Social Housing
The issue of housing, and more importantly affordable housing, seems to move higher up the UK political and social agenda every day. Socioeconomic trends mean that more and more housing is required, and increasingly people find it harder to find the property they want.
It is against this backdrop that Housing Associations operate. Along with Local Authorities, Housing Associations and other Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are the primary providers of affordable housing in the UK. However, the trend over recent years has seen increasing volumes of housing stock transfer from local authority ownership to housing associations.
To help them meet the challenges of modern social housing provision, we think that associations require back office systems that are reliable, powerful and cost effective. Which is where SunSystems comes in.
"SunSystems is used by more than 120 housing associations in the UK to meet their financial management, budgeting & forecasting, business intelligence and corporate compliance requirements. And over 70 of them are managed by Foundation Systems."
This means that we have extensive knowledge of the housing market place and in depth understanding of the business and technology issues affecting housing associations. Our housing customers are looked after by dedicated Account Managers, we run free, housing focused seminars and user events, and we develop specific solutions tailored to housing associations.
Due to the widespread use of SunSystems in this market sector it has been integrated with every one of the leading housing management systems including OPENHousing from IBS, Universal Housing from Comino, arcHouse from Orchard, Academy Housing from Capita Software Services, QL Housing from Aareon, and Sx3 Housing (formerly FIRST Housing) from Sx3. As a result, you can be sure that your system will work as an integrated whole, sharing information in real time if required, avoiding duplicated data, reducing re-keying and eliminating input errors.
In particular, we have formed an alliance with IBS to provide a one-stop total solution where associations wish to implement an integrated financial management and housing management system at the same time. Development work is underway to provide standard, out-of-the-box integration between SunSystems and OPENHousing.
Further benefits of using SunSystems from Foundation include:
- Multi-dimensional analysis to allow reporting by many different criteria including scheme reporting
- Drill down capability from high level financial information down to repairs, maintenance and rents in the housing system
- Integrated links to Document Management Software to greatly improve workflow
- Enquiry access to key budgeting and accounting information for non-financial users, such as housing officers, via the SunSystems Vision tool
- Full compliance with regulatory and compliance reporting requirements, such as NHF reports and Housing Corporation returns
- The ability to handle a variety of VAT rates, including the situation of partial exemption
- The ability to handle sub-contractor withholding tax
- Scalability to covers user numbers from single user to many hundreds
- Implementations controlled by PRINCE2 accredited Project Managers
- Low total cost of ownership
If you would like to speak to one of our industry experts please contact Foundation Systems
