On the 10th of October, the new Centraal Beheer financial advice application “Efficient Advice” went live. The goal of the project was to achieve significant reduction in the time spent on advice.

In the first phase of the project, released January 2016, a time reduction of 1 hour and 15 minutes was achieved. The method was the goal-oriented restructuring of the advice proces. In the old proces, 218 questions were asked. After the phase 1 proces, there are 138 questions left (-80), which is a reduction in questions of 37%.

In the second phase of the project, the goal is to achieve an additional time reduction of 30 minutes (for a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes, about 40% of the original proces time). To achieve this goal, the collection of the necessary client data is done through self-service. This data is sent back to Achmea and automatically analysed by Match. Match recommends a particular advice, which can be tailored by the advisor. Measurements are underway to determine if phase 2 achieved its 30 minutes of proces improvement.

In addition to the proces optimalisation, the Efficient Advice application now also generates complete advice reports in the new Centraal Beheer style (see below). Compliance has indicated that the application assures a minimum quality and that failing grades for advice reports should now be a thing of the past.

As of the 1st of January 2016, applicants for social housing do not only have to satisfy certain income limits, but also need to comply with new appropriateness standards ensuring that their income fits the rent. The web application WIS*kit – of which development was commissioned by Amsterdam-based housing corporation Eigen Haard – simplifies the allocation process and carries out complex income calculations.

“The WIS*kit allows us to make fewer mistakes and generates data enabling uniform reporting for accounting. All laws, rules, and knowledge required for proper allocation are integrated into the web application” says Marlies van den Berg, rental agent at Eigen Haard. “This is the reason why we called the application WIS*kit, in which WIS stands for ‘Woning Informatie Systeem’. It helps our rental agents to make a correct calculation and come to a proper allocation decision. In doing so, we carry out the law accurately”.

Execute process in a couple of steps

Depending on the client-specific situation, rental agents walk through the WIS*kit in a number of steps. The application carries out the calculations required for he European income test and the appropriateness test.

“We thereby kill three birds with one stone: the test on income, the test on appropriateness, and accounting” continues van den Berg. “Because all considerations are captured in an insightful PDF file. This file is all we need as substantiation for audits.”

Extensively tested with colleagues. More corporations follow.

The WIS*kit has been extensively tested by Eigen Haard and fellow corporations Stadgenoot and Rochdale. The application was developed jointly and generically. The intension is to collectively develop the WIS*kit further in the future. That way, corporations will follow a more uniform method, which creates clarity for the customer.

Benefits of WIS*kit in short

Compared to the current, mainly manual method, the WIS*kit offers the following benefits:

• helps employees to correctly make allocation decisions
• simplifies the allocation process
• makes allocation more transparent and automatically generates reports, which can be used by the accountant
• contributes to a uniform allocation method. This also speeds up audits
• new employees are on-boarded more quickly
• suitable for different levels: calculating the appropriate income for advertised rent, or calculating an appropriate rent for a given income.

WIS*kit has been developed by Knowledge Values, partner in high quality knowledge solutions.