International Student House of Washington, DC provides international students, scholars, interns, and young professionals with more than just accommodation. It offers them a place to live, connect with others, and become part of a community.
Behind this experience lies a housing operation with residents arriving from numerous countries, staying for varying durations, paying on different schedules, and requiring support throughout their stay.
As the community expanded, staff were spending excessive time managing housing assignments, billing, payments, resident information, and communication.
The challenge: every resident stay was creating more admin work
ISH can accommodate around 100 residents at any given time, with individuals coming from over 70 countries. Many residents stay for six months to a year.
This means the team is not merely checking guests in for a few nights; they are managing a longer resident journey.
- Housing applications and bookings
- Room assignments
- Different lengths of stay
- Waitlists
- Monthly billing
- Payment schedules
- Resident communication
- Housing reports
The previous process required staff to spend hours manually maintaining these elements. Admissions needed to manage housing and demand, while accounting had to keep invoices, balances, and payments organised. Resident advisors required clear information to assist residents during their stay.
The solution: keep the resident journey connected
Booking Ninjas provided ISH with a method to initiate housing bookings and maintain the subsequent parts of the resident journey in a connected manner.
The housing journey begins with the resident and the stay they require.
Bookings and availability assist admissions in managing who can be placed and when.
Valuable resident information can remain connected throughout their stay.
Monthly charges, invoices, balances, and payment activities can follow the resident.
Portal access, communication, and reporting enable staff to support residents after move-in.
This is where Booking Ninjas excels: the booking is just the beginning, and multiple teams still need to operate from the same resident journey afterwards.
How the ISH setup solved the daily problems
| ISH need | Booking Ninjas setup | What became easier |
|---|---|---|
| Different stay lengths | Reservation Management | Admissions can manage housing stays based on the actual dates each resident requires. |
| Demand when housing fills | Waitlist Management | Waitlisted applicants can be maintained in a clearer flow rather than being tracked separately by hand. |
| Monthly resident billing | Invoice + Recurring Billing | Monthly charges, scheduled payments, and resident balances can remain connected to the same account. |
| Resident payment access | Student Portal | Residents have a platform to view essential account and payment information without needing to ask staff for every update. |
| Different staff roles | Salesforce users and access | Admissions, resident advisors, facilities, and accounting can work with the information relevant to their roles. |
| Manual reporting | Reports + dashboards | Housing and payment records already in the system can be used for reporting instead of being collected again manually. |
Billing needed to follow the resident, not live in a separate process
Longer stays make billing particularly crucial.
ISH required monthly pricing, scheduled payments, invoices, and the ability to carry an account balance forward into the resident's current statement.
Booking Ninjas assisted accounting in configuring those rules around the way ISH already bills its residents.
This means that the housing booking and the associated finances do not need to become two separate narratives.
The Knowledge Center explains the fundamental relationship in How Bookings Connect to Invoices .
Residents can handle more of the simple things themselves
A resident should not have to contact staff every time they want to clarify something straightforward about their account.
The resident-facing portal provides ISH with a platform to share approved information and support payment activities while keeping the administrative side separate.
This helps reduce routine inquiries for staff without eliminating the personal support residents still require.
The Knowledge Center elaborates on this concept in What Can Customers Do Through a Portal? .
For ISH, this is significant because staff time is better allocated to welcoming residents, assisting them in settling in, supporting community life, and addressing situations that genuinely require human intervention.
The setup follows the way ISH works
International Student House is not a typical hotel, nor is it a standard apartment building.
Its residents stay for extended periods, arrive from across the globe, follow different billing schedules, and interact with various staff teams during their time at the House.
This is why the setup was tailored around ISH's own housing rules rather than requiring ISH to adapt the community to fit a generic property system.
Admissions could manage bookings and waitlists. Accounting could handle billing and payments. Resident advisors could utilise resident and communication tools.
Salesforce provides the underlying technology, but the actual rules, users, records, and workflows belong to ISH.
ISH moved into the new flow step by step
The transition did not occur by asking every department to change everything overnight.
Booking Ninjas collaborated with the existing process during a two-month onboarding period. Resident data was transferred into new resident profiles, and staff were trained on the tasks they actually managed.
Admissions learned about booking and waitlist management. Resident advisors engaged with the portal and communication tools. Accounting established billing rules, payments, and invoices.
Within the first month, ISH was already processing bookings and payments through the new system.
This phased approach helped the new process integrate into the team's normal rhythm rather than becoming an additional project staff had to juggle alongside their daily responsibilities.
What became easier for International Student House
Bookings, residents, waitlists, and other housing records no longer require the same level of separate maintenance.
Monthly charges, invoices, balances, and payments can follow the resident in one connected flow.
The portal provides residents with a platform to manage simple account and payment needs without constantly asking staff.
Resident information and communication tools can remain closely aligned with the records staff already utilise.
The same housing and payment data used daily can also support reports without needing to be manually reconstructed.
Staff can devote more attention to residents, events, support, and intercultural exchange instead of routine administrative tasks.
One housing system can keep growing around the resident journey
For ISH, Booking and Reservation Management provide the foundation.
From there, the same setup can connect waitlists, resident profiles, billing, payments, portals, communication, reporting, and other workflows as needed.
This is beneficial for student housing because the challenging aspect is rarely one reservation. The more complex part is everything that must remain interconnected during the months following the resident's move-in.
For a broader use case, see the Student Housing solution .
Learn more about the connected resident flow
Discover how a housing booking can remain connected to the invoices and payments that follow it.
How Bookings Connect to Invoices →Explore what residents or customers can manage through a portal and what still requires staff involvement.
What Can Customers Do Through a Portal? →Understand why maintaining teams around the same trusted data simplifies everyday work.
What Does One Source of Truth Mean? →Spend less time holding housing operations together.
Discover how Booking Ninjas can connect reservations, residents, billing, payments, portals, and the daily work surrounding a long-term housing community.
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