The treasurer uses the accounting software. The president has a folder of governing documents that are stored in cloud storage. Emails from residents are scattered across the inboxes. Someone’s phone is filled with photos of infractions. The board member also has access to the community’s website.
Technically speaking, everything is there.
Finding it is another matter.
In a homeowner association that is self-managed administration can be complicated by one tiny workaround at one time. One issue is resolved by an Excel spreadsheet. A group chat can solve another. The board then adds online payment software, shared storage software, accounting software and an online site to its list of tools for communication.
Volunteers will spend a lot of time managing tools. many hours managing tools as they manage their community.
The issue isn’t with self-management.
Self-management permits an association to be in control of its activities. The problem is that board members are volunteers and not full-time administrators.
The board still has to collect assessments, keep track of records of owner information, track expenditures and keep in touch with residents. They also have to keep track of violations, organize documents, prepare reports and preserve documents.
Good HOA management software should reduce that administrative load without taking control away from the association.
Perfect HOA accomplishes this by combining all records (units financial, payments, and communications) including documents, violations as well as the resident portal and meeting minutes into an online system.
Imagine what happens to homeowners after they relocate.
Instead of re-updating one spreadsheet with the owner’s address, updating another contact list, or checking out another payment method or manually altering access to websites central records can prove helpful for all administrative functions.
The Treasurer should not be required to recreate the Financial Picture
If information is not centralized, it could cause similar issues.
Bank transactions happen in one location. Assessment payments are received in other places. The budget may be an Excel spreadsheet. If someone wants to know how the actual spending compares to the annual budget the treasurer needs to find the answers.
HOA accounting software is much more effective when the bookkeeping software is integrated with everyday tasks.
Perfect HOA can sync bank and card activity with Plaid, categorize transactions and create reports such as Profit & Loss budget and Actual. Actual, and cash flow. Reserve, operating and special-assessment accounts can be tracked in separate ways.
This is important because HOA accounting doesn’t just revolve around the year-end financials. Boards may be interested in knowing how much is left in reserve funds or if they’re on the budget for landscaping.
The less dependent the community is on a spreadsheet that is private and the more straightforward it will be to get the answers.
Residents shouldn’t have to wonder the location of everything.
Centralization can also improve the quality of life for residents.
Consider the questions that an HOA is asked on a regular basis. What are the documents for the community? Is my payment in? Where can I find the latest news? Where can I get access to information about the association?
A good HOA website developer must do more than just create an online home page for the public. Perfect HOA integrates the community website with a resident’s portal to keep the owner’s information and documents connected to the management system.
It’s no longer necessary to keep two sets of information for the website and another for a boards.
This will also allow residents to identify the correct person before calling a volunteer member on the board to discuss something already in place.
When things go wrong it’s important to have good track records.
It is often months after the initial test when an HOA administration system is put to the test.
A resident is displeased with the validity of a violation. Someone wants to know if an official notice was actually issued. A new board wants to know the details of an old decision. An auditor needs financial information. In the midst of it all, the treasurer decides to quit.
The memory won’t be enough.
Perfect HOA can maintain communication histories, delivery information, documents, as well as timelines of violations. Photographic evidence including notices of escalation fines, and more may be included in an incident rather than needing to reconstruct it from scattered emails.
Even board meetings create records that must be kept. AI-generated meeting minutes could ease the burden of manually turning meetings that are long into useful written record.
People will always be required to make the decisions when self-managing a HOA. Software is not able to replace this obligation.
The detective work needs to be removed.
Board members will have less time to think “Who is responsible for this?” and more time dealing with the issues that call for their judgement.
If you are a board member, that may be the most valuable automation of all.