Custom Asset Management Tool

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Aotea National Leasing exists to help Aotea Group businesses run a cost-effective fleet. Serving a nationwide network of 30 trades businesses across New Zealand, they’ve more than 900 vehicles out on the roads.

In her role as general manager of Aotea Leasing, Virginia Fleming does it all. She says: “I deal with the account management side of things, price the leases, purchase new vehicles, and sell on old vehicles when we need to. I juggle everything.”

Before Virginia hired Teal Software to build a custom tool to manage leasing, she was struggling to keep on top of her tasks. She says: “I was using multiple spreadsheets and relying on recurring invoices in Xero to keep track of leases. It was really manual and complicated.”

Having no single source of truth made everything harder. Virginia explains, “There was no one place where I could see the date when a lease started, when it finishes, and all the vehicle details. And it was complex working out the value of a vehicle when we came to sell.”

Difficulties were compounded because the info in the system for older leases was often incomplete. Virginia says: “A lease record might say the vehicle make, but not what model it is, or whether it’s four-wheel drive. So, when it came time to sell vehicles. I’d have to go hunting in files for all the info and decipher scans of handwritten agreements.”

Deciding to go the custom software route

 Virginia decided to go with a custom software solution after doing her research. She asked professional advisors, spoke with other leasing companies about the tools they use, and reviewed existing software on the market.

Virginia explains: “We’re not a big leasing company. So, all the asset management tools I found were too massive for our needs. I only needed about 5% of their functionality. But despite being big, complex tools, they still needed customisation to get them to work the way I wanted them to. Also, the packages were very expensive. We exist to support our customers, so cost benefit is important.”

In the end Teal Software was recommended to build a custom software solution. Virginia was impressed with how quickly Sarah understood her needs. She says: “Sometimes you explain things to people and you can tell they’re not on the right page. It’s not like that with Sarah. She totally gets what I'm talking about. She understands.”

The flexibility of Microsoft Power Platform

 Many off-the-shelf software packages are built with advanced features small businesses don’t need, but you have to pay for the whole platform even if you only use a subset of the functionality. We build exactly what you need and only what you need. One reason we use Microsoft Power Platform is because it makes custom software accessible to smaller businesses. Power Platform licences are competitively priced compared to other software platforms out there.

Virginia agrees. “It's quite incredible what you can do with Microsoft Power Platform. It makes it affordable for smaller businesses to investigate building their own software tool. And we like that the tech is backed by Microsoft. It's not going to be obsolete in a few years.”

Microsoft’s reliability and accessibility are an important part of why we use it as a platform. Creating apps using the Power Platform is like building software out of Lego – there’s no hidden code. All our apps could be taken on by another experienced Power Platform consultant. You’re not locked into using Teal Software if you decide you’d like to work with someone else.

Streamlining quoting and leasing

 The most time-consuming part of Virginia’s role was managing quotes and generating leases. She was generating these documents using Word and keeping track of them using Excel. It was manual and arduous and she had no easy way of knowing how many leases were about to expire without manually collating a list every month.

Virginia explains: “When I price up a lease, I have to make sure the rate covers our costs, but the numbers I needed to factor in were in different places. I wanted to bring them all into one place and generate quotes automatically.” Aotea Leasing’s new tool is called Easy Lease because that’s what it does. Virginia says: “Teal Software integrated Easy Lease with Xero to pull in key info. Now pricing a lease takes just a click of a button.”

Easy Lease is built on Dataverse, which can be used as a simple CRM, and is great for tracking customer correspondence for small companies. A key feature within Easy Lease is managing the quote process. Once a quote is accepted, the system creates a lease and a schedule of lease payments. Virginia is now able to forecast revenue and review when leases expire. The new system has also made it easier for Virginia to track quote variations as she helps customers work out what lease is best for them. She can send and receive emails within Easy Lease and track all the emails for a particular quote.

Integration with Xero to forecast depreciation costs

 Before Easy Lease was built, Virginia had to manually work out everything using spreadsheets. Her new asset management database tracks revenue by asset, along with depreciation costs. Depreciation schedules are integrated with Xero to retrieve fixed asset depreciation and forecast depreciation costs. Now Virginia can quickly review interest and depreciation and know the residual value of each asset.

All the key metrics Virginia needs to manage the business are available at a glance. We built dashboards that show the number of vehicles Aotea Leasing owns by make and model, lease payments, and aged asset reporting. When Aotea Leasing needs to dispose of older assets, the system helps them calculate the minimum sale price they need to meet their costs. As a result, Virginia can easily compare an asset’s minimum sale price to its market valuation and track revenue from leases.

Saving time and making it easier to ask for help

 When asked how Easy Lease has made a difference, Virginia laughs. “It’s hard to imagine now how bad it was before we built Easy Lease. When I think of all those issues I had to deal with daily, we've come so far. Easy Lease has made a huge difference to my lease processing time. Quotes that took 20 minutes now take two. I've never been this up to date.”

 Easy Lease has also made day-to-day tasks a lot easier. Virginia explains: “I appreciate the improved visibility. Everything's all there in one place. I can find all the info I need under the record for each asset, rather than going to multiple different files. And things are integrated. Info from quotes automatically populates a lease agreement, then I email that straight out of Easy Lease. When our customer replies with their signed agreement, it’s automatically saved. I can keep up with work now, rather than forever feeling I'm treading water.”

The clarity and simplicity of the new system also means it’s easier for Virginia to delegate. She says: “It was too hard to bring in support before. Everything was in my brain and all over the place, I didn't have a great process, and it was too messy to get someone in to help. Now I can show someone how to do everything in the system, and they can pick it up fast.”

Making custom software builds clear, calm, and easy

 Easy Lease isn’t Virginia’s first software project. She helped develop and implement other systems in the past. This project was the best yet. Virginia says, “This project was a lot more professional than past projects. It was structured and smooth. Sarah is very clear with project management and great at keeping me updated. We did regular check-ins every two weeks and it was exciting seeing how features were coming together. I could see we were getting closer to our goal.”

 Virginia’s advice for a business building a custom software tool of their own is be sure what you need and clear with your brief. She also says, “Hire Teal Software. Sarah makes it easy to get clarity because she’s very good at picking up on instructions and making sure she understands what you mean. If she’s unclear about something, she's great at checking in.”

“It’s really natural and comfortable working with Sarah. She knows her stuff, she’s very experienced. She does her homework. She has a good system. She’s calm and organised. She presents everything well and if you're unclear on a point, she'll make sure she explains it in a way you understand. She doesn’t use tech talk that will make you cross-eyed.”

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 If you’re tired of working with manual, complicated systems and need a tool to make your day-to-day working life easier, we’re here to help. GET IN TOUCH >