you’re out at an open home.
Into the cloud
Another money and time saving tip is to use the latest cloud based document storage services to save on your own IT hardware costs and make sharing digital documents between you and a prospective vendor or a buyer’s solicitor more secure and much simpler, therfore cutting out the need to attach documents to emails for example.
Then look at how the content of your current paper documents can be better handled in an electronic format. Standard forms such as Condition Reports, Open House Registers, and Sales and Rental Appraisals should be made electronically consistent and accessible online. Every agency, whether you’re part of a group or you are a standalone office, should implement a consistent Electronic Document Management system around a centralised, web-based archive to ensure easy access for all staff – both in the office and on the road. You can also link selected clients and suppliers to this system.
In short, your goal should be to automate as many document processes as possible. For instance, imagine this workflow all happening in a few seconds: scan a rental application, automatically file the applicant’s name and address in contacts folder, automatically link and check with tenants register, automatically save digital copy to the landlord’s folder for their instant online reference, and save the applicant bank details to the rental role for rent collection.
It’s doable, so why not start doing it?
The Fuji Xerox solution
These are all issues that can be solved with a phone call to Fuji Xerox Australia. They have created a real estate solutions bundle that accommodates your need to scan, file, store, print and share key documents and information. Their bundle includes the latest document sharing and management software, a cloud based storage solution and your choice of a Connect To application that can integrate with most CRM’s with one of their eligible ‘multifunction devices’. This is basically a sophisticated “smart” colour printer, copier, scanner and document storer in one high quality Fuji Xerox device.
Yes, that’s where it all starts with a great quality colour printer – because in all the excitement of smartphones and cloud technology the big tip is never forget how important high quality colour brochures and smart direct marketing postcards are to winning business.
For full details on the Real Estate Solutions bundle from Fuji Xerox Australia, call 1300 367 095 to take advantage of their special offer before 12 December 2014 or visit www.fxasolutions.com.au/realestate