How Community Association Management Software Enhances HOA Administration

Homeowners association administrators like you sign up for the job because they want to help their communities and condo developments excel at every aspect of neighborhood progress, from strong property values to a rewarding quality of life. Maybe you’ve seen what happens when an HOA doesn’t do its job, and residents find themselves chasing answers to essential questions or struggling to understand how they’re expected to comply with Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CCRs).

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Maybe you’ve been inspired by the example of a fellow administrator whose dedication to problem solving and resident support showed how the job should be done. Or perhaps you just want to do your part to support your community.

Regardless of why you’ve taken on these responsibilities, you want to do a good job of them—and you want to ensure that you use your time wisely as you work on HOA duties. If your homeowners association doesn’t already use community association management software to manage its affairs, you’re missing out on one of modern technology’s greatest assists to community administration.

How does community association management software make life easier for administrators like you? In almost every way you can imagine—and some you may not have considered. Best of all, not only does community association management software benefit you and your fellow administrators, but it makes life easier for residents as well, and that’s an all-around advantage no homeowners association should have to do without.

 

Neighborhood Associations

Self-managed HOA and self-managed condo association software

If you’re not familiar with HOA software solutions and the equivalent software packages for condos, now’s the time to check them out and see what they offer you. What you’ll find is that if you choose the right community association management software, you can automate manual drudgery and increase the thorough accuracy of your data-based processes. Across the board, these HOA software programs improve administrative operations, which in turn helps you enhance your interactions with community residents.

What does automation add to an administrative process? Actually, it’s more a matter of what community association management software subtracts from the equation: Wasted time and tedious effort.

Start with processes that require you to create an individualized response to every resident: An e-mail message, an invoice, a link to reset a password, and so on. Community association management software turns these types of tasks into a mere matter of a few clicks of the mouse or trackpad. Now you don’t need to build these responses one at a time.

Community association management software also helps you secure and protect your data and documents. Instead of attaching documents to e-mail messages to fulfill resident requests for copies of CCRs, community rules, articles of incorporation, and so on, now you can maintain an online document repository that provides easy downloads for the people you specify. Set individual access preferences for files and folders so you can control who accesses what. At the same time, centralize your member data and protect them so only residents see your member directory—and individual homeowners can control how much of their personally identifiable information they share with their neighbors.

 

HOA Board Meeting

Take advantage of HOA financial software

Take advantage of HOA financial software

When you list your homeowners association administrative duties in terms of the amounts of time they require, financial matters may rise to the top of that list, especially if you issue monthly or quarterly dues. With the right community association management software, you also gain access to HOA financial software that provides online payment processing for community associations—and a whole lot more.

HOA financial software handles the entire billing process: Dues setup, invoicing, late payment reminders, online payments, and manual payment annotation. With a few clicks, you can set up every aspect of your dues and fees, including amounts, due dates, payment terms, optional late fees and service fee pass throughs, acceptance of partial payments, and all the parameters that make up a specific payment. Ideally, HOA financial software even enables you to invoice your entire membership, a specific group of members, or even just one individual.

Expect your HOA financial software to offer built-in data management and reporting capabilities that enable you to download itemized report files so you can review payment status, dates, and other invoice information. Other built-in features enable you to enter manual payments for those residents who still prefer to pay by check. Because of the secure online payments you can offer through HOA financial software, those checks will be fewer and farther between, as residents appreciate the online convenience of digital payments.

Within your HOA financial software package, you’ll also find support for one-time charges that cover specialized payments for items such as pool keys, mailbox replacements, sponsorship funding, and so on. No more “bring a check to the office” for a new key fob—and when a sponsor agrees to support one of your events, they can contribute the amount they choose through a one-time charge with a flexible value.

Increase compliance and convenience with ARC tickets and HOA violation software

Does CCR enforcement rank right up there with invoicing as the most time consuming of your administrative tasks? With a built-in ARC ticketing system and HOA violation software, you’ll be able to handle even the most complex resident remodeling request—or the most challenging CCR compliance problem—with ease.

Before you even need HOA violation tracking software, built-in ARC tickets enable your residents to submit requests for architectural modification—complete with paint samples, contractor information, design plans, and other specifications—in a unified system that allows you to communicate directly with residents and confer privately with fellow administrators. All your comments, uploads, requests for modification, administrative discussions, and revised plans stay together in one place, so no information gets lost and no one loses track of what’s at stake.

 

ARC Submission

 

Regrettably, even a productive, helpful ARC ticketing system can’t manage every compliance case. When the situation calls for HOA violation tracking software, your community association management software steps in again with helpful assistance.

One of the most time-consuming aspects of dealing with HOA violations involves tracking and documenting the status of owners and properties that fall out of compliance. HOA violation tracking software helps you coordinate, compile, and manage all the information you accrue as you review property status and assess how to proceed. Built-in communication tools enable you to send messages that explain compliance requirements, attach documentation that provides the basis of your requests for change, and ensure that everyone who needs to review the overall message trail receives notifications each time an update posts.

Market your community effectively

Market your community effectively

Whether your homeowners association represents a mature residential development that’s fully built out and occupied, or you’re a newer community with open sections ready for new residents to buy in and build, you still need to maintain the public profile of your HOA to promote its advantages. Even though much of your community association management software takes care of materials, processes, and communications that only you, your fellow administrators, your board, and your residents can access, that same software package also needs to provide you with an intuitive interface through which you can design the public face of your community.

That’s part of the real power of community association management software, and one of the reasons your HOA can benefit from its features. In the best community association management software packages, you’ll find a full suite of website design tools that even a novice can use to create attractive pages based on professionally designed templates. You can add, change, remove, and rearrange pages whenever your needs change, build photo galleries that showcase your neighborhoods and events, and answer frequently asked questions in a convenient format that anticipates what residents want to know.

The best community association management software page templates combine thoughtful design with the flexibility to accommodate links, embedded videos, and a wide variety of graphics. Build a full-page map that shows your currently available lots. Design a page to showcase photos of your clubhouse, tennis courts, and pool, or to celebrate the glories of your flower gardens. Free HOA templates make every part of this process quick, successful, and even enjoyable.

Every aspect of your community association management software focuses on making it easy for you to share what makes your community unique, at the same time that the software takes care of business in private behind the scenes. It’s the ideal balance of neighborhood spirit and business success, all rolled into one powerful package

Solve specific problems with condo property management software

If the only solutions that come to mind when you think of condo property management software are really well-designed condo website templates, you’re missing out on a big batch of feature power that can make administrative management faster and easier for your community. Today’s community association management software supports condos as well as single-family HOA developments, and you’ll find features that simplify administrative tasks for every type of association.

 

Condo Management

 

Yes, the best community association management software includes professionally designed condo website templates, but it also accommodates the communication needs of developments like yours. Use a community newsfeed to pin bulletins about renovations and repairs, welcome new residents, and allow members to post listings for a virtual “yard” sale. Set up private chat so you can skip third-party social media as a communication channel, and offer the same types of opportunities to trade notes in a friendly atmosphere—one on which you don’t have to worry about protecting your conversations from prying public eyes.

How to find the right community association management software for you

How to find the right community association management software for you

After a while, if you read HOA software reviews, you’re either going to be overwhelmed by the number of providers and packages you see, or convinced that the process of finding the right alternative is going to take more time that you expected. Follow the right path to find your ideal community association management software, and you can eliminate the confusion along the way.

The best way to identify the right community association management software package for your HOA is to begin with a list of the processes that you wish you could streamline. Make those your first priority as you do your research.

Want to improve the efficiency of your invoicing efforts, make it easier for residents to pay promptly, and automate the task of invoice reminders? That’s a primary function of the HOA financial software within community association management software. Need good HOA violation software? You’ll find it here, too. Interested in exploring design features and free HOA templates? That’s another point of focus.

Now, start your thoughtful research. If you read a batch of HOA software reviews, you’ll begin to see some of the same community association management software packages mentioned in each review. That’s a great sign that a package offers considerable value and feature power—and makes it a great option to add to your list for closer scrutiny. Additionally, look for a package that receives frequent updates to add new features. That way, you know that the software will grow along with you.

 

Neighborhood Overhead

 

Once you’ve narrowed down your list based on reviews, feature set, and price considerations, now it’s time to look for a hands-on demonstration of the software that interests you the most. Look for a community association management software package that you can test out so you can see how it works, decide whether you like it, and find out how well it accommodates the administrative needs of your entire team. Some community association management software providers will give you access to a sample community that you can use to experiment with features and functions. Other providers even offer you a free trial period if you’re really interested in their product.

At HOA Start, we’re convinced that we offer you the best community association management software you can find—and we’re as committed to your satisfaction before you sign up with us as we are when you become a customer. We’re confident that if you try our community association management software, you’ll find that we’re the right fit for you.