HOA Software Recommendation

Alan,

Posting rules prevent us from specifying a specific software. When individuals ask for this type of specific information, they often provide an email address where those who have recommendations can mail them. If this sounds like something you would want to do, I would suggest creating an email from a free email service for this specific task. That way, your personal email isn't posted online.

I will add that I had served in my previous, self managed, association in several positions. We found that it was best to keep things on paper or generic word processing and spreadsheet programs. This was because those who serve after may not be as technical as those serving now. For example, when I served on the Architectural committee I discovered a thumb drive with a data base data. I happened to have that program, so I opened up the data on the thumb drive. That data had everything. Unfortunately, it was 10 years out of date because those who served after the individual who created the database had zero knowledge on how to use it or had no interest in keeping it up. For that reason, the committee chose to go paper only. Those paper records were scanned as a backup, but the committee operated from the files (which we did clean up and organize).

Hope this helps,

Tim

Hi Alan!

I totally get where you’re coming from. Given the forum restrictions, the best advice I could give you is to Google on ‘HOA portal software’ and look at what comes up. My neighborhood uses such a system - I certainly wouldn’t give it a 100% recommendation. Probably more like 60%.

Note that these are ‘portals’ and so you’re paying for a software service, not an actual piece of software. iMHO, this is a good thing: you *want* to pay somebody to fix bugs, do backups, apply updates, etc. I’d strongly advise against any kind of ‘volunteer effort’ software ala “Oh, I can write you a spreadsheet for that!”

To be completely honest, one of my biggest issues with our portal is that our PMC has the contract with portal software company and thus “runs” the portal “for” us. As a Board member, I have limited access to some of the functions., which is sometimes bothersome.

(I’ll add that PMCs in general often employ a business model pioneered by AT&T, where they take over the care and feeding of some function or service and in the process add one or more layers of “interface wall”, which tends to add delay and confusion - no more “just call Bob and he’ll take care of it.” To be fair, this also tends to add some kind of tracking ability to the mix, which you might like and I’ve pondered it myself: the portal we use has problem tracking, but we’ve never used it, sticking with the “just call or email our PM” model aka “the hungry washing machine”: work items go in … and some of them are never seen again).

Bill