The Community Housing Sector is set for a Financial Technology Revolution

The Australian community housing sector is facing an unprecedented increase in demand in the wake of COVID-19. To manage this flux, Community housing providers (CHPs) must invest in technology to automate manual processes, enable data-led decision making, and effectively report on outcomes.

Already we are seeing increased government funding, with the Victorian Government pledging $5.3 billion and the NSW Government upping its total social housing budget to $4.4 billion. We expect these developments to continue over the next few years, as state governments prepare for the increasing demand for community and affordable housing as cities grow in an increasingly unpredictable economic environment.

The Australian Council of Social Service surveyed community sector workers in September 2020 and reported the following changes from respondents since March 2020:

• 61% reported an increased overall level of demand for their service.
• 58% observed decreases in the numbers of volunteers actively engaged in their service.
• 41% said their service’s capacity to meet contracted deliverables had decreased.

There is an almost universal expectation that demand for affordable housing will increase in the coming years as a result of the unstable economic outlook.”

Australia’s social and affordable housing sector: a resilient response to COVID-19, NHFIC, CHIA, 2020

Demand is rising, pressure on staff is at an all-time high and there is money on the table for the most capable, prepared CHPs who can prove their value.

How Can Technology Help?

In a recent Experteq report, Margaret Maljkovic, COO, Link Housing made the following statement in relation to how technology could help CHPs address challenges posed by

Good quality and accessible technology enables improved services, efficiency, flexibility and meeting contractual reporting requirements…[Technology] should free our staff from processing tasks and enable them to focus more on relationships and service delivery. Technology can help us more effectively manage our assets, show value for money and report on outcomes.”

Increase Efficiency by Removing Manual Processes

With uncertainty as the only constant in the community housing sector right now, the first step is to create time to think strategically. So, why is your Finance team still handling data manually every month? It’s 2021. Let the computers deal with that and remove the risks of human error resulting in unpleasant, avoidable surprises.

By extracting and aggregating data from disparate systems, and automating reporting processes, Calumo gives Finance back this time, allowing them to spend it strategically analyzing the data and ensuring the organization has timely, accurate information to make the right moves.

Staying Agile and Flexible to Cater for Changing Markets

“The only certainty is that after the initial [government] changes, there will be more changes. Since client support, including housing, requires governments budgetary appropriation, there will always be amendments to priorities that will impact on the industry,” Tony Smith, CFO, Wentworth Community Housing stated in the same Experteq report.

Visibility of the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow, along with regular forecasting, and the ability to model different scenarios for growth over a longer time frame are all crucial for success in a rapidly changing community housing sector.

Calumo makes this a breeze, allowing business users to slice and dice data against any scenario they choose. Perhaps the government announces more funding or pandemic flares create new housing restrictions. Calumo enables your finance team to change their assumptions, create what-if scenarios and share them with the business as fast as the community housing landscape changes.

Proving Value is Essential to Secure Funding

The measurement of outcomes will be an increasing focus point. We need to know that what we are doing is making a difference and works well for all our clients” – Margaret Maljkovic, COO, Link Housing.

To prove long-term sustainability of services and secure additional funding, CHPs must have strong evidence of value, based on historic trends in the context of future plans. There is also a pressing need to forecast rent rolls and property costs more efficiently as housing portfolios grow.

Calumo retains your historical data after integration, so all forecasting is backed by long-term trends. Additionally, every report is updated in real-time and accessible through any web browser, so everyone in the organization can get the financial information they need, when they need it. This enables executives to confidently communicate early and often with external stakeholders to increase understanding, show value, and build organizational credibility and alignment.

The next few years present a unique challenge and opportunity for Australia’s community housing sector. Calumo is already helping

Haven Home Safe Leverages Technology to Save Over 100 Hours on Reporting Every Year

Haven Home Safe (HHS) is one of Australia’s only fully integrated homelessness services and affordable housing providers. It has been providing homelessness support services and affordable rental housing to vulnerable Victorians for over four decades. HHS is a not-for-profit organization, employing nearly 200 staff across four offices with over 1800 homes under management, a balance sheet of assets worth $300 million and an annual turnover of $30 million.

Why did Haven Home Safe Need a System like Calumo?

For many years, HHS was looking for an effective way to integrate its asset management systems with its housing management and general ledger systems.

Fifteen years ago, HHS was servicing 200 affordable rental properties, mostly in regional Victoria. In 2020, this number has soared to over 1800 properties across a growing geographic footprint from the outer suburbs of metropolitan Melbourne, to Geelong through to Mildura on the banks of the Murray River and most regional centers in between.

With an ambitious strategic plan to house and support more people, HHS needed to scale at speed. They turned to Calumo.

What Impact did Calumo have for Haven Home Safe?

The benefits HHS has experienced can be broken down into five different areas:

Hundreds of Hours in Time Savings

“The process efficiency has been astronomical,” said Haven Home Safe general manager, Andrew Chittenden. “It’s been a game-changer for the finance team to have a tool that can grab this data and produce meaningful reports so fast.”

By way of example, before Calumo, it would take four hours to run a trial balance, it can now be achieved in a matter of seconds. The monthly reports would take days combining data from multiple sources and manipulating the data in Excel–now they are produced automatically without any effort.

Faster, Smarter Decision Making

Previously, because it was such a manual and time-consuming process, we were spending all of our time finalizing profit and loss reports at the end of the month and there was no time left to understand the numbers. The team is capable, but the inefficiencies in the systems wouldn’t allow them to apply their skills” – Andrew Chittenden, general manager, Haven Home Safe

This is now a thing of the past.

Analysis is now in the hands of both finance and business people. Making decisions autonomously, with data and with confidence has become commonplace.

Greater Ownership Amongst Management

Managers can now review, modify, and complete their budgets using direct entry into Calumo. Because managers have created the budget, ownership of results naturally rises – which has boosted engagement enormously. What’s more, they have a level of access which would have previously required a one-on-one briefing with a senior finance member.

A Move from Score Keeping to Smarter Business Analysis

Across the organization, the focus has moved from simple quarterly financial reporting in arrears, to business intelligence analysis–allowing for managers to look at real-time actual versus budget reporting, providing more visibility over expenses and the ability to make smarter decisions.

Empowering the Board With Actionable Insights

Calumo has enabled the HHS Finance team to provide the Board with more strategically relevant reports, updated in real-time, to better inform business decision making.

I cannot emphasize what a success this has been for us. The results have exceeded our expectations. Calumo gives our people, from the frontline to the Board, the tools they need to make the informed decisions that are necessary to grow and scale our enterprise to allow us to help more people.”

– Andrew Chittenden, general manager, Haven Home Safe

If you’re in the community housing sector and want to prepare for growth, then reach out to us today.