Streamline affordable housing management with the Sage Intacct and Kanso Solution

The United States is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis throughout.

Housing costs have skyrocketed since 2020, leaving many individuals and families unable to afford rent.

On a single winter’s night in January 2023, a record-high 653,100 people experienced homelessness, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the U.S. has a shortage of 7.3 million rental homes affordable enough for renters with extremely low incomes.

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Public housing authorities, tribal housing managers, and social housing facilities stand in the gap and help those in need. However, these dedicated professionals are under-resourced and overworked.

They need to make every minute and every dollar count. Public housing authority software can help automate important workflows and ease the burden.

In this article, we will reveal how the right technology solutions can help social housing organizations maintain efficient operations. It will also help enhance financial management, and run leaner while managing complex compliance requirements.

We will highlight how the new, Sage Intacct and Kanso Solution for Affordable Housing brings together two industry-leading solutions to provide housing authorities unparalleled visibility and efficiency.

Here’s what we’ll cover

What does it take to effectively manage affordable housing?

Providing safe, affordable housing to those in need is an urgent challenge in the United States.

Dedicated professionals at more than 3,000 public housing authorities work hard to help people in dire financial need to obtain safe, affordable housing.

They are challenged by scarce resources, complex federal, state, and local housing regulations, and a shortage of available housing.

The need for additional housing assistance is well-recognized, yet public housing authorities face significant hurdles as they work to provide affordable housing. Some of their top challenges include:

1. Funding shortages: Many social housing organizations struggle with insufficient funding. Budget constraints impact maintenance, development, and operational costs. This makes it difficult to manage and improve existing housing or to develop new projects.
2. Economic fluctuations: Economic downturns can affect funding sources, property values, and residents’ financial stability, adding pressure to public housing authorities.
3. High demand and limited supply: The demand for affordable housing exceeds available supply. This leads to long waiting lists of applicants that organizations must manage.
4. Compliance hurdles: Navigating complex federal, state, and local regulatory requirements can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Authorities must stay informed and adapt quickly to changes in housing policies and guidelines.
5. Maintenance and Repairs: Aging public housing units may suffer from deferred maintenance. Limited resources make it harder to ensure timely repairs and upgrades.

Housing managers require timely insights, strategic planning, innovative solutions, and good collaboration with stakeholders to effectively address the needs of low-income residents and maintain the quality and accessibility of public housing.

Fortunately, the right technology can help streamline and automate key aspects of this important mission.

The Sage Intacct and Kanso Solution delivers efficient financial management and affordable housing management software

When resources are scarce, every dollar must make an impact.

Social housing software can help public housing authorities, tribes, and nonprofit organizations achieve their mission by streamlining operations while enhancing accuracy and transparency.

With products known for their deep functionality and reputation for helping social housing nonprofits advance their missions, Sage has partnered with Kanso to combine accounting and financial management and housing management software.

This connected technology stack streamlines operations, enhances reporting, and provides strategic oversight for tribes, public housing authorities, and social housing organizations.

It’s a productive combination. Kanso manages applicants, wait lists, tenants, rents, tax credits, inspections, work orders, housing regulation compliance, and more.

Sage Intacct handles budgeting and planning, cash management, accounting, grant tracking and billing, vendor payments, financial reporting, and more.

Public housing authorities gain detailed, transparent reports on financial performance and program outcomes by connecting the financial data in Sage Intacct with the housing data in Kanso.

The Sage Intacct and Kanso Solution is:

• Modern cloud-based
• Scalable
• Automated
• Comprehensive
• Easy to use

Save time and boost accuracy with data automation

Automate the flow of tenant subledger data from Kanso to Sage Intacct to save time and reduce data entry errors.

By connecting these systems, financial records are always up to date, ensuring more accurate cash flow, budgeting, and forecasting.

Organizations can turn their data into meaningful insights and gain clarity about essential aspects of their operations. This includes occupancy, finance, maintenance, and reporting.

Streamline reporting, compliance, and audit

Ensuring mission success requires understanding and adhering to a complex network of federal, state, and local housing regulations.

By harnessing the power of Kanso and Sage Intacct, organizations will maintain precise financial, tenant, and property records and can effortlessly maintain compliance and streamline their audit process.

Using tenant data, housing authorities can easily generate HUD, USDA, and tax credit forms, significantly saving time on reporting.

Let automation remove the uncertainty surrounding program acceptance criteria throughout the entire tenant life cycle.

Make data-driven decisions about housing

The Sage Intacct and Kanso Solution delivers comprehensive visibility greater than the sum of its parts.

Organizations will enjoy a more complete understanding of overall financial health. This is due to having a single source of truth with integrated financial, property, and tenant data.

A 360-degree view of the organization enables leaders to take in the big picture. They’re able to scrutinize the details of tenant occupancy, maintenance requests, property performance, and other trends.

This enhanced visibility results in greater confidence to make data-driven decisions that extend mission impact.

Final thoughts

The affordable housing crisis in America has reached critical levels, and the need continues to grow daily.

With limited resources, tribes, public housing authorities, and social housing managers need to leverage technology to improve efficiency and make data-driven decisions that drive mission success.

Now that Sage Intacct and Kanso have joined forces to deliver a combined tech stack, housing organizations can benefit from automation that streamlines workflows and provides enhanced visibility.

With a complete view of financial performance and program outcomes, housing professionals can make informed choices about how to use limited resources.  

Discover how cloud accounting can help accelerate your affordable housing mission for greater community impact.

Download the Benefits of Cloud Accounting Software for Public Benefit Organizations

About the author

Natalie Anderson

Natalie Anderson is a senior nonprofit industry marketing manager for Sage Intacct.

Natalie has 10 years of experience in software marketing and is passionate about helping nonprofits leverage software to achieve mission success.