HOA Software/Online payments/Website

The posting rules on this website don't allow us to mention specific products, but here's some general information.

* You want to use something that is easily manageable by future boards and officers who may not have great computer skills. I've developed Access databases, I enjoyed working with it, but I recommend using something more "plain vanilla" - for example, the various Office suites that produce files in common formats such as xls, doc, pdf, and the like. There are paid and free versions of this software.

* I prefer to use something that's web accessible rather than software that's loaded onto individual computers. This gives you more flexibility.

* Data security is important! So is records retention. Keep these in mind when you pick a platform.

* Personal opinion on software that allows homeowners to pay their assessments online: unless you understand data security and you keep up with all of the latest malware hacks, you're better off leaving this to the professionals. I also think this isn't necessary since *many* financial institutions offer their customers free bill payment services that have all of the data protections that come with banking systems. I personally use my bank's services to pay my bills, including my assessments, and I'm not even slightly tempted to use a system offered by my association. It's also the only free option for paying assessments: my association charges to print coupon books, and they charge a small "convenience fee" for using our association's software. Nuts to that...

Our local bank sets up a PO Box/Lock Box & prints barcoded coupons for our annual dues but we have to mail them out - they are currently doing the coupons for no charge. All of our typical bills are set up for auto-pay so there's very little work for our Treasurer. The other bills are paid through an online portal with our bank & the checks are mailed out. We pay a CPA accountant to do our annual review & taxes. I hope this helps.

An HOA can even have issues with a simple informational website. For example, who owns the domain name, and how do you pay for it and your site's hosting service? A lot of the services require payment via credit card, which the association probably won't have. The good thing about the popular web hosting services is that you can buy your domain name through them - buying through a separate domain name registrar can be a pain in the keister even if you know your way around this stuff.

Also, web hosting platforms can come and go. One of my favorites was bought by another company that specializes in the payment side of things, and they're gradually neglecting the needs of those who don't want to sell things online. I'm looking into moving my websites onto a different platform because of the little niggling errors and the lack of flexibility and support. It's too bad, because several years ago an inexperienced person could create an attractive and functional website without too much trouble.

There are plenty of association websites on the internet that are no longer being maintained. They, like board members, tend to come and go.

Google Sites is part of Google Workspace, which isn't free (and you need a credit card to sign up).

That said, the site templates look decent, and Google isn't going to be bought out by anyone. :-)

Why do you want HOA software and/or online payment company? I can see some advantage for a large community (manage logistics and spread the cost over a large pool), but I don’t see the advantage for a smaller community.

What I do see are a lot of disadvantages: you need someone tech-savvy to manage it and the hand-over if that person leaves or if you change software or payment company can be a nightmare, it can be tricky to find competent and available 24/7 tech help if something goes wrong, the initial set-up cost and perhaps ongoing cost will only be spread among a small pool of owners so everyone pays more, there is bound to be push back from some people, and security and privacy is an enormous nightmare (for this reason, alone, I would refuse to use it).

Personally, I think an Access database is fine for a small community. Once it is set up, it is only a matter of keeping it up-to-date. It is fast and easy for the owners to automate their HOA fee payment through their bank so there is no advantage to them to have an online payment portal. Your treasurer should be reconciling your bank statements monthly, anyway, so any problems (such as late payments) will be instantly spotted. As for the CC&Rs and documents, the owners should already have a copies, but if not, you can easily do an email blast.

We had an individual put a lot of time into a database. They had everything in it.
20 years after that individual moved, I was in the role where I had access to the records.
The flash drive that went to everyone who served in that role after her had all the database files on it.

Since I had the program, I opened the database and discovered that nobody kept the files up to date.

I expected that this was due to lack of knowledge or lack of access to the program to run the database.

Because of this discovery, we chose to stay with paper.
The exceptions were that the Treasurer would use a common spreadsheet program (and created instructions on how to use it) and everyone used the common word processor.
We would digitize files in pdf format for archival purposes.

Our Association is self managed.
There is no office or Association computer.
Who serves in the future may or may not have computer knowledge of those who are currently serving.
Therefore, we chose to keep the work at the easiest to understand level.
Paper documents was our choice to implement that decision.

I agree, using it is one thing but Access isn't particularly easy to maintain, and I say that as an ex-IT person. You also may be tied to a particular type of hardware, although even my Kindle tablet claims to run Office 365 nowadays (it doesn't according to a number of comments on Amazon, and I didn't notice if Access was even included in this version of Office 365).