For those who are involved in housing counseling, it is a wonderful feeling to help individuals become (and remain) homeowners; however, there are many different facets of the work that require a great deal of data to be organized, stored, and entered for outcomes reporting and compliance. Employees of housing authorities and affordable housing organizations that offer counseling are well familiar with the amount of time and effort it takes to fill out HUD 9902 reports with metrics such as client income levels, race, language proficiency, the impact and scope of one-on-one counseling, and HUD Housing Counseling Grant data. HUD recommends using Client Management Systems (CMS) to automate the process. While there are several HUD compliant tools in the market, we selected Salesforce to build such a solution for our clients. Salesforce offers all the necessary security to store Personally Identifiable Information (PII), is cloud-based – eliminating manual system upgrades, offers a drag-and-drop reporting interface, and native mobile capabilities; no need to sync data between home and office or recreate your hand-written notes!

 

A Salesforce based housing counseling and case management solution enables you to:

• Keep records of client intake and enrollment in programs
• Track information regarding a client’s income and debt to generate a “financial snapshot”
• Track assessments and create an action plan—record goals, identify hurdles, and see results as solutions are implemented
• Track goals and objectives, whether it is increasing a client’s savings or reducing debt in order to make them eligible for a loan
• Track service notes, and generate progress reports
• Track grants from HUD or other agencies, as well as programs (homeownership assistance, leasing, rental assistance)
• Monitor outcomes—how the services are benefiting the clients, both during and after the counseling process
• Create and integrate grant reports such as NFMC or HUD 9902
• Integrate with other systems in your shop such as Calyx and Encompass; or generate exports for Yardi

Another great feature of Salesforce is the ability to create dashboards; these allow counselors to track daily and monthly progress. Whether you are teaching a workshop or offering foreclosure counseling, the dashboard is a great way to easily access client and appointment information. Managers, too, can see how their teams are performing by viewing their workload and progress.

 

As you provide guidance to your clients through workshops, group education, and one-on-one counseling, you need a case management system that will allow for optimal data organization and accessibility. With the help of a Salesforce based solution, your team will be more efficient giving them more time to be with their clients and less on data entry. Contact Acutedge to learn more about our solutions for housing counseling.