August 2021 | PRNewswire — RealFoundations, the world’s foremost provider of management consulting and managed services for the real estate industry, today announced the completion of a 15-month technology project enabling FirstKey Homes to further enhance its operational excellence as a leader in the burgeoning single-family rental (SFR) market. The Yardi® Enterprise Transformation Initiative, or YETI, focused on streamlining FirstKey’s instance of Yardi Voyager®, a leading software solution for real estate investment and property management.
FirstKey Homes is a leading provider of single-family rental homes in markets across the West, Midwest, and Southeast that provide its family of residents with safe, affordable, and well-maintained homes that include the space they need and the amenities they desire.
The company initially retained RealFoundations to perform a diagnostic assessment on its Yardi Voyager platform to identify challenges with utilization, strengthen management of portfolio assets and performance reporting, and also support future growth. The assessment highlighted opportunities to leverage Voyager’s robust, native functionality more effectively to replace many time-consuming and error-prone manual tasks.
The transformation initiative delivered more than 70 improvements identified during the diagnostic, spanning corporate and property accounting, job cost, fixed assets, operations, marketing, leasing, maintenance and reporting. The work focused on optimizing business processes, redesigning the existing chart of accounts and onboarding of Yardi® Fixed Assets. Another important outcome was the delivery of an accelerated training program to ensure enterprise-wide adoption of the enhanced solution and industry-leading practices.
FirstKey Homes now benefit from:
- An optimized platform that enhances performance and response time.
- A redesigned chart of accounts structure with flexibility for future portfolio growth.
- Elimination of manual calculations in managing equipment and other assets with the implementation of Yardi Fixed Assets.
- Access to segmented accounting to allow for deeper reporting and analysis.
- Leaner workflows and business processes across major enterprise functions and roles.
- Utilization of Yardi Voyager functionality to leverage standardized reports while minimizing dependency on custom reporting, significantly reducing administrative effort.
- A new library of quick reference guides and training collateral to accelerate employee adoption of Yardi Voyager.
“We partnered with RealFoundations because of their deep experience in the single-family rental home space and record of success. The project yielded all the benefits identified by the diagnostic and came in on time and budget despite the challenges created by working in a remote environment. The completion of this project provides a solid foundation to further scale our business and achieve our growth plans now and into the future.”
— Jack Brennan, Chief Financial Officer, FirstKey Homes
Notably, the project was almost entirely executed over distance through RealFoundations’ Modern Digital Workplace (MDW), powered by Microsoft, which allows the firm and its clients to collaborate in real-time from anywhere via any device with an Internet connection.
“Whether your real estate company is implementing Yardi solutions or another ERP for the first time or you want to improve the performance and/or utilization of an existing system, RealFoundations can help. Working over distance, our consultants worldwide have deftly led dozens of these technology transformation projects. FirstKey’s embrace of the MDW was a major factor in the project’s success.”
— Brian Daugherty, Senior Managing Consultant, RealFoundations
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To learn more about how RealFoundations can help you run real estate better, contact us by email or +1 214 292 7000.
Our Yardi Experience
As a premier Yardi Independent Consultant, RealFoundations has significant experience implementing, upgrading and supporting the full suite of Yardi® products for our clients across various real estate market segments. Our practitioners are proficient in all Yardi Marketing, Property Management, Procurement, Asset Management and Investment solutions. Since 2000, we have completed 80+ Yardi implementations/upgrades and developed unique design workbooks that document cross-module configuration. Our know-how and cross-module experience in various Yardi products empower us to meet our clients’ most important functional requirements and consistently deliver valuable outcomes. To learn more, visit Yardi Solutions for Proven Real Estate Success.
About FirstKey Homes
FirstKey Homes, LLC is a privately owned, single-family rental home property management company with corporate headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. FirstKey Homes manages homes through local operations in Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Memphis, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, Phoenix, St. Louis, and Tampa/Ft. Myers. With a mission to give our family of residents a place to call home, FirstKey Homes provides homes that are affordable, free from major maintenance and repair costs, and located in a variety of neighborhoods.
About Yardi
Yardi® develops and supports industry-leading investment and property management software for all types and sizes of real estate companies. Established in 1984, Yardi is based in Santa Barbara, CA and serves clients worldwide.
About Us
RealFoundations (RF) is the world’s foremost professional services firm focused solely on the real estate industry. Through our delivery of Management Consulting and Managed Services, we help companies that develop, own, operate, service or invest in real estate make better, more profitable decisions. We are proud partners to over 500 real estate companies around the globe, providing accelerated solutions that solve some of real estate’s most complex challenges. We Make Real Estate Run Better.
