Oh no! Rent statement time again.

As part of an on-going survey on the print requirements for Members, CDP Print Management has uncovered an area that is probably the most contentious and troublesome part of an Registered Providers’ business...managing Rent Statements and Rent Increase Letters.

“When you mention “Rent Statements”, most people tend to sigh or raise their eyes to heaven” says Tim Fitzgerald, CDP Business Development Director. “Believe it or not, so many different departments actually get involved in Statements, but for one reason or another no one seems to take overall control. And then things start to fall apart...”

CDP contacted 50 Registered Providers to get their views on how they managed their statement runs. From the responses, CDP identified 5 key causes for the inherent problems many Registered Providers face when producing Rent Statements:

• Statements are output every ¼ or 6 months. Because it is not a regular everyday occurrence, the skill sets needed to produce these effectively and efficiently are not there.

• A lot of I.T. systems in Registered Providers are not built to output data the way they want it to appear on a statement. Hence a lot of additional I.T. work (and time), is needed to make this happen.

• The above causes delays in getting statements out. This then creates problems further down the line when tenants query their out of date statement.

• A lot of statements are produced, matched, and collated by hand. This causes errors and mis-matched statements to go out.

• Because many statements are manually produced, the drain on resources in many Registered Providers can be a great strain on staffing levels in other key areas for up to a week.

“I am sure that a lot of Members can identify with the above problems,” says Tim. “Point 3 above is probably the worst part of a statement run,” he explains. “From the feedback, even a statement that is just over a week late gets a flood of phone calls or office visits from irate tenants asking why their statement hasn’t shown last week’s payment”.

This causes severe overload on frontline reception staff and call centre operators.

“This really isn’t their job. They should be dealing with emergencies or housing queries, or receiving new tenant enquiries,” comments Tim.

CDP have been producing statements for a wide range of businesses in the public and private sectors for many years. “All of the information is very, very sensitive” says Tim “and we have built up the skills and processes needed to ensure that a statement goes out correctly and on time...because we do it every day”.

“We can’t force Associations to use CDP for their Rent Statements or Rent Increase letters” adds Tim, “but I would ask them to review what they’re doing now and ask themselves – “could we do it better, quicker, more accurately, and on time?”

To help Registered Providers discover whether they could improve their statement processes, CDP provide a Free Health Check. From this they deliver a White Paper that suggests ways in which the whole process could be improved, and where potential cost savings could be implemented.

“As a final note, when we identify cost savings then we guarantee these to the Provider. So, having a more efficient and effective statement process that actually saves a Provider money has to be a good thing for them and their tenants”, says Tim

For more information on CDP visit  www.cdp.co.uk or call 0151 724 7000 or email tim@cdp.co.uk.