From servicing tenants and managing staff, to working with vendors and putting out proverbial fires, there’s little time to spare in property management. However, with advancements in digitization, automation, and artificial intelligence, stakeholders now have access to tools that can help them save time and resources when it comes to tackling some of the more onerous tasks – particularly, paperwork.

“Property managers spend the majority of their day distributing, collecting, and processing documents – whether it’s invoices, release forms, insurance information, security sign-offs, or internal communications,” says Steve Oblin, Marketing Manager of Fujitsu’s Imaging Products. “The time it takes for them to manage the abundance of the documents they receive from vendors and tenants keeps them glued to their desk, rather than out in the field where they need to be.”

Managing those documents in a digital space can go a long way towards recovering that time, he adds, explaining, “By digitizing your documents to overcome that paper overload, you can cut through the clutter, free up that manpower, and improve efficiency.”

Digitization on Display

“There was too much information flowing in,” he recalls, noting the property management firm was contending with a growing volume of invoices over several managed properties and, as such, faced an increasing risk of errors and service delays.

To solve the problem, Polar Imaging installed Fujitsu’s fi-7160 image scanner in five of the firm’s offices and distributed a scanning environment between them, using their cloud computing capabilities. Forms-recognition software was also added to minimize data entry by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to extract key pieces of information from the scanned documents. The captured data was then routed through an integrated Accounts Payable Automation system.

“Thanks to this solution, payments that might have taken weeks can now be done in a day,” Todd reports. “We see clients finding documents in 15 seconds which, in the past, might have taken them hours to locate.”

Ahead in the Cloud

“Prior to ScanSnap Cloud, you could scan your documents to Google Drive. However, there would be different steps involved and you would have to go through a few different screens,” Steve Oblin says. “ScanSnap Cloud makes that a one-step process. It is all about simplicity.

Going Digital

No industry is immune to paperwork. As the property management industry continues to become more complex, and the speed of business accelerates, many are seeking a better way to collect, sort, share, and archive paperwork on a digital level.

Here, adds Steve Oblin, is where technology like Fujitsu’s scanners have plenty to offer the property management industry: “By trading physical paper for secure data, stakeholders can access, organize, and disseminate critical information faster than ever. The result is reduced costs, better response times, fewer errors, and – perhaps most importantly – letting machines do the work while property management stakeholders focus on what’s more important – the people.”

Learn more about the advantages of digitizing paper and visit www.fujitsu.ca for more.