Since going live in August 2025, Agreements Manager has helped Onward take a more informed, consistent and proactive approach to managing repayment arrangements. Early results include the creation of 5,156 repayment agreements, strong income performance with collection rates remaining above 100%, and sustainable repayment plans, with customers committing to repay arrears at an average rate equivalent to 26.29% of their weekly rent.
The Challenge for Onward Homes
Managing repayment agreements is a core part of income collection for Onward Homes. While it is best practice is to complete a full Income and Expenditure Assessment, it can mean agreements are based on estimates or Department for Work and Pension deductions, making it harder to understand a customer’s financial position.
Around 30% of Onward’s overall debt was tied up in agreements or court orders. Many agreements performed well at first, but most began to fail after around seven months, with some projected to take 30 years or more to clear. Managing them also required repeated customer contact to review and reset arrangements. As the team put it, this created a cycle of “making, breaking and chasing” agreements - using valuable colleague time without always improving recovery outcomes.
Onward was already using Voicescape’s Caseload Manager and seeing strong operational and financial impact, evidenced by the increase in income collection. To build on this and address repayment agreement challenges, Onward co-developed Agreements Manager with Voicescape.
Powered by behavioural insights and data science, Agreements Manager helps social landlords reduce break rates, recover arrears faster, and create more sustainable tenancies, while easing colleague workload and improving the customer experience. It works with Caseload Manager or as a standalone solution.
Behavioural insights and data science driven by AI & Machine Learning - Predict customer repayment behaviour, identify break risks early, and provide actionable recommendations so teams can intervene sooner and recover arrears faster.
Complete Visibility & Risk Profiling - View repayment agreements, past and present, with predictive risk insights and repayment forecasts to support data-led decisions and sustainable tenancies.
Pre-Set Repayment Plans with Automated Alerts - Offer long, recommended, or short plans with clear risk and repayment profiles. Automated reminders encourage timely payments, reduce workload, and improve agreement success.
Seamless Integration – Works with Caseload Manager or as a standalone solution to improve efficiency and the customer experience.
Early Impact
Since going live in August 2025, Agreements Manager has helped Onward take a more informed, consistent and proactive approach to repayment agreements. Their early results show visibility of agreement performance and clearer opportunities to support colleagues with coaching and early intervention.
Colleague Sentiments
Onward’s customer accounts colleagues praised the solution’s clear information display, time-saving features such as auto-calculated repayment durations, and improved insight into customer payment patterns, helping teams set more sustainable agreements.
“I’m really impressed with Agreements Manager. It’s easy to use, displays information clearly, and makes the agreement options easy for both us and the customer to understand. I think it will help maintain successful agreements and maximise collections.”
Abbie, Early Intervention Specialist
Want to see Agreements Manager in action?
Click HERE to book a demo and discover how Agreements Manager could transform repayment agreement management for your team.