Electronic access to Management companies work orders?

I would be interested in knowing if your board has access to the work orders and requests of your management company? Is this a common service for them to provide? Some of the reasons I would like to have this type of access are:

1.) To have the ability to see any request that is older than 30 days old.
2.) Provide a better understanding of the work load of our management company.
3.) To help identify common problems/requests that we may be able to address pro actively.
4.) To understand why the management company is getting 300 emails and 200 phone calls per month. Our community is made up of 144 condos and 22 patio homes. The amount of emails and phone calls seem high for this size community and I would like to know why.
5.) We will be sending out an RFP for management companies in the near future and this information would help me understand what services we need.

I've been on the board for a year so I readily admit that this type of service offering may not be the norm which is why I'm asking others if they have this type of access.

I totally agree. If I had access to the records I could verify this. Do you have a system in place to see your requests?

Agreed. Common practice by many MCs. Getting more common all the time. Looking at their management software should be part of your selection criteria for a new MC.

Re your current MC, you should demand a copy of the log that shows how many emails and phone calls. With a quick glance, it should be easy to tell from that log which are the most frequent phone numbers and the most frequent email addresses.

I've managed many properties over the past ten years, some smaller, some larger, and some the same size and have NEVER had that many phone calls or emails from one community, let alone a whole portfolio.

If the numbers stated are accurate, if I were the management under assault, I would help you with your RFP to get you new management. I would surely feel I wasn't getting paid enough.

You said "that makes me think her claim is false" - where did that come from? If you have an issue with one homeowner, that should be resolved in a different manner. That doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to look for another property manager if you aren't happy.

That said, you also said you don't even understand what your needs are or what you need to improve on, so I think more research is warranted before you can take a deep dive into reviewing RFPs. You should know what common areas need maintenance and what that takes, and what the property manager does to help you manage the association's finances. If you don't know that, you need to pull out the management company contract and read it.

Another way to find out what's behind the phone calls and emails would be to send out a survey and ask homeowners what they think of the property manager. Hopefully, you'll get enough responses where you can identify patterns. From there, have a sit down with the current property manager to see how problems can be resolved.

In fact, have you ever asked your current manager about getting access to the call log or work orders? They may be willing to issue you a monthly report, especially if that will result in them keeping your business.

I was referring to the Management Company and not a Homeowner. Over the last 3-4 months we have asked for access to work orders and they keep putting us off. I like your idea about the survey.

Good advice Shelia.

Barbara, thanks for your feedback. Homeowners are complaining about response times and that the management company is non responsive. Our management company does have some type of electronic logging system but I don't have details on what types of capabilities it has or if they have the ability to generate summary reports for us. I have asked about this repeatedly and have so far not gotten a response. In my humble opinion this is partly due to the fact that they have been our management company for 16 years and have gotten too comfortable. The contract has never been revised or officially renewed since the first year. Instead, the board has verbally agreed to renew each year. This is partly coming to a head because previous boards have failed to make appropriate increases to our dues and it has caught up with us. The last reserve study was done 7 years ago and the recommendations were not followed. Shortly after I joined the board a year ago I brought this issue up. Several of the other board members were apathetic about the situation and the rep from the management company suggested we use the old reserve study and update it ourselves. I resisted and we finally had a new reserve study done.As I expected we are not funded appropriately. The biggest issue is our roads which are years past their useful life. The estimate to repave them is $1,000,000 and we have $400,000 in reserves and no money has been set aside for roads. I'm not blaming this on the management company. The board ignored this situation for years and we have to deal with it. I'm giving you this background information because it explains why I want to know more about what the management company is doing. I want to understand our costs in detail and look for ways to save money. For example we are an older community and have a lot of mature trees. We are constantly having to take down dead trees or prune existing ones. Instead of calling someone out for a bunch of small jobs I would like to be proactive and survey the neighborhood so that we can group these requests together into a larger project which may reduce the cost from the vendor. The point is when you do maintenance in a piece meal approach it will be more expensive. Items should be grouped together and then addressed. This is just one example why I want to look at the call history that the management company has in their data.

The other basic issue I have is how do you grade your management company if you don't even know what they're doing? How do you evaluate their annual request for in increase in fees if you don't know what their real work load is? As I've stated before, we will be sending out an RFP later this year and I want a better understanding of what services we need from a management company. We have no one to blame but ourselves for this mess and I want to try and remedy this. Part of this process is to understand our true needs and have a management company that acts as a true partner.

We did take this issue to the VP and got no where. She was defensive and didn't follow through on what she promised to do. However, two weeks ago she was replaced with someone new and we will be taking our concerns to her replacement. Now that the rest of the board realizes we are in a financial bind they are on board. Also two new board members were elected in May and they seem eager to help. I just ordered a book from CAI called "How to find the right Community Association Professional". The outline of the book sounds like it will help me to understand how to go through the selection process and write an effective management contract that's fair to us and the vendor. Thanks again for your feedback!