SAP Business ByDesign vs. Yardi Voyager

Do you plan on going public at some point? If so, this may not be the best solution for you

Incentivized

Yardi Voyager is well suited for any management company in the multifamily or commercial space and is a worthwhile competitor to other options in the space - MRI Software, Realpage, Resite, etc. For those med-large enterprises that value an intuitive and straightforward accounting and leasing system, and also work with other vendors that need to integrate with their ERP system, this is a great option. There is a large ramp-up time, requiring many company resources, and licensing is quite expensive, so this solution may not be for those companies with a small budget or personnel resources.

Incentivized

• I like the ease of use and the implementation methodology.
• With SAP Business ByDesign you can integrate other systems with Web Services, and data technology to get information easy and fast.
• SAP Business ByDesign includes an Analytics Module to create new reports in regards to your needs.

• Yardi Property Management particularly excels at creating a system where it is easy to leave feedback for property managers because the data is available up front.
• Yardi is also a useful tool at integrating property management across the entire platform. It can be used for asset management as well even for the most nitty gritty details.
• It is also convenient to edit expenses inputted by the accounting department and managing those expenses forward for future budgeting.

Incentivized

• Time off request could be better. Right now, there is no option for sick time
• It crashes often
• Customization could be better

Incentivized

• In my experience there's a fairly steep learning curve for a new user to be able to navigate the system
• While there's diverse functionality, many items seem buried in menus or obscure places, particularly the first time you're trying to find them
• Getting used to the refresh functionality in some parts of the system can be challenging if you're used to a system that automatically updates when new filters are applied

Incentivized

SAP BYD work centers are consistent and easy to navigate once you understand one work center. The document flow tab that is in each window allows one to see all related transactions. Document flow is important because one is able to see the flow of transactions and can therefore reverse transactions by following the document flow in reverse. It is possible to group items in each overview screen to see what items are open. The system is working as hoped.

Incentivized

We have invested 5 years of setup, implementation and training on Voyager. It's doing a very good job for us and I feel we've only scratched the surface of its capabilities. Yardi support has been very responsive with very little down time. The training materials are great from Client Central

Incentivized

Because SAP Business ByDesign allows us to improve our work, reduce the operational steps, implement audit controls, allows us found standard reports or it allows us to create new ones if you need more than the exists are enough for your work or your needs. Overall, SAP Business ByDesign allows us to standardize our operations, enhance our work, improve our skills, work over a web environment or mobile interface.

I'm coming from the perspective of a fairly tech-adept person, so I didn't find the system too hard to learn. That said, I do feel some of the buried menus and the system's own internal search feature could use some improvement, but I have that feeling about the vast majority of CRMs I've ever used. There may be a little bit of a struggle to onboard/train up someone who isn't used to this sort of system, but once up and going it should be smooth sailing.

Incentivized

The Business ByDesign support is stablished since you contract the service with SAP. SAP resolves according to the service level agreement. Currently, we continue with the service and we are using the support channels available. We are receiving the support. The SAP support gets an incident and after that, they contact us to resolve the incident, if necessary, they set the meeting to understand it or we explain the incident

The local office is very knowledgeable, however recently it seems that Yardi has begun to route calls offshore and the knowledge base there does not seem to be as strong as the USA based support centers. All customizations are done by offshore personnel, which presents issues in terms of the language barrier and time zone differences.

Incentivized

I recommend implementing all workshops during the ERP selection that you need to know very well about the ERP software. It allows us to gather information to accurate the plan of the project implementation. Additionally, we must reach the high-level commitment to achieve the main goals, to define the RACI matrix and communicate to all project stakeholders.

If you are converting from another system, grouping your properties by subsidy type seemed to help us. We were able to focus on a half dozen properties at a time, rather than the entire portfolio.

Incentivized

ByDesign stacks up well against the competition. Companies that do multiple things are usually the best fit (manufacturing, distribution, and service). The more 'modules' used, the fewer competitors will be able to meet the company's needs. It is not inexpensive, but if the needs of the company have the complexity from either a global perspective and need localizations and foreign currency, or a volume perspective and need resources greater than what can be easily housed on-premise, ByDesign should be a top consideration.

Incentivized

Onesite was broken, a lot. Yardi Voyager has been a much more stable platform. We have been operational for 3 years now and I cannot say that we have had any software downtime in 3 Years. But with Onesite, it was common to be down at least once a month for something that was not working correctly.

Incentivized

• Positive - Access to the real-time reporting allowing for faster decision making especially when fixed price projects are heading into an over budget position.
• Positive - Complex KPI can now be tracked and as a consequence intensive plans can be made to capitalise on this level of reporting. Staff also have clear visibility over their own performance.
• Negative - We are a bit on the small side at 30 employees for a ByD solution so it was relatively expensive for us. It would be a much better value preposition above 50 employees.

• We initially moved to Yardi from paper ledgers. This had a tremendous time-saving effect.
• Product was confusing and required training for some of our older staff members.
• Clients that used the product were initially hesitant to pay for the added cost, but with time were able to see the benefit to their software.

Incentivized