What are the Real Costs of Paper Files? Part 2 of 2
In our last post about the real costs of paper files, we covered the applicant lifecycle, breaking down the actual costs, as well as processing the applications. This post will cover maintaining paper applications as well as how to decrease your costs with Haven Connect’s virtual document collection.
Maintaining the Applications
During our discussions with property managers, one of our most surprising learnings was how expensive it is to maintain a large number of paper files. We found out that on average, you can expect to spend just as much maintaining the files as you spent to have them processed. So if you spent $8,000 to process the files for your waitlist opening, you will end up spending about $16,000 over the lifetime of those files.
Arguably one of the biggest reasons for this is the loss in employee productivity. Every time an applicant submits a new document, the eligibility specialist will need to locate the applicant’s file and insert the document. Whenever a letter is sent to an applicant, a copy will need to be made so it can also get inserted into the file. Calls will need to be logged as well as changes or updates to the file or the person’s position on the waitlist.
There are two things to keep in mind with this:
First, because of the tedium involved in logging and tracking all of these activities, they frequently don’t happen. As a result, maintaining compliance at the site level becomes difficult if not impossible, and the chances of failing a HUD audit become a very uncomfortable possibility.
Second, when employees are performing these tedious and time-consuming activities, they can’t do anything else. This means either less actual work gets done, or you have to hire temps or shuffle employees to different sites.
Additionally, maintaining paper files for many years comes with other numerous risks that increase costs like loss, damage, and theft. We all know property managers who’ve wasted time looking for lost or misplaced files, or who’ve suffered the misfortune of losing entire swaths of files due to disasters like flood or fire.
How to Decrease Application Processing and Maintenance Costs
Haven Connect’s Virtual Document Collection solves these problems for you. When you open a waitlist using Haven Connect, the applications will be instantly usable and error-free the moment you close the waitlist. You won’t have to wait 2 weeks for your temps to input all of them into Excel or deal with the associated data entry errors.
Additionally, each time you request a document from an applicant, the applicant will be able to submit it through Haven Connect so it is directly associated with their application. No more tracking down files and logging activities. They can even take a picture of their document with their phone and upload it from the break room at work or the living room at home. This means your property managers will no longer have to schedule multiple appointments with applicants on site, which would usually prevent them from taking care of tenant business or other important work.
Collecting your documents online will also significantly increase the security of your files and provide you with a robust disaster recovery solution if your office ever suffers significant damage. Haven Connect’s secure online document storage features end-to-end encryption, and will protect your applicants’ documents from prying eyes, theft, and loss.
Lastly, every time a file is changed or a document is uploaded, a letter or text message is sent, or a call is made, Haven Connect automatically logs the activity so you can easily maintain compliance at the site level. Your employees won’t be bogged down with maintaining paper logs (which frequently don’t get used), or adding comments in Excel which can get accidentally deleted or easily overwritten. And as a side benefit, your employees will thank you for decreasing a little tedium in their lives.
Schedule a free demo with us today to learn more about how Haven Connect’s Virtual Document Collection can save your business thousands of dollars.