Streamline Your HOA Management With Software

If you’ve recently joined the board and started to lead your homeowner’s association, you’ve undoubtedly grown familiar with the challenges and hurdles involved in keeping everything operating efficiently. Managing anything is a daunting task, even for the most seasoned folks. Managing a homeowner’s association is twice as challenging in some ways. Fortunately, you can vastly streamline the management process by using a comprehensive HOA management software solution instead of hiring a management firm. Here are a few ways to leverage this type of software to make running your HOA smooth and efficient.

Answer Maintenance Requests Faster

Even in the best of times, promptly responding to maintenance requests isn’t always easy. To keep the community in good shape and increase its property value, HOA management must address maintenance requests as quickly as possible. That being said, residents who discover new issues need to report them right away so you can get the ball rolling on repairs. Every community has different ideas about what a maintenance request could actually be (broken tiles, messed up patches of the landscape, modifications/remodels for example) and defines the difference between a real maintenance issue and a cosmetic improvement by the HOA’s rules. Once you receive the request, it needs to be submitted to vendors who will then put together a proposal and do the work. One way to help keep track of this is to use management software to keep your contacts/vendors list and associated performance reports readily. You should also try to find reputable vendors based on a number of factors that determine how well they might suit your needs. Get in touch with vendors via the integrated vendor management feature of your software, which should help you keep everything organized and accessible. When speaking with vendors, be as detailed as possible and have them submit everything in writing before giving the go ahead to come and do a repair. Instead of taking several weeks to see results, acquiring service this way helps you respond to maintenance requests much faster, offering benefits to both you and the fellow members of your community!

Process Online Payments

Every HOA member has dues and fees to pay. Fees cover maintenance castes and some utilities like water and trash services. There are also special assessments – for covering emergencies/ significant repairs or installing something vital to the community’s needs – that may come into play at some point. Fee amounts can also vary quite a bit. Most of the time, they’re between $200 and $300/month but may be higher depending on the kind of property and any special benefits provided by the HOA. Part of the HOA board’s job is collecting and processing those payments. Depending on the system you have in place, that can be a bit of a challenge. HOA software offers a good way to streamline payment processing through an automated system that allows homeowners to pay, get receipts, in view previous transactions easily wow also allowing the board/management to manage dues and handle the reserve fund appropriately. 

Create And Stick To A Budget Easier

Budgeting is always a challenging task that can sometimes become a pain in the neck. Most of the time, your board will start by discussing previous budgets and/or your current financial situation. Once you’ve established what your financial situation looks like and what changes where other considerations need to be made, it’s time to actually plan the budget. Software solutions streamline the budgeting process, making everything available in a single harbour and allowing board members and management to crunch numbers in real time being able to draft an appropriate budget that will benefit the entire community. 

Automate Essential Processes

Running an HOA requires several day-to-day procedures that can occasionally be difficult (or daunting at the very least) to track. The board of directors make the decisions, but the manager is ultimately tasked with carrying them out! HOA management software can be a saving grace here. It takes all the guesswork and extreme attention to detail out of regular daily operations, ultimately enabling managers and board members to do the job right. It also helps with calculating special assessments, automating reports, allowing users to access receipts from previous transactions, review ledgers, and handle those detailed maintenance requests. It s more like enterprise management software but it’s designed to be as simple to use as a smartphone, creating a way to stay on top of things easily and with the benefits of technology on your side.

Create A Sense Of Community

At the end of the day, building and maintaining great relationships with your community is what really matters. Automating certain processes and making it easier to get beneficial community work done are all vital aspects of making association members happy. Maintenance, receipts, better communication and quick turnarounds on homeowner requests all help bring the community together. With a robust software solution, you can make your HOA community into a well-oiled, happy machine and an even better place to live and reside.

Photo by Danial Igdery on Unsplash