The rental debate rumbles on Renting in Ireland is a much-discussed issue in Irish media today especially after the new Rental Regulation was introduced in December 2016. Without doubt, demand outweighs supply and rent prices have soared, with a knock-on impact on numbers of people who cannot afford housing. However, it appears it is not just the tenants who are under pressure. Observations on recent media coverage A recent article in the Irish Times examines the decision by estate agents, Hooke and MacDonald, to cut back on managing individual lettings for landlords due to the increase to cost and paperwork resulting from recent changes to residential tenancies laws. This means that many landlords are now without an agency to manage their rental property and therefore see the benefit in selling on that property rather than taking on management of the property themselves or paying for a new agency to take over. For both landlords and tenants alike, this is bad news. For the former, it means being forced to go through a sale when this may not have been their preferred time to sell or planned outcome for the property and for the tenants who cannot afford to buy, it means less rental property options on the market. With the introduction of new laws, vast amounts of paperwork and re-organisation of internal administrative processes follow suit. In this case, it seems the changes incurred are impactful enough to cause estate agents to simply draw the line at single property management. But, is there an alternative? If Hooke and MacDonald had an easier way to process and store their paperwork and keep costs down, would this dramatic move have occurred in the first place? In the article published on June 5th of this year, the firm’s MD, Ken MacDonald, told the Irish Times, “It is as easy to manage 20 properties as it is to manage one or two properties. With all the new legislation that has come in, there’s a lot of background work involved so we are cutting back.” Gathering of documents, signatures and financial records is a laborious task and can take up vast amounts of an employee’s day. MacDonald’s point that it is the same amount of work regardless of the number of properties may well be true – the initial gathering of information from a landlord who has one property is the same as the process for a landlord with 20. After that though, surely each individual rental incurs its own allocation of time spent requesting, obtaining and filing data? It is possible to make this process easier By requesting documents via a secured platform instead of via emails, you save time and ensure security for the date being requested and received. The documents can then be saved automatically by the same online tool and kept for a specified amount of time and deleted when they are no longer needed. Businesses will no longer need to engage in numerous email exchanges on top of worrying about security breaches when confidential documents are in their possession. What can be done? In a world of paperless transactions and document transfers, estate agents need a simpler way to manage this background work that Ken MacDonald speaks of. In addition, they need to know that this new method is secure; it will not only speed up their internal administrative processes and free up their staff to manage more work, it will also ensure that they are compliant with GDPR data regulations. Finally, and perhaps above all, it will ensure that they don’t have to let customers down. Click here to find out how PlanetVerify allows companies to obtain personal data directly and securely from their customers instantly and in a transparent way. Download the App or browse the PlanetVerify website to explore this advanced document gathering and verification process created with your data security in mind.
PlanetVerify is speaking at GDPR Summit at TechConnect Live on May 31st in Dublin. Tomorrow, the 31st of May, PlanetVerify is speaking at GDPR Summit at TechConnect Live, the biggest Irish tech event of the year. PlanetVerify is moderating a panel discussion “6 Organisational Departments Effected by GDPR“at GDPR Summit there, led by CEO Owen Sorensen. That will be taking place from 2:10pm – 2:40pm, just after the lunch break. Together with Group Data Protection Officer at Kerry Group Gareth Davies, Windows and Devices Business Group Lead at Microsoft Shirley Finerty, Director at Sigmar Recruitment Barry Rudden, Owen will talk about different sectors affected by the EU GDPR law. A full agenda of all GDPR panel discussion and events on the day can be found here. Not only will PlanetVerify be in attendance, but Ireland’s largest summit will also see the GDPR coalition hosting a dedicated GDPR zone, for the duration of the seminar. Throughout the day there will be numerous panel discussions covering all the key questions surrounding the legislation and practical advice for businesses when preparing for GDPR. The impact of unsafe cyber security and data protection behaviours is a major issue for firms across all sectors. Data today is not an abstract entity but a legal and empirical extension of you, your firm, and customers. The GDPR regulation provides a framework for companies to implement sound processes to protect data. Besides the EU GDPR session, TechConnect Live will host 100+ exhibitor pavilions and more than 20 conferences with powerful Keynote talks from the leading Irish Cybersecurity and Data protection companies. With 200+ keynote speakers, 400 investors, 1000+ different companies, TechConnect Live is a great opportunity to meet, connect, and explore. PlanetVerify are really excited to be a part of such a large and international symposium here in Dublin. To register for the event and access the full list of speakers, vendors, startups, and agenda, follow this link for free. See you there.
What is a good digital workflow tool? For some reason, in this digital era, we still spend too much time managing too many things manually instead of stepping out and automating the workflow. We came up with 7 digital workflow tools that will help you manage your projects, papers, finances and meetings. What are the benefits of a digital workflow? Do you worry it will be too time-consuming to learn to use these tools and teach your co-workers? Or, do you worry you will have to monitor them in case they make a mistake, resulting in a doubling up of your workload? In reality, digitalising your workflow will free up your time and give you a unique chance to concentrate on other very important aspects of your company such as customer service, sales and growth. It will also remove the human element and the risk of making a mistake, as everything will be carried out by these services. Less time spent on correcting mistakes — more time spent on real work. Together with reducing time spent on processing documents, you will also reduce costs meaning that your company will have 20-30% more time to spend on R&D. Sounds tempting, right? So, what are the best digital workflow tools out there? Free up more staff for perfecting your customer service by automatically adding every email sent to your website to your CRM. Services like HubSpot automatically add all leads to its CRM system filling in phone numbers, emails, messages and sources without you having to transfer manually. Once you have agreed on a deal, you can use an automated document gathering service like PlanetVerify that will send the list of required documents to your clients. You can set times for reminders to be sent and PlanetVerify can also verify any IDs for you. How much time do you think you could save by letting a workflow tool like PlanetVerify chase your clients for you? While managing documents might be easy, managing projects and several teams would be a compliacted task: you have to juggle developers, QAs, designers and clients at the same time.Through task managers and automation software such as Wrike, Mavenlink or Proofhub, these processes become easier. Everyone who has ever dealt with invoices knows what a pain in the back is it to issue invoices and keep them organised. Services like Waveapps automate this process to help you sleep better. Your finance team will thank you for using it. Coming back from a work trip with a fear of spending days and nights processing expenses? Use tools like Expensein, Zoho or Expensify which automate and streamline the expense process. If you are used to managing all tasks in your email, Airmail client will help you set tasks, alerts and create calendar events. Organising a meeting may be a complicated process; securing attendees’ availability, fixing a date and time in their diaries, setting an agenda, etc. One of the best scheduling tools is Doodle. It offers a wide selection of online solutions that radically simplify the process of scheduling appointments, ranging from the group event “poll” that doesn’t require registration to the professional appearance with own branding. It is painless; you create a poll, add emails, click send and receive answers. Sure, you will have to spend some time learning how to use them and implementing this system into your business and personal life, but isn’t it better to spend 1 hour now to save 5-8 hours of your time weekly? Let us know what tools you are using!
