MRI’s Longest Standing Client in Northern Ireland doubles down on their commitment to MRI Qube PM

Osborne King is a leading Northern Irish real estate services company specialising in commercial property, transaction management and property consultancy in the UK and Ireland. It is Northern Ireland’s largest independent Chartered Surveying company, and manage a sizeable portfolio.

The company has a strong handle on the local market, managing a range of commercial properties from large shopping centres to small retail units, as well as tracking rent and service charges for a number of large corporate occupiers such as banks.

A 20-year relationship

Osborne King has been managing their portfolio using Qube PM since 1993, with long-standing members of the team recalling using the early DOS-based iteration. In the 20 years since, the team at Osborne King have taken the opportunity to review their solution needs, explore other providers, and try out different products, but time and time again have returned to Qube PM.

Essentially, we didn’t see anything better than Qube to justify the time and expense of moving a new core system

Ruth Morrison, Finance Director, Osborne King.

Flexibility and innovation

The team are currently in the process of migrating to the Qube’s cloud platform Advance, allowing them to transition to a cloud-based way of working.

This digital transformation, which was triggered in part by the lockdown of March 2020, will help the team at Osborne King to streamline their operations via transitioning from a VPN-based connection, to web-based, which will open up a range of benefits, including enhanced flexible and remote working.

For members of the surveying team, to have web-based access to Qube means they can consult the system whilst they are on on-site visits, providing accurate and up to date information to clients straight away.

Tailored reporting

One of the key client outputs for the team at Osborne King is their reporting, which is facilitated by the use of Qube’s Client Statement functionality.

With a wide variety of clients, the team at Osborne King need to tailor their reporting to suit a range of different preferences and needs, with some corporations requiring detailed, formal reporting, while other smaller businesses prefer at-a-glance summaries.

With Qube PM, flexibility is built-in, and with the Report Wizard, the team can create tailored reports to suit the needs of their clients.

Streamlined processes

Osborne King have been incrementally leveraging the functionality with Qube PM to build efficiencies within their daily workflows. Service charge reconciliation functions within Qube allow the team to run multiple service charge schedules simultaneously across properties.

The service charge functionality is very good, it handles our requirements very well. We have properties that require multiple service charge schedules, and it’s a good, user-friendly system.

Ruth Morrison, Finance Director, Osborne King.

Moving towards a paperless office

With the implementation of the cloud-based system across the business, the team at Osborne King are continuing their digital transformation, with the adoption of the MRI Workflow module, to facilitate the completion of previously manual-led processes.

Osborne King had been operating a manual Purchase Order Invoice approval system, requiring the filing and storage of thousands of paper invoices. Now, electronic copies of invoices are kept within the Document Manager area of Qube PM, which are approved remotely and digitally, and then fed back through automatically once checked and approved.

I really like workflow for purchase invoices, it certainly makes it easier to find copy invoices at a client’s request. It has also helped us save on physical storage space.

Ruth Morrison, Finance Director, Osborne King.

This has not only negated the requirement to store, print, and back up large amounts of paper documents, but it means that processes are accelerated around resolving queries, and providing invoice copies, leading to faster, more effective customer service.

A strong relationship

Over the 20 years that MRI and Osborne King have worked together, the two businesses have built a strong relationship.

“Everyone at MRI has been very responsive and really great to work with,” – Ruth Morrison, Finance Director, Osborne King.