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Victoria Asset Management – CloudEstate
Sector Financial Services
Project CloudEstate – Financial Asset Management System
About the Client
Victoria Asset Management (VicAsset) is an integrated real estate asset management business, focused on delivering superior asset management services for capital invested by Oaktree Capital Management.
VicAsset supports Oaktree Capital in
the underwriting and management
of investments across the capital
structure in all commercial real
estate asset classes; ranging from
non-performing loan investments,
direct assets and preferred equity
interests, corporate restructures and
structured finance opportunities.
About the Project
VicAsset's team had a requirement to have a robust and scalable system that could manage their growing portfolio. They wanted to achieve a reduction in time spent on administrative tasks, as well as having the capacity for new modules to be added on demand.
Cloud Estate is VicAsset’s cloud-based
asset management platform that has
been built to efficiently track the
commercial real estate assets they
manage. CloudEstate provides
visibility over all business transactions,
invoice & cash management, as well
as generating reports for
business analysis.
The system consists of various
modules; an asset management
module, accounts payable, cash
management, investor reporting
and most recently; a timesheet
module that has been developed to
track the hours their team members
spend managing each project.
Challenges & Obstacles
Limited Features
VicAsset began by managing their assets solely on Excel, but soon realised that the complexity and scale of their growing business warranted a more sophisticated system.
Not Meeting Requirements
They initially purchased an off-the-shelf solution which unfortunately did not fully meet each of their exacting requirements.
Communication & Cost Issues
As the complexity of the platform evolved, additional resources were required so VicAsset outsourced parts of the development to an overseas company where English was not their first language. Due to costing, resourcing and communication issues, VicAsset discontinued their previous agency and engaged with Haefele Software.
Solutions
Bespoke
VicAsset selected Haefele Software to enhance their existing CloudEstate platform and develop additional modules that could be tailored to their needs.
Team
Since April 2019, Haefele has been working as an extension of VicAsset’s internal development team to build the Accounts Payable module, followed by an enhanced Cash Management module and, most recently, a Timesheet module for CloudEstate.
Communication
Utilising an Agile development framework, a dedicated team of Analysts, Developers and Testers are in daily communication with the VicAsset team, to ensure the progress of the various projects. One Business Analyst is UK based, and the remaining team has been working from Haefele’s offices in Cape Town/South Africa.
On-Going Support
Since the system’s launch, Haefele has been offering on-going support and progressing into new development phases to include more and new features.
Results
VicAsset’s portfolio team is spending significantly less time reconciling data due to the improved accuracy of cash transactions in the Cash Management module.
More accuracy in the invoicing process, which reduces the risk of potential losses and time spent with auditors.
£200k in cost saving over 1 year, if internal developers had been hired.
Significantly enhanced audit trail and security to give key stakeholders comfort that core processes are being followed.
Costs reduced in 1.8 times in comparison to previous outsourced provider.
Technologies used
Infrastructure
Azure Cloud (Function apps, Blob storage, service bus, SQL, App Services, key vaults)
Frameworks
.Net Core 3.1, React
Application
C#
Logging
Application insights
Testing
BDD
CI and CD environment
Azure DevOps
Database
MS SQL
Timeline
Apr 2019 - Feb 2020
Accounts Payable module started development in April 2019 and was released to the business in February 2020.
Jun 2019 - Oct 2020
Cash Management module started being developed in June 2019.
Aug 2020 - Sep 2020
Timesheet module has started in August 2020 and was released in September 2020.
Team
The team has been scaling back or up, depending on the phase of the project.
The size of the team has fluctuated, depending on the phase of the project. The current team consists of 1 Business Analyst, 3 developers and 1 tester.
