Hyphen Usecase: Build a real estate payment solution with no code

Program what should happen after a new client registers, makes payment, and how/when the agent is compensated all with no code or developer effort

Hyphen automated payment operations. We are Empowering organisations with the workflow infrastructure, required to model, trigger and reconcile money movement operations.

The process of real estate development companies selling properties through agents is an age old business practice that extends the reach of the development company and enables them sell through trusted parties.

Managing the process, especially as it relates to payment flows and customer data mapping from the point of enquiry to sale, then Facility management billing is a nightmare for most decent sized property development companies. Those who have attempted to solve this with technology have found themselves combining multiple software together to manage the data collection, payment collection, reconciliation, agent commission payout, and accounting.

Simple process to collect and reconcile payment

This is expensive, to mitigate this growing Opex cost, others have stuck to hiring more admin people to manage the process, which comes with its own risks.

Question that is always asked is why not do it all with one software, and the answer is always the same, every organisation has its own peculiar flow of operations and will require this one software to be “customised” to fit that flow.

Automating the flow of data and payment for the property

Here is what the real estate company wants to get done, you can call this step the user experience:

1. Collect data from the client, this data will include contact and personal identification
2. Identify the client is from a particular agent/affiliate
3. Inform the agent of the next steps the client needs to take
4. Agent confirms client is willing and ready to pay
5. Depending on the payment terms, outright payment or terms (predefined payment in parts over a period) and invoice is created for this client
6. Invoice is sent to client
7. Whenever client pays, notify agent and other internal parties
8. Begin commission payout workflow for this agent and any other agent on queue
9. At this point, issue receipt to client
10. Begin contract of sale workflow and notify the client

The flow of funds is obvious — Client makes payment of total sum, one time or in parts depending on offer from organisation through its agent. The organisation makes payment to the agent, a percentage sum of total paid by the client. It’s a simple flow — if the offer mandates total payment from the client, it gets complicated when the offer allows multiple part payments after an initial sum.

simple reconciliation with hyphen

Payment Ops workflows

To model the flow of funds we will need to the following:

• A form to collect client information
• An email template to confirm receipt of data
• An invoicing software to generate and send the invoice based on the payment plan selected by the client
• A way for the organisation to confirm when payment is made in full or part
• A way to calculate and assign commission to agent

To start, we will create our form on Hyphen

Building a custom form on hyphen

On the form we include a select field to allow the client indicate their agent. Alternatively we can create one form dedicated to each agent. Hyphen forms have unique links you can share or embed anywhere, like google forms but custom to your organisation

What next? We assign this form to a workflow. On hyphen you can trigger/begin a workflow with the data submitted in your form. Once the form is submitted, you want the workflow to also check and confirm an agent was selected, the client choose a particular payment plan, only then should the workflow proceed to send an email Reciept, generate an invoice, send the invoice and notify the agent of a due commission.

See diagram below and how you will set this up in hyphen in less than 5mins with nocode or developer effort

Property purchase form to payment confirmation workflow on hyphen

All invoices issued, automatically reconcile and the next steps in the workflow are carried out as required by your business.

Once your workflow is setup, all future workflows matching this exact one modelled will be handled by hyphen completely with little or no intervention from your team — automated.

To manage the Facility management payment Ops for service charge, electricity purchase, etc, all you have to do is create another workflow, this time assigning to your client.

Using hyphen, real estate development companies and facility management companies can solve their payment operations challenges.

Hyphen is making this expensive endeavour cheaper to execute and maintain, easier to digitise manual processes and empowering teams to work directly from their mobile devices.

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