Case Study - Swish Property Services

“Working with Mitch and Erin has been so helpful for my business and my work/life balance. Knowing that the day to day invoicing, payroll, and overall cash flow aspect of the business is all taken care of so I can focus on managing my team on the tools and getting the jobs done has saved me from working 24/7 - I even sometimes manage to get out for a sneaky wave during the work day! 

Tim
Owner, Swish Property Services

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Tim owns and manages a property management services company called Swish Property Services who have built a reputation as Tauranga’s premium exterior cleaning services provider. Offering a range of services from house washes to moss and mould treatments, gutter cleaning to insect sprays these guys are busy all year round! But this also means a lot of time out and about, with not a lot of time indoors for office work. 

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Here is where Horton Taylor come in handy! We had a quick chat with Tim to shed some light on how Horton Taylor is working together with Swish Property Services to be a great team.

How has HT helped you with managing your team?

Erin takes care of all things payroll and originally created the employment agreement that I use when signing up new staff. Usually on a Monday I send through timesheets to Erin for the guys and she uses Thankyou Payroll to enter this all in, taking care of things like public holidays, annual leave etc and the pay is in there for the guys on a Thursday like clockwork. 

How has working with HT improved your cash flow?

We use ServiceM8 to enter all of our job info and so have a system where Erin just logs into our dispatch board and invoices directly from ServiceM8 to the customer once the job has been done. As ServiceM8 is integrated with Xero these invoices are then synced to Xero. Erin then manages these from Xero by reconciling payments as they come in, sending out statements for the 20th etc. She also keeps a close eye on Accounts Receivable to ensure that payments don’t drag out too far. She developed a system where she’ll send a friendly email reminder for payment and then will follow up with a phone call a set period after this. This method has proved very successful over the years as from memory we’ve only ever had to write off one bad debt during this time which I think is pretty good for the range of customers we work with. Just knowing that Erin is on top of this and I don’t have to micromanage or concern myself with this area of the business is a great relief.   

In terms of paying the bills, we have a system where I ‘approve’ the bill by sending it through to Xero bills. Erin codes these bills and sets them up in Xero for payment and then takes care of payment when they’re due. She also takes care of business registration, car registration and any other types of things that can pop up in business.

In what ways has HT helped you grow your business?

Erin keeps very accurate customer records, which helps us to have solid data when it comes to marketing - as it is your repeat customers who are really the bread and butter of a business in an industry like mine. Mitch will then take that info and runs remarketing efforts such as email newsletters and text campaigns. Mitch also runs my Google Ads account and SEO management of my website - Swish is currently ranking highly for our keywords and our Google Ads are humming.

Why would you recommend other businesses work with HT? 

Really for peace of mind! Erin is super accurate and always asks if she’s not sure on something - allowing me to be able to have complete trust that she’ll take care of the bookkeeping side of my business a lot faster and more efficiently than my own time would be spent there. She’s also a great sounding board when issues arise, being a sole trader can be a bit lonely at times and it’s good to have someone who’s not on the tools with me that I can chat to about things when I need a bit of advice.

Thanks Tim!

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