Waterton

Waterton Interview

Waterton Associates has completed over $1.3 billion in real estate investments through equity joint ventures with major financial institutions, Wall Street investment banks, and pension funds. Craig Walczyk, the company's CFO, talks about how his firm integrated OpsTechnology with their existing Yardi system:

1 - For what functions have you been using Yardi software?
Yardi is used for all operational and accounting functions, and OpsTechnology is now handling purchasing management and expense control.

2 - How important was it for the integration to work smoothly?
A smooth integration was essential. We could not risk overburdening our accounts payable or on-site staff. The integration also had to ensure invoice and vendor controls so duplicate or non-payments to vendors would not occur.

3 - How did you integrate the systems?
The systems are integrated through payable import files that are provided to us daily via FTP file transfer. Yardi's import function is used to import the Ops integration files to Yardi. We elect to import the files as payable batches so we can complete a final review prior to posting in Yardi and making payments to vendors.

4 - What would have occurred if the integration did not go well?
Without a well functioning integration, we would have duplicate data entry somewhere, whether in our corporate office or on site. This was not an option for us. The systems needed to be "seamless" in data entry and maintain the current controls available in Yardi.

5 - Describe your overall impressions of the integration process.
Overall, the integration process was been smooth. We have recognized where a few enhancements were needed and the integration team at OpsTechnology has been very responsive to all of our integration needs.