Liberty Properties, the property arm of the South African company Liberty Group Limited, is deriving major benefits from its decision seven years ago, to fully automate its billing, collection and financial systems.
Liberty Properties implemented the SmartStream financial system in partnership with Comparex Africa to control the day-to-day running of its R12.6 billion managed property portfolio.
"Liberty Properties has become better positioned to deliver more value to its key stakeholders such as investors and policy-holders, in the form of risk management, customer service delivery, forecasting and the disposal of assets," says Liberty Properties IT Department Head, Maggie Fikkert.
Liberty Properties` operating procurement process has shown remarkable improvement since the introduction of the SmartStream system. Streamlined to the point of enabling a truly paperless environment, Fikkert observes that procurement turnaround time for normal operations has been reduced from an average 20 days to just three. In addition, the average turnaround time for financial reports and statements has been cut back from an average of four days, to just 10 to 15 minutes by utilising the Business Objects reporting tool in conjunction with the SmartStream databases.
"The property industry is encouragingly stable and mature. Nonetheless, businesses have to focus and streamline their support functions in order to retain a competitive advantage," says Fikkert.
Local distributor, Comparex Africa Mainstream Division implemented the system in May 1996. According to Comparex Africa Mainstream Division Executive Business Developer Clive van Rooyen: "SmartStream allows best of breed third-party reporting and it is easy to top the system up with additional functionalities, enabling Liberty Properties access to cutting-edge financial software."
SmartStream`s general ledger, accounts payable and accounts receivable modules have also been integrated with customised systems to provide an end-to-end automated financial system, geared to further enhance Liberty Properties` support service infrastructure.
Liberty Properties has R12.6 billion in property assets under management for the Liberty Group, Main St 9 (Pty) Ltd (formerly the Standard Bank Group Retirement Fund), Standard Bank Properties (Pty) Ltd, Growth Point Property Fund, Sentinel Mining Industry Retirement Fund, Mine Employees Pension Fund, Pareto Ltd, Transnet Retirement Funds Property Trust and other third-party consortium investors. In total 102 properties are administered, of which 63.5% are retail, 22% office, 11.5% hotel and 3% others.
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