I. Ellinson & Co choose MRI Qube Property Management, based on recommendation and reputation

I. Ellinson & Co is a family-run business established in 1958, which started out managing a residential portfolio in Newcastle, an estate that the organisation still proudly manages today. Since then, the organisation has successfully maintained and grown over the years, to a team of 7 staff.

The day-to-day operations were previously run on manual ledgers and spreadsheets up until 2014, when the organisation switched to using an established property management software. Over the last few years however, the software provider ended support and solution updates which meant that the organisation became open to exploring new software options with a better fit.

I. Ellinson & Co have a good mix of both commercial and residential portfolios and were weighing up the merits of different solutions, but nothing seemed to fit their requirements. Zvi Ellinson, Managing Partner at I. Ellinson & Co said, “In addition to our residential portfolios, our commercial management is diverse – we’ve got office blocks, industrial blocks, retail parades, and retail blocks with flats. I wanted to go with one software that everyone understands, with the product functionality fully catering to our requirements.”

Qube came with many recommendations, some of our landlords themselves use Qube for back-end operations and there are other managing agents that I’m aware of that have been happy with Qube and using it successfully.

Zvi Ellinson, Managing Partner – I. Ellinson & Co

Expectations to speed up process and free up time.

Across I. Ellinson & Co, there are seven members of staff managing residential accounting, commercial accounting, maintenance and renewals, and two members dedicated to being on-the-road for on-site inspections. At present, some manual processes such as banking can be a heavy burden on the team, taking up at least a day and a half each month.

Whilst their current solution does cater to service charges, Zvi commented there were “a lot of service charge issues” which meant this process is currently being manually managed. Zvi also commented on the reporting capabilities in their current solution; “Reporting does the job but it’s very manual and very tedious. We have managed to pull out whatever we’ve need but sometimes we’ve had to create 5-6 reports and bulk them together, which isn’t ideal.”

I have trust in MRI’s reporting capabilities, simply based on other clients that I know who use Qube and are very happy with the outputs. I’m hoping that we will free up time through the automation benefits of Qube, but also ensure things are always up to date and reportable.

Zvi Ellinson, Managing Partner – I. Ellinson & Co

The importance of best-fit product and provider

Zvi has worked with previous companies to develop software, so was keen to ensure a software provider was chosen based on a collaborative relationship; “It’s important for me to choose a provider that continues to drive updates and upgrades in product and keep moving forwards.”

From what I’ve seen in the product, there is the confidence that Qube is the right system, it does a lot and is flexible to allow us to do what we need it to do. Just as equally important is the company itself. MRI is forward-thinking and as markets change and evolve, I’m sure MRI is going to be right there with their finger on the pulse.

Zvi Ellinson, Managing Partner – I. Ellinson & Co

Looking ahead, I. Ellinson & Co are looking to implement during the quieter periods of business to ensure minimum disruption with solution go-live by December 2023. Reflecting on the past few months, Zvi commented “From my experience, anyone who is looking for software should do as many demos with as many different companies within the sector that they physically have time for.”

For me, I wanted to go with MRI. I know Qube does the job, I don’t want to go with someone else who may do the job. I look forward to the solution freeing up time within our organisation, so we can use our management time to focus on growth.

Zvi Ellinson, Managing Partner – I. Ellinson & Co

Daniel Koenig, Account Executive at MRI Software concluded  “I. Ellinson & Co have diligently reviewed multiple solutions in the market and we are so pleased they decided to choose MRI to drive their next phase of operational efficiency. We look forward to collaborating with the team in future months to ensure a smooth implementation and successful training across the team.”