AMTdirect vs. Yardi Voyager

I think for medium to large companies AMTDirect would be invaluable to have the "whole" picture of all properties at your finger tips. For smaller companies with 10 or fewer properties maybe not as "necessary".

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

• AMTDirect allows for customization to your specific needs in a snapshot. One area I appreciate is that I am able to change most labels/field names to coincide with our specific naming conventions.
• AMTDirect has wonderful support. They respond very quickly and I always feel that I am important and matter to them.
• AMTDirect is always interested in what I would like to see added to be even more useful to my needs. They listen to me and strive to make those changes.

• 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

• Initially when I started using AMTDirect it was a little overwhelming because it is a lot of detail. At times I would like to see it a little more simplified. However, I will say they have over the past 6 years done that exactly. It is becoming more simplified to use, but with the same important outcomes.
• The software is much faster than it was when I initially started using it. Some of that might be resolved if there were some drag and drop type situations more I think.

• 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

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

From my experience, AMTDirect does have a bit of a learning curve, but once you pass that curve the system has details and information that are vital to the decision process of lease negotiations, lease & facilities management as well as project management. I've said it a thousand times, AMTDirect is the only reason I am able to manage 50+ retail spaces by myself with regards to all of the above decisions.

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 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 have not listened to any of the on-line video or webinars, but I have used the "help" guides and they are very easy to understand and for the most part that is how I have taught myself to use features I have never utilized before.

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

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

• AMTDirect has positively impacted our company for the simple fact that 1 person is able to handle 54 properties with regards to lease management, maintenance/repair and projects for those locations. We were at the point of needing to hire additional help, but AMTDirect has made it possible to delay hiring additional employees until we grow a little more.
• AMTDirect has made it possible to be able for me to work from any where and not in an office with a bunch of files, because the information is at my fingertips. I am able to travel to our stores and still be able to take care of issues and answer important and at times timely questions.

• 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