Online HOA Software needed

Started by FranS1 • 31 replies • 8963 views

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FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

I have a 39 unit HOA..I am loking for online software to do basic functions - sending invoice for dues, keep track of late fees and leins, invoice for dockage, tie into online banking, keep tract of bills (only about 5 per month) and run reports - either on demand or annually.

Does anyoine have ideas? Need something extremely inexpensive. Currently all of this is being done manually.

Thanks in advance

JohnO6 (Georgia)
Posts: 424

Posted:

Fran -

I'm a huge fan of "online software" - typically these days known as SAAS (software as a service) providers. The key here is to define, very precisely, what you need the software to do. Once you've done that, there is no shortage of SAAS providers to meet your needs. Some random thoughts and examples below:

- Quickbooks online will do most of what you want for about $35/month
- If it's just invoicing with the ability to tie into accounting software, the take a look at Freshbooks and VoInvoice.
- You might consider going to www.thesmallbusinessweb.com to see a wide variety of SAAS products that might fit your needs.
- If you need to move into more fully integrated HOA management (beyond just billing and accounting) you might consider the Association edition of Buildium at www.buildium.com which for your size community comes in at under $30/month.
- You can actually find pretty full service accounting software in the SAAS model for free!
- As others have mentioned, you might consider adapting free online financial management such as www.mint.com to your small HOA.

Hope this is helpful.

John

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

John-
THanks for the answer. Yes my association is small and we only collect fees annually so something that charges $30. per month is way out of the question. The board would never approve. Free would be GREAT but I am not coming up with much. What are you searching under?

Ideally software that would allow online payments as well as basic accounting (we have only an annual meeting and met a balance sheet for that). I would just like to be able to follow payments and bills.
I will check out the opnes you mentioned. I have looked into Buildium and it is way more than we need.

THanks for the input and any additinal ideas you have. (I have never heard of SAAS before...)

JohnO6 (Georgia)
Posts: 424

Posted:

Here are some online accounting SAAS products that either are free or have free versions (with either limitations or fewer features):

saasu.com
numia.biz
rhinnoaccounting.com (integrates with google apps and gmail for invoicing)
outright.com (really designed for sole proprietorships or single member LLCs)

For $10/month, there's also:

kashoo.com

As others here have mentioned in a separate thread you might also be able to adapt mint.com to your HOA. It is designed really for individual personal financial management, but I suppose it might be possible to adapt. You may want to search the forum threads for "mint" (the thread was relatively recent) to contact the posters who had more experience than I with this site.

Hope this helps.

John

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

I've used mint for years, I love it.

Mint was just purchased by Quicken/Quickbooks company Intuit. I hope they don't start charging or mess it up.

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

I don't think Mint will work since we collect dues and fees annually not monthly. I will check some of the other sites mentioned.

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

I am not sure how some of you get these other software packages ot work. I have tried a number of them and they just aren't giving me what I want.

I have accounts receivable for HOA dues and Dock dues that are collected annually. Occassionally we have an assessment, again it would be annual. We then have some monthly bills - electric and stuff. We want a balance sheet at the year end meeting. It would be nice to be able to have online access to this as well as to incorporate the bank statement.

Let me know.

DaveW3 (Missouri)
Posts: 9

Posted:

You are a business. Accounting software is a business expense. Spend the money.

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Quote:

I am not sure how some of you get these other software packages ot work. I have tried a number of them and they just aren't giving me what I want.

I guess my standards are lower than yours. (wink) I'm happy with mint.com and I use Google Spreadsheets (also free) to track things. You can easily provide a balance sheet at the end of the year (JAN-DEC) with mint. Just print the screen, hand it out.

I think you need to adapt to the products that are out there, not hope the products will adapt to you.

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

I'm trying, really I am...... What I am having a tough time with is how to set it up to "charge" everyone their annual dues and fees (those that rent docks); categorize them and then show them as paid. THe vendors is easy as bills come in monthly. I am attaching what our year end statement looks like manually today. THe number are just for FUN.

Maybe I am trying too hard to make it work and not adapting....not sure. I truly appreciate your input.

📎 Attachments (1):

⏸ Downloads temporarily unavailable

📎1423293310271.xls(20 KB)

JohnO6 (Georgia)
Posts: 424

Posted:

Fran - Not sure exactly what you're having difficulty with .. .. but from the attachment you provided, if those numbers are even remotely close to reality, you've got a very small budget and expenses to deal with.

Nonetheless, you should invest some time at www.numia.biz They have a set of video tutorials showing most aspects of their system including:

Registering with Numia
Adding New Customers
Adding New Vendors
Adding Accounts
Adding Bank Accounts
Adding New Users
Adding Products
Creating Invoices
Receiving Payments
Recording Cash Sales
Recording Customer Refunds
Vendor cash Purchase
Vendor Credit Purchase
Pay bills
Vendor Refund
Vendor Prepayments
Write,print and upload checks
Entering Credit card charges
Entering Credit card Credit
Recording Deposit Transaction
Recording Withdraw Transaction
Transferring Funds
Recording a Journal Entry
Recurring Transactions
Bank Reconciliation
Reports Overview
Customization of Reports
Audittrial
Backup

Again, I have no connection with the company - cannot attest to anything about it except that it exists and is free.

Regards,

John

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

You could use a simple spreadsheet like this to track who has paid for each month. Just enter a $$ of the check each time they pay. Doesn't need to be any more complicated than who owes, the month and have they paid. See attached.

📎 Attachments (1):

⏸ Downloads temporarily unavailable

📊1423585935871.xls(30 KB)

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

John - I will try it again...

Steve - That would keep it manual and I am hoping for something automated. Where we can send an invoice and keep track of who pays, who hasn't paid, what bills are being paid, etc. Would also be nice to have one place to look up names & phone numbers. Plus we need to keep boat MC numbers on file to make sure that all boats moored belong to members.

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Quote:

That would keep it manual and I am hoping for something automated. Where we can send an invoice and keep track of who pays, who hasn't paid, what bills are being paid, etc.

Automated ehhh? That would be called "hiring a property manager" LOL.

Your talking about services that have hard costs. Mailing invoices, stamps, paper, envelopes, receiving checks, recording them, etc. There are companies that provide this, but they cost good money. And you still have to spend time working on it.

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

Steve - You use mint for you spreadsheet and accounting functions - right? DO you also use it to keep tract of who owes dues and assessments? I don't see a way to add in the annual income - seems it only allows for monthly income

darn

John-Rhinoaccounting.com - it says you need google aps and is looking for a domain name. Guess it's not free since I don't have a domain name nor do I use google aps. darn

Back to paper & pencil

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Quote:

You use mint for you spreadsheet and accounting functions - right? DO you also use it to keep tract of who owes dues and assessments?

Well mint isn't a spreadsheet. For spreadsheet I use Google docs. You can easily use Excel, does the same thing. That excel sheet I uploaded for you? Thats similar to how I track dues. I like to keep it simple.

Quote:

I don't see a way to add in the annual income - seems it only allows for monthly income

I'm not sure what you mean by "add in" the annual income? All mint does is download data from your bank accounts and categorize it. So if you have a balance in your account, it shows up. No need to add it. You are probably only showing one month because you just signed up. As more months pass, you can click 12 months worth by holding shift-click on the first month and the last month you want to see figures on.

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

I just don't see mint helping.....I did put together an excel spreadsheet (never used google docs) and I think it will work. IF you are interested, I can show you a copy. It keeps everything manual and only used by one person, which I was hoping to avoid, but at least it's more legible and available on demand (so to speak)

Thanks

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Sure, I'll take a look.

FranS1 (Michigan)
Posts: 10

Posted:

Let me know what you think

📎 Attachments (1):

⏸ Downloads temporarily unavailable

📊142557476071.xls(27 KB)

JohnO6 (Georgia)
Posts: 424

Posted:

Fran - looked at your spreadsheet and it certainly looks workable for the small community you're dealing with. My only comment is that the tab you have labelled "Balance Sheet" isn't what is shown in that sheet. It's actually a Profit/Loss statement (or Income Statement more properly). You may want to consider adding a fourth sheet with an actual Balance Sheet.

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Looks good to me Fran. If everyone is happy with it, I wouldn't change a thing.

BeverlyH3 (Oregon)
Posts: 5

Posted:

I have a 84 unit HOA..I am looking for online software to do basic functions - sending invoice for dues quarterly, keep track of late fees and leins, tie into online banking without using paypal etc., keep tract of bills (only about 3 per month) and run reports - either on demand, quarterly, or annually. I have accounting background but want to be paperless for our HOA. Can you suggest an online software SAAS for me?
Beverly

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Beverly,

I would not use an online accounting software. This is mainly because, in my opinion, your entrusting the security of your records to a third party. Although, I will admit that their is good software available. I just don't think the HOA should use an online version.

We use a paper journal for tracking the Lot accounts and excel to track expenses.

I use quicken for my personal accounting.

Tim

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Quote:

I would not use an online accounting software. This is mainly because, in my opinion, your entrusting the security of your records to a third party.

I disagree. These companies have teams of people working on security, backing up data, etc. Most HOA's dont have anyone with the technical skills to even update their windows computer to secure it, nevermind make a backup.

That said..... BeverlyH3 all the suggestions you need are right in this post. Start looking at them.

JohnB64 (Georgia)
Posts: 1

Posted:

You should try fetchflow. They offer full featured invoicing solution for free. It is OS independent as it is web based. You can create Unlimited PDF [Adobe PDF] branded invoices, estimates & PO's. There are many cool features like paypal integrated invoice payments,MS-Excel template based invoicing,Integrated stock & catalog invoicing etc.And many useful add-on,s are also available.

StevenJ2 (Maine)
Posts: 1

Posted:

We were using paper and Excel but made the jump to an automated system.
After reviewing some of the HOA software products and online web services, we opted for a PC based solution, HOA Database Software, see the links below for an idea.

http://www.db-pros.com/

http://www.db-pros.com/HOATracking/HOA_Tracking_Database_Software.aspx

We needed some minor adjustments to the database to meet our needs, but its been running well since.

Steve in Maine

StephenN2 (Texas)
Posts: 5

Posted:

I've actually started creating my own software.

So far I have the basics:

Residence and Owner Management
Basic Residence Accounting (Debit/Credit, Cash accounting)
and some basic dashboarding, residence summary stuff

Not sure what to build next. Thoughts?

Here's the software: http://hoa-warestack.rhcloud.com

Login: [email protected]
Password: password

PitA
Posts: 1,416

Posted:

QuickBooks Business Edition

$299 (occasionally on sale for $199)

after initial 'set-up' of data base it will also handle ALL your letters and routine mailings internally

Done

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

5 year old thread dormant for 2 years reactivated for spam.

PitA
Posts: 1,416

Posted:

darn darn darn

must must must read dates

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

That's OK, PitA. In fact, I had just read this NY Times article from Sunday < a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/technology/when-a-company-goes-up-for-sale-in-many-cases-so-does-your-personal-data.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/technology/when-a-company-goes-up-for-sale-in-many-cases-so-does-your-personal-data.html about online privacy and your post (and the one above it) got me curious about the privacy policies of both QuickBooks and Dagizmo. The QuickBooks privacy policy isn't great but Dagizmo doesn't even have one. Store owners information in the cloud without even a mention of how they keep that information secure? Not a chance in h*ll.

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