How Common Desk Simplified Billing and Gave More Power To Staff

 

 

 

 

common desk coworking simplified billing
  • No of sites 19
  • United States Dallas | Houston | Austin | North Carolina

About Common Desk

After discovering the concept of “flexible workspace” on a CRE assignment in 2010, Common Desk’s founder Nick Clark started dreaming about redefining how professionals experience their workspace. His vision became a beautiful reality when Common Desk opened its first set of doors in Deep Ellum in October of 2012.

Since then, Common Desk’s mission is to enhance every workday by creating thoughtful moments, human connections, and a sense of belonging–for all.

The 19 locations (as of 2020) provide an abundant sense of community, and the team is committed to doing all they can to find creative ways to share what they have with all who need it.

Overview

Before moving to OfficeRnD, Common Desk was using a custom developed solution to manage billing, meeting room bookings, and other day-to-day operational activities.

However, the lack of an in-house development team, the functionality issues, and the tedious and complex invoicing process were holding Common Desk back.

Combined with the need to cut any nonessential costs during COVID-19, Common Desk was faced with the decision to look for an off the shelf software solution.

The OfficeRnD management platform turned out to be the perfect fit. The platform met the functionality requirements and would decrease Common Desk’s expenses for technology.

Now, OfficeRnD is helping Common Desk achieve results on all levels such as meeting room management, member experience, contracts, and more. But the most significant benefits of the platform are in terms of billing and especially in these 3 areas:

  • Achieving convenient, fast, and efficient invoicing; seamlessly integrating invoicing, collecting payments, and accounting;
  • Providing autonomy and power to Community Managers and other staff members;
  • Providing convenience and autonomy for members in terms of accessing and paying their invoices.

  • OfficeRnD has put the power in the hands of our staff and our members in ways that we haven't had before. Everyone has become so much more autonomous and that has been a great place of growth for our company.

    becca briscoe common desk
    Becca Briscoe
    Product Manager | Common Desk

The challenge: Complex and tedious billing. Unreliable technology.

Complex, messy, and rigid billing

  • Prior to OfficeRnD, invoicing was messy and complex. Tracking the data was hard not only for the Common Desk team but also for the accounting staff.
  • Creating and charging invoices automatically with the custom solution created plenty of errors and inaccuracies. This was leading to a lot of manual work and created plenty of stress for the team.
  • The uncertainty of constantly guessing and checking invoices before sending. The checking process of generated invoices was complex and hard to track.
  • Modifying invoices was hard or often impossible. Instead of modifying the invoice when giving a discount, they often had to make refunds or credit notes.
  • The integration between the custom solution, Stripe, and Xero was poor and messy.

Lack of autonomy for the staff

  • The custom solution was not user-friendly. This resulted in a lot of questions from Community Managers to Senior staff about how they can do certain things.
  • It often happened that certain functionalities didn’t work and in most cases, the team had to reach out to the developers to fix things. Such issues were holding the team back from focusing on their daily responsibilities.

Inconvenience for members

  • Members were only able to check their invoices without being able to download them.
    To change their billing details or check payment status, members had to reach out to the Common Desk team.
  • The custom software solution was a headache for members because of constant issues, glitches, and crashes.

The solution: Smart and easy billing. Convenience for staff and members.

Precise and efficient billing

  • Common Desk’s team now creates invoices much easier and much faster than before. Community Managers are no longer scared of billing.
  • With OfficeRnD, Common Desk’s team has been given the opportunity to generate previews of the invoices. Also, modifying invoices is now easy – e.g. when applying discounts, or simply wanting to edit the invoice.
  • During COVID-19 some Common Desk members left, some wanted to stay but didn’t want to pay the full amount, and some wanted a refund quicker. OfficeRnD helped them manage these changes efficiently and with ease.
  • The native integration between OfficeRnD, Stripe, and Xero provides a fully connected, precise, and efficient billing process.

Ownership and power over day-to-day operations

  • Community Managers have much more ownership over invoices. They can easily navigate through the platform and manage the billing process with confidence.
  • For the Common Desk team, OfficeRnD is a very user-friendly platform and it’s easy to figure out how to do things. Community Managers are no longer that dependent on Senior staff to do their job as they used to be.
  • OfficeRnD has enabled Community Managers to take full ownership of their location. They are now much more independent, efficient, and confident.

Convenience and autonomy for members

  • Members can go online and download their invoices or change their payment details super easily; The Common Desk team observes that members take full advantage of this on a daily basis.
  • Providing autonomy to members helps the team stay focused on their main responsibilities, instead of being distracted by little tasks all the time.
  • Notifications are a huge relief and convenience both for members and the Common Desk team. Some of the most use cases are when a payment has failed or a payment method has been changed.
    Members can do much more on their own without being dependent on the Common Desk team.

 

Want more customer stories? We help the best coworking and flexible workspaces manage and scale their business. Find more here.

Connected Integrations

  • You have done everything in your power to fix our issues, listen to our suggestions, needs and wishes, you helped us in a time when many businesses needed help, and the list goes on. You all are a great coworking software solution!

    becca briscoe common desk
    Becca Briscoe
    Product Manager | Common Desk

  • We love how simple and straightforward invoicing has been for the staff. They no longer dread that task each month!

    lindsey le jeune common desk
    Lindsey LeJeune
    Community Manager | Common Desk

  • OfficeRnD is robust in its offering for coworking spaces, yet easy and efficient for users.

    becca briscoe common desk
    Becca Briscoe
    Product Manager | Common Desk

  • OfficeRnD is so self-sufficient that we no longer have to spend hours and days trying to fix issues. That is HUGE for us!

    becca briscoe common desk
    Becca Briscoe
    Product Manager | Common Desk

  • OfficeRnD has put the power in the hands of our staff and our members in ways that we haven't had before. Everyone has become so much more autonomous and that has been a great place of growth for our company.

    becca briscoe common desk
    Becca Briscoe
    Product Manager | Common Desk

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