Case Study

Mosscare Housing

Mosscare St Vincent's Housing Group prides itself on being a community based landlord.  They work with customers across the North West to create thriving neighbourhoods.

With more than 100 staff needing access to paper documents relating to rental agreements, contracts, invoices, gas and electric safety certificates and property repair details for more than 8,000 properties, it's easy to see why MSV decided they needed digital document management software.

The organisation's key goals were to centralise information and control workflow.  High functionality and a low Total Cost of Ownership were also important.

All documents are now stored in DocuWare with their digital journey starting in the mailroom.  All incoming paper documents are scanned, emails and any faxes are captured digitally which means documents only move  through their offices electronically.

To achieve this workflow, documents relating to tenants and properties are indexed - categorised and stored -  in a specific way.  This enables an easy search of the electronic housing and property filing cabinets by anyone with authorised access.

Automating Compliance Processes

Compliance processes such as gas and electric safety checks have now been automated.  Certificates were previously written on site and when the paper form arrived back to the office, they were manually scanned in and then stored.  Each certificate took around 15 minutes to process.

If the certificates were in bad condition, hard to read or even lost, an engineer had to go back out again to do the safety checks.

Across 8,000 properties this equated to large volumes of paper and the potential for errors.  It was difficult to produce accurate reports on the number of properties serviced creating yet more admin for staff.

DocuWare removed all these problems and saved Mosscare St Vincent's more than 230 annual working days and a huge £22,000.

The certificates now go straight into DocuWare from the mobile devices of staff carrying out work in tenant properties.  They are stored in the appropriate filing cabinet with no manual intervention. 

Tenants are required to receive a physical copy which is posted but should it not arrive, it's not a problem to send it again as they're all easily accessible to staff in DocuWare.

The same certificates can  be accessed by Gas Auditors directly from DocuWare with read only access and multifactor authentication. 

"Auditors can pick any property they want to check as all the documents are available and accessible" says MSV's ICT Manager.

DocTech's Solution

Mosscare has to remain up-to-date with data information retention regulations regarding the manner in which a tenant’s details are handled.  This requires linking numerous documents together and relating them back to a tenant, alongside having rules in place so documents are only kept as long as legally allowed.  All  this is easily achieved with DocuWare.

Document Security

Document security is also no longer a concern.  DocTech were able to react to challenges faced by Housing Associations where Housing Management Portals were being breached.  Another layer of security has been added to the system as well as multi-factor authentication. 

"DocTech made security changes in the background without any issue to users."

The start of the Coronavirus Pandemic in early 2020 meant that many of Mosscare's staff had to work from home, something that had never been done before.  This meant a rapid roll out of ICT equipment to employees and with that, the need to know exactly who had what.  

An ICT Equipment Registration Form was implemented and signed electronically by staff to say they had received their equipment.  The process of electronically sending and receiving documentation using Digital Signatures meant it was easy to ascertain and confirm ownership.  The relevant member of staff would receive an email with a request for their signature which would then be validated using their mobile phone. 

All signed documents are stored in DocuWare and their status updated.  A fully compliant digital audit is attached to each document and staff are emailed when the process is complete. 

Managing Yearly Rent Increases

Rent increase letters go out each year and DocuWare ensures that when they hit the mat of a tenants home, the details are already stored in the system and accessible to staff. 

Any phone calls the contact centre receive means they have instant access to rent details so they can respond accordingly there and then.  8,000 letters are sent and recorded in DocuWare within an hour.

Summarising:

"The use of DocuWare has evolved over the years which is the beauty of the product.  We keep bolting on additions as the software continues to work the way we want it to work.

The fact we’ve been customers for many years shows that you guys are in it for the long term and genuinely want us to use your products and services to improve our business.  The team there are always on hand for additional support and training."