{"id":16465,"date":"2016-10-17T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=16465"},"modified":"2020-12-24T10:19:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T18:19:21","slug":"approaching-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/approaching-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Jim Merski\u2019s favorite quotes, rooted in a 17th<\/sup> Century Italian proverb, is \u201cG\"merski\"ood is the enemy of great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to be great,\u201d says Merski, chief financial officer of Boston-based Barkan Management Company Inc<\/a>., a Yardi client that manages 147 residential communities with more than 23,000 units, primarily condominiums, along with other residential and commercial properties.<\/p>\n

Merski has lived that philosophy in his 2 \u00bd years with Barkan by focusing on process improvement, reporting and consistent financial processes\u2014aiming, he says, to \u201cbring our company to a much higher level of customer service, with a focus on reaching excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merski understands that excellence in condo management requires accommodating the human element.\u00a0 \u201cAccounting is not numbers. Accounting is communication. We need to break down the results of operations to the lowest common denominator for our board members, many of whom are non-financial people. They are volunteers, so we want them to get their arms around what\u2019s going on very quickly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Colorful Numbers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barkan has enlisted a number of Yardi solutions in that effort.\u00a0 For example, Yardi-built modules translate financial information in the company\u2019s Yardi Voyager\u00ae<\/sup> property management and accounting platform into color-coded graphics.\u00a0 This includes current and historical accounts receivables, payables, budgets and operating funds, along with replacement reserve funds, total cash, and changes in cash over a 12-month period.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe objective is to help a non-financial user of the financials (board member, trustee, director) to understand what\u2019s going on within minutes of looking at the charts and graphs, without having to dive into the numbers.\u00a0 Anyone can see at a glance how the month went,\u201d Merski says.\u00a0 \u201cVoyager gives our clients and site property managers a very nice sense of how their associations are doing on a cash basis.\u00a0 Feedback from them has been very strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

This convenient data presentation helps the professional number-minders as well.\u00a0 \u201cJust by looking at a bar graph, I can see if we had net income for the month but a net loss year to date, and determine if we\u2019re on the right track,\u201d Merski says.<\/p>\n

Efficiency Boosters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another tool that makes life easier for Barkan\u2019s clients is CondoCafe\u00ae<\/sup>, an online service platform that integrates with Yardi Voyager to allow real-time access to financial information.\u00a0 \u201cCondoCafe gives condo boards a powerful set of tools, including access to tenant ledgers, ownership information and document posting.\u00a0 Having that capability within Voyager is easy, convenient and cost-effective, which is important because condo associations generally are on tight budgets,\u201d Merski says.<\/p>\n

Regarding another important aspect of condo management, Merski says, \u201cWe were challenged by our clients to provide automatic responses immediately upon submission of a maintenance request. We responded by adopting Yardi Maintenance\u2122, which delivers automatic email responses at four stages, which is very much attuned to what our clients require of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barkan shored up its internal operations with Yardi PAYscan\u2122, an element of the Yardi Procure to Pay\u2122 that converts invoices into electronic transactions and automates approval workflows.\u00a0 \u201cMoving an invoice quickly among approvers is a fundamental tool of good accounting, and we do that with PAYscan.\u00a0 Within two days, we go from initial invoice scanning to cutting a check.\u00a0 Eliminating manual touch points is essential to effective processes and efficiency,\u201d Merski says.<\/p>\n

Unified Business<\/strong><\/p>\n

Performing multiple operations seamlessly is the bedrock of Barkan\u2019s search for excellence.\u00a0 \u201cTo me, the holy grail of financial accounting, and the biggest challenge in any organization, is integrating operations with accounting in a single database,\u201d Merski says.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s a sign of organizational growth, and Voyager gave us a unique opportunity to do it.\u00a0 Integrating our best practices with Voyager\u2019s workflows was a huge step in instituting consistent processes for accessing information, which is so important to good financial accounting.\u00a0 We also wanted condo board members to have something that was easy to use.\u00a0 Giving them the ability to easily download information fulfilled that mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to get of the point of anticipating client needs. When they approach us, we want to say \u2018Yes, we\u2019ve thought of that, and we\u2019ve got you covered.\u2019\u00a0 The Yardi portfolio of products is well suited to put us in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which will take Barkan even closer to great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Jim Merski\u2019s favorite quotes, rooted in a 17th Century Italian proverb, is \u201cGood is the enemy of great.\u201d \u201cOur goal is to be great,\u201d says Merski, chief financial officer of Boston-based Barkan Management Company Inc., a Yardi client that manages 147 residential communities with more than 23,000 units, primarily condominiums, along with other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":16466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3354],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-16465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-team-yardi","tag-yardi-client-profile"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYardi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of Jim Merski\u2019s favorite quotes, rooted in a 17th Century Italian proverb, is \u201cGood is the enemy of great.\u201d \u201cOur goal is to be great,\u201d says Merski,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Great Goals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of Jim Merski\u2019s favorite quotes, rooted in a 17th Century Italian proverb, is \u201cGood is the enemy of great.\u201d \u201cOur goal is to be great,\u201d says Merski,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/approaching-excellence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Yardi Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-10-17T12:00:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-24T18:19:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2016\/10\/Merski.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"718\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joel Nelson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Joel Nelson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/approaching-excellence\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/approaching-excellence\/\",\"name\":\"Great Goals - 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