How student housing providers can maximize profits

Student housing property managers recognize that a number of the elements they rely on to maximize profits are out of their control. Factors such as; college enrolment rates,international student mobility trends, university fees, income inequality and economic instability can have a massive impact on filling up beds. The industry as a whole is governed by a multitude of factors nevertheless, there are also features within a property management business that can be tweaked to increase occupancy rates while keeping expenses minimal.

Some of the principal challenges of a real estate professional and property owner are streamlining property management back office services. Many student housing providers have already taken proactive steps towards efficiency by optimizing back end processes and reducing back-office operating costs to make smarter strategic decisions through accurate & timely financial reporting.

Collaboration is key

Humankind with the advancement of technology has reached a stage where working together is much easier and rewarding than working alone. This basic premise applies to almost every conceivable situation and property management is no different, with a number of elements having to function at great efficiency to produce the best desired results. By outsourcing back office accounting and financial reporting tasks to specialists like QX, property managers reduce time and resources spent on profitless functions.

QX has a vested interest in working with you to assist your business to grow. We don’t just ‘do’ the accounts for you, we work to make them better, give you feedback and commentary, identify cost savings or better ways of operating. We follow best practices and continually review to ensure ongoing process improvement for you.

Tactical IT support

Most property developers/managers are not going to be tech experts, so it’s going to be quite difficult for them to know which systems will work best for streamlining their processes or how to modernize and automate supplier payments. These are just some of the elements that a reliable outsourcing business can provide. At QX our IT team helps integrate, implement, enhance and build systems and applications to streamline your processes. In addition, we provide the services of a dedicated Purchase Order system to help your company digitize and automate supplier payments where this will add value.

Grow your business

Once your student housing business is established you probably want more time and resources to focus on filling up beds and growing the business. However, it could prove difficult to focus on growing a business when you’re busy running all aspects of it. Nevertheless, there are certain non-revenue generating elements such as; bookkeeping, Accounts Receivable management, Accounts Payable management, financial reporting and analysis that could be looked after by experts freeing up your time to be used in more productive endeavours. To increase the number of sites you manage and to expand your interests to other geographies it’s crucial to utilize the expertise of specialists.

An expert partner would understand the unique and multifaceted accounting issues that your student housing business faces. Outsourcing specialists like QX offer end-to-end accounting services to some of the top ten student housing providers in the UK since 2009, and have in place the best practices, processes, people and software for delivering effective and efficient finance & accounts (F&A) outsourcing services.

Stay on the right side of regulation

Student housing management firms face complex accounting issues that stem from managing thousands of individual lettable properties across dozens of sites. In addition to the difficulty created by the sheer number and types of tenants and unavoidable tenant churn, there are also accounting and taxation laws in the US that witness major changes every year. Keeping on top of all the changes can be a tedious and quite time consuming nonetheless, it’s a required activity and one that can be outsourced to reduce overhead expenditures and consolidate processes.

A good outsourcing provider can make it so that your business stays on the right side of the constantly evolving regulations while also streamlining the in-house team’s reporting and documentation needs by maintaining accurate records, providing support and supplying data during audit and inspections.

QX serves some of the biggest players in the student housing industry and we specialize in processing a high-volume of transactions. Our property accountants understand and excel at supporting the unique accounting requirements of student housing businesses operating several sites across locations.

Our student housing accountants adhere to best practices & GAAP (Generally accepted accounting principles), introduce process excellence, and drive initiatives for strategic use of technology, enabling your business to cut operating costs while delivering timely and accurate accounting services. To know more about how we can streamline your student housing management service don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Originally published Oct 02, 2017 12:10:19, updated Jan 29 2024

Topics: Student Housing