Community Association Management Software

Key Takeaways:

Community association management software is a game-changer that won’t just improve the lives of association leaders; it will transform the way the community connects.
Associations of all types (HOAs, COAs, POAs) must uphold high standards of integrity and transparency in their management of the community’s finances. Robust software helps them accomplish that mission by facilitating excellent accounting and bookkeeping.
Software provides a single hub for communication, storage, accounting, management, and payments.
When communication is clear and consistent, tempers stay down and trust grows strong, and volunteers stay happy in their roles instead of burning out.
Software can significantly reduce association leaders’ to-do lists, automating and simplifying tedious tasks that lead to overwhelm. This frees them up to focus on tasks requiring a human touch.

Community associations have big jobs. And by “big” we mean “ginormous.” HOAs, COAs, and POAs are responsible for receiving and tracking owner dues, issuing violations and levying fees, managing neighbors’ money responsibly and ethically, upholding community covenants, overseeing property maintenance and upkeep, building community connections, protecting property values… plus a thousand other things we don’t have room to list. Like we said, a ginormous job.

Many association leaders and board members are volunteers, willing to serve because they have generous hearts and care about their neighbors, not because they are experts in accounting, organization, or property management. They’re glad to serve, but the extensive responsibilities can become overwhelming. On the other hand, professional community association management companies have the time and experience needed to manage an association. But growing management companies risk overwhelming their capabilities and providing inconsistent service each time they add a new neighborhood.

In the past, community association leaders were forced to rely on cumbersome, inefficient methods to accomplish all their work, but now they can turn to a powerful solution that reduces their workload and automates many tasks: community association management software. Management software frees volunteers and leaders to do more of the meaningful work they love: spending time with their neighbors and improving their community. Community association management software is a game-changer that not only improves the lives of HOA leaders but also transforms the way your community connects.

Community Association Management Software Helps Management Companies Provide Professional and Transparent Service at Scale

The day-to-day of community management comes naturally to community association management companies. It’s why they got into the business. However, consistent communication, finances, and enforcement become a lot trickier when applied across dozens of communities.

Add in three different software solutions and a few hacked-together Google Forms, and you have yourself an organizational nightmare.

This is where software comes in. With purpose-built community association management software like PayHOA, community managers can see all of their associations in one place with one login.

Community Association Management Software Facilitates Excellent Self-Management

Managing an association is a multifaceted, complex job, and it’s all too easy to get lost in a never-ending to-do list. And when everything feels like a four-alarm fire, you may think, “I’m running out of fire extinguishers. Maybe I should quit fighting my own fires and call in the fire department.”

In the case of an HOA, COA or POA, you may think, “Maybe we should quit self-managing and hire a property management company.” Both approaches can work. The final decision just depends on the needs of the community and the time commitment of the volunteer HOA board.

Here are a few ways community association management software can facilitate excellent self-management:

Software streamlines and simplifies your communication.

Instead of fielding emails, texts, and phone calls, you can send and receive all your association communication from one organized hub. This helps HOA leaders to remain accessible and responsive to resident concerns without losing track of messages. And when neighbors have a convenient outlet for their questions and concerns within the portal, they are less likely to blow up your phone.

Software provides organized channels for different types of conversations.

Some conversations need to happen between all residents; others only pertain to a small group. PayHOA offers communication tools to keep your community conversations organized (and off troublesome, public-facing apps):

Public bulletin boards where you can post announcements for the entire community to see
Restricted message boards where smaller community groups can communicate privately
Clear pathways for residents to request maintenance
Automated mass messages that allow leadership to keep the entire community informed simultaneously
A range of options in how you deliver community messages: text, email, prerecorded voice messages, and snail mail
Community calendars to keep residents informed in real time about events and meetings

When communication is clear and consistent, frustration decreases, and trust grows.

Management Software Was Designed to Meet Your Community Association’s Accounting Needs

If community communication feels intimidating for HOA volunteers, money management can feel downright impossible. Stewarding neighborhood finances is one of an association’s most difficult but important tasks.

For years, community association leaders have been forced to shoehorn their finances into tools that weren’t designed to meet association-specific needs. They did their best: resourceful people duct-taped together a system to (sort of) finish the job. Maybe you’re working with an inherited system like that now, using QuickBooks for some tasks (even though it requires numerous awkward workarounds), Excel for others (even though it doesn’t connect to your bank accounts), and — speaking of duct tape — let’s not forget that venerable paper ledger passed down from previous treasurers.

Imagine if you could do all your accounting work from one integrated application: sending automatic invoices and reminders, accepting digital payments, tracking income and expenses, direct depositing to your bank (Do you hear angels singing yet?), creating up-to-date budgets and profit and loss reports, even (Prepare to drool on your screen.) prepping to file your association taxes with confidence and ease.

For management companies: Imagine scaling those capabilities across all your communities simultaneously.

Thanks to community association management software like PayHOA, you can do all that and more.

Let’s look into the “more.”

Management Software Simplifies Your Daily Tasks

If you serve an association in any capacity, you know your to-do list is extensive and daunting. Here are a few ways community association management software can simplify management tasks. Software enables residents to do these things for themselves:

Report maintenance concerns at any time of the day, triggering an automatic workflow.
Check dues and fees from their owner portal, and pay online.
Set up autopay so they never miss a payment.
Connect with management or association leadership privately when they have questions.
Connect with neighbors through community bulletin boards and private message boards.
Look up policies, covenants, and other information from their member portal.

With the help of robust community association management software, association leaders can:

Respond promptly to resident concerns.
Communicate privately with association leaders and board members as needed.
Share news, meetings, and updates with the entire community on one-way bulletin boards.
Invite resident feedback and engagement through polls and surveys.
Initiate and track workflows for maintenance requests.
Oversee multiple properties from a single account.
Automatically send mass communication through email, text, voice mail, and even physical mail.
Automatically track income and expenses.
Balance accounts and maintain accurate budgets.
Pay vendors and employees.
Prepare regular reports on community association finances and distribute them to residents.

All of these convenient features simplify your daily workload and help your community run smoothly.

Management Software Preserves Trust by Providing Transparency

Association leaders manage their neighbors’ hard-earned money. (Gulp.) Not only do they answer to Suzie and Bob next door, they answer to the government. HOAs, COAs and POAs must uphold high standards of integrity and transparency in how they run the community’s finances. If you’ve been relying on QuickBooks and Excel, chances are you’re having trouble sharing data and creating easy-to-understand reports.. You’re jumping through weird hoops and doing a lot of manual entry and calculations, trying to make those platforms accomplish what you need… and they’re still falling short. (And you worry that all the manual entry is leaving you vulnerable to accidental errors and miscalculations.)

When you rely on community association management software — software specifically designed to support associations — your workload is simplified and lightened. And the results are much more professional.

PayHOA’s standalone software allows you to:

Automate invoices for fees, dues, and fines, and automatically update them with late fees as needed.
Make it easy for residents to pay dues and fees from their resident portal.
Enable autopay, making it a no-brainer for owners to pay on time.
Track income and expenses in real time.
Sync ledgers and bank accounts.
Choose between options for cash or accrual-based accounting.
Add in liabilities, then track them using reporting and journal entries.
Produce regular financial reports for your leadership team and residents so everyone stays informed.
Budget accurately so you can plan wisely.
Prepare your tax forms (including 1120-H and 1099 forms) responsibly and with minimal stress.
Protect your community’s sensitive financial information with military-grade 256-bit encryption.
Spend less time crunching numbers and processing neighbors’ paperwork, and more time out with your neighbors.

All these features make it easy to track your money and stay on track with your budget in a way that’s transparent to everyone. And if you still need more support, you can hire a PayHOA Bookkeeper to manage your books all year. All this means you’ll spend less time worrying over late payments and lost checks, and more time planning for your community’s future. And you’ll spend less time answering redundant questions, because thanks to the regular reports you send, everyone already has the answers. That kind of outstanding management and consistent communication maintains transparency and protects trust.

Management Software Can Minimize Your Risks

When most people sign up to help run an association, they’re excited about the fun parts — hosting ice cream socials, planning playground improvements, and fostering community connections. Rarely do we hear, “I can’t wait to minimize everyone’s risks and protect the HOA from litigation!” But the HOA is responsible for key aspects of neighborhood safety. Community associations may have to navigate risk factors like:

Resolving maintenance concerns in public areas that could pose health or safety risks
Purchasing and maintaining lighting, fencing, and surveillance cameras for a safe environment
Ensuring the community has the insurance coverage it needs
Upholding the highest standards of financial integrity while managing the community’s money

Community association management software can keep your communities organized and on track with these tasks. Specifically, it can help with:

Providing accounting support to properly budget for safety assessments, property upkeep, and insurance
Facilitating easy collection of dues and fees for a balanced budget
Initiating workflows for quickly resolved maintenance concerns
Keeping property upkeep on track by helping you pay employees, repairmen, consultants, and vendorsAdhering to legal requirements for posting information (meeting minutes, proposed covenant changes or property improvements, financial disclosures, etc.)
Storing sensitive documents and financial data responsibly to protect residents’ private information
Communicating clearly with owners about closing any gaps in their insurance coverage

Why take risks with risk management? Software helps you stay on top of small issues before they snowball into big problems.

Management Software Keeps Homeowners Happy

Nobody wants to spend their time fielding complaint calls from unhappy neighbors. Sure, community living is bound to have some measure of conflict, but clear and consistent communication, excellent management, and transparent leadership go a long way toward preventing unnecessary conflict.

As younger generations step into homeownership, they expect responsive management and leadership, and they assume they’ll be able to do almost everything online. They want digital ways to find information, pay bills, and communicate with their leaders and neighbors. Community association management software will help your association leadership fulfill both expectations. And software doesn’t just benefit younger owners — it also meets the needs of your legacy owners, who are deeply invested in the neighborhood goings-on. Legacy owners value clear communication about proposed changes, neighborhood finances, and future plans.

Community association management software can offer features like these to make your residents happy:

Message boards provide meaningful, convenient ways for neighbors to connect with each other.
Bulletin boards keep everyone informed about meetings, gatherings, and community concerns.
Opinionated residents can offer ideas and feedback through polls and surveys, confident that their voices are heard.
Residents can submit maintenance requests or questions after hours, sure they will receive a timely response.
Resident portals allow each owner to track their bills and dues online.
Autopay makes billing pain-free for residents (and saves leaders from the burden of chasing people down and levying late fees).
Up-to-date information about covenants, policies, or upcoming meetings is always available for residents to access in the app.

When neighbors are happy, association leadership is happy.

For self-managed associations, software can help you spend less time fighting fires and more time sitting around fire pits enjoying time with your neighbors(Just be sure to follow community guidelines for fire pits.).

For management companies, software saves you and your staff time, money, and stress while consistently offering transparent professional services to all the communities you serve.

Management Software Helps You Work Smarter

You probably know the adage, “Work smarter, not harder.” If you’ve been working hard for your neighborhood, but the burden has become too much, the solution may not be quitting your position: It may be working smarter by transitioning to an all-in-one software. PayHOA’s software reduces your workload and makes your community a happier place by:

Providing a single software platform to manage communication, accounting, document storage, and management needs
Simplifying tasks — instead of learning five different systems and softwares, you only have to learn one
Making it easy to communicate with residents and your leadership team through appropriate channels, some private and some public
Training your leadership on the software so you all feel confident using it and passing it on to new volunteers

Software can tame your to-do list, automating and simplifying many of the tedious tasks that lead to overwhelm. This frees you up to do the meaningful jobs that require a human touch: listening to neighbors’ concerns, cultivating an atmosphere of respect and trust, and forging true community connection.

PayHOA is a highly-rated, comprehensive software that provides everything your community association leadership team has been looking for. It was designed by people who understand the difficult aspects of your job and know exactly what you need. It provides a single hub for communication, storage, accounting, management, and payments.

Don’t spend one more day feeling overwhelmed. Contact us to try a free 30-day trial, and find out how we can make your life easier today.