Skip the Hassle of Manual Payment Processing and Gain Secure Online Payments for your HOA
For people who spent time on the Internet in its early years, today’s web pages open up an entire world of options that the architects of early websites might not have foreseen and certainly couldn’t implement. Where early websites were “look but don’t touch” affairs, with very few opportunities for visitors to interact with the person, group or organization responsible for creating site content, today’s sites are all about interactivity. Where early websites might advertise a product but not offer any easily accessible means of purchasing it, today’s websites abound with online shopping carts and other opportunities to make purchases and payments directly through the web.
How does this little history lesson relate to your homeowners association website? Unfortunately, many providers of website properties for homeowners association don’t yet offer easy-to-use, secure online payment schemes. To incorporate these kinds of features through these providers, administrators must go through extensive, complex procedures to sign up with payment processors, and potentially lose a percentage of every payment they receive simply to compensate the payment processor.
The traditional process of invoicing homeowners association members for dues and fees involves many sheets of paper, time, and envelopes, and the cost of a lot of stamps. That’s a time-consuming exercise, one that carries a price tag that quickly adds up to become a substantial recurring expense—not to mention the potential environmental impact of all that paper. Even if you e-mail invoices, you can’t accept payments via a reply to a message. Some homeowners associations set up online payment accounts just so they can accept dues and fees payments. However, although they may be able to set up a payment link from their website to the payment processor, the entire process is far from intuitive, and some members may refuse to use it or to sign up with the payment processing entity in the first place.
Once you mail out a batch of invoices in the traditional manner, now you have the hassle of accepting payments and transacting them. You need to maintain a log that shows who’s paid and who has not, and you need a bank account into which you can deposit checks or other payment vehicles. As people’s use of bank accounts continues to change, some members may lack the ability to remit their dues and fees through paper checks, and may have no alternative but to buy money orders to do so. It’s difficult for anyone to welcome the idea that they must pay a fee for the item they use to pay a fee.
Beyond the cost, potential environmental impact, and sheer hassle of traditional dues and fees invoicing, you face the additional challenge of chasing down payments from members who fall behind on their remittances—as well as the potential impact on your bank balance of a check that fails to clear successfully.
What you really want is a cleanly integrated payment processing scheme that’s part of your website, and that every member who signs up for access can use to pay their dues and fees quickly, securely, and without any paperwork. Unless your homeowners association website offers integrated secure online payment as a feature, you’re back to square one.
At HOAStart, we fully understand the impact of the payment process and the necessity of finding an easy way to collect required dues and fees. With long experience in working with homeowners association websites, creating the application code that runs them, and keeping track of what our competition offers, we know that this feature is essential to running your HOA easily, conveniently, and in a manner that puts your members’ convenience first. We also know how complex, frustrating, and potentially expensive it can be to attempt to integrate online payment processing on your own. That’s why all our websites offer online payment processing, with built-in access to secure transactions through a leading payment processor.
If you’re tired of the piecemeal process of watching the mailbox for a trickle of envelopes, you’ll welcome the way we handle dues and fees payments. Simply create an account with our integrated payment processor, and you’re ready to invoice and collect payments directly through your homeowners association website. No paper, no envelopes, no stamps, and no hassle. At the end of the year, your accountant will appreciate the easily accessible data you provide as part of your financial reporting.
Why struggle with the process of accepting payments when your homeowners association can offer its members a clean, well-integrated alternative that upholds the privacy and security of their financial data? Why shop around for payment processors when you can use one that’s built right into the administrative back end of your HOA website?
Even the least technologically sophisticated of your members are accustomed to making online payments, especially because of the convenience the process offers them. Who wants to write checks, lick and stamp envelopes, send them out in the mail, and worry about delayed delivery? The convenient online payment process that’s built into your HOAStart website serves as yet another amenity of your homeowners association.
And of course, secure, convenient online payment processing is just one feature of your homeowners association website when you build your online property through HOAStart. Our long experience and deep understanding of the competitive landscape means that we can anticipate the types of features you really want—and deliver them, along with the flexibility and aesthetically pleasing appearance that’s a must in a website. If you’re tired of homeowners association websites that are behind the times, and that don’t show any signs of catching up with today’s expectations, then you’re ready for an HOA website with all of the power and feature versatility that HOAStart can provide.
Not only do we provide the ultimate convenience of secure, integrated online payment processing, but at HOAStart, we know that you want to see what your website will look like before you make the commitment to become a subscriber. That’s why we offer a totally free 30-day trial through which you can experience every feature we offer without any cost to you. No strings, no limits, all with full support—it’s your opportunity to see what we offer with no strings attached.
