TAG Immobilien relies on virtual accounts
The listed company manages more than 88,000 residential units. TAG Immobilien AG’s main locations are primarily in the north and east of Germany, in the greater Hamburg and Berlin areas, in the Salzgitter and Thuringia/Saxony regions and in North Rhine-Westphalia.
What exactly is the problem to be solved?
Many companies have to manage thousands of deposits and payouts every day. This represents an enormous administrative effort. Virtual accounts can help here: they enable efficient management of payment transactions, reduce complexity and lower the risk of incorrect postings. As a client of Hamburg Commercial Bank, TAG Immobilien AG relies on virtual accounts to manage its residential real estate with great success. The company’s tenants transfer money to their individual virtual account. Third parties such as electricity or water suppliers also collect money directly from this for their services relating to the property. This means that all payments are posted quickly and easily, errors are avoided and the entire accounting system is optimized.
Simple solution for mass inputs and outputs
The company finally found a solution in the “virtual accounts” in order to optimize the mass inflows and outflows while at the same time rapidly increasing the number of apartments. “A virtual account is an account that can be addressed regularly using an IBAN and BIC, but is not opened in the banking system,” says Stefanie Buhtz, Department Director in Cash Management Sales at Hamburg Commercial Bank. TAG currently holds just under 20,000 of these accounts at Hamburg Commercial Bank.
Time saved, costs reduced
“The bureaucratic effort involved in such a large number of contracts and payment transactions, with monthly payments by tenants and then payments to water or electricity suppliers, is immense,” says Ulrike Bondkirch. The authorized signatory heads the Financing and Payment Transactions department at TAG. It wasn’t so long ago that all tenants paid into just one account. Nowadays, with almost 90,000 residential units in the portfolio, this would be almost unthinkable. Many employees would otherwise have to spend days checking whether all tenants have paid the appropriate amount on time.
Sales are credited immediately
The use of virtual accounts does not change anything for TAG’s tenants: each of them transfers the rent to his or her individual account. This clearly shows whether the rent was paid on time, in the correct amount and to the correct recipient. However, bundles of virtual accounts are each assigned to one and the same real account. This means that transactions made on the virtual accounts are immediately credited to or deducted from the real account. Payments are automatically allocated in financial accounting via the electronic bank statement information.
The virtual accounts offer our customers nothing but advantages: The automatic allocation of payments optimizes accounting, postings and allocations are automated, simple and fast. “Virtual accounts mean enormous time savings for our company and therefore significant cost savings,” confirms Ulrike Bondkirch.
“There is a one-to-one relationship and 100% allocation,” says Stefanie Buhtz, describing the key advantage of virtual accounts. Booking errors or searching for amounts are now a thing of the past.
“Virtual accounts mean enormous time savings for our company and therefore significant cost savings.”
Ulrike Bondkirch, authorized signatory and head of the Financing and Payment Transactions department at TAG Immobilien AG
The future of payment transactions
With the help of smart and streamlined solutions, payment flows can now be managed far more effectively and efficiently than ever before. This significantly reduces the burden companies face in their own processes. It also saves them time and money and frees up resources for the most important activity: staying on top of the market and working on behalf of their customers. We are a leader in innovative, digital cash management solutions.
Stefanie Buhtz
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