Condo and HOA Management Software: A Buyer's Guide

The five jobs the software has to do

Almost every product in this category is an attempt to cover five jobs. Rank them for your own association before you look at a single demo, because the ranking is what should decide the purchase and it is very hard to think about once a salesperson is talking.

• Money in: dues collection, payment methods, arrears tracking and reminders
• Money out: bills, approvals, vendor records and a clean trail for the audit
• The books: a general ledger that can keep operating and reserve funds genuinely separate
• Communication: notices, emergency messages, and a record of who was told what and when
• Records: documents, violation history, architectural requests, meeting minutes

Two observations from how these purchases usually go. Boards over-weight the communication job, because it is the one that demos most impressively, and under-weight the books, because nobody enjoys evaluating a general ledger. And the records job is the one that turns out to matter most during a dispute, when somebody asks what the board approved three years ago and in what order.

The accounting side is where products genuinely differ

If your association holds a reserve fund, and most do, the accounting requirement is not ordinary small-business bookkeeping. You need two funds kept apart in a way that survives an audit, and you need to be able to show the movement between them.

This is the single most useful area to interrogate in a demo, because it is where a general-purpose tool quietly fails. Ask the vendor to show you, on screen, a reserve contribution being recorded, a reserve expenditure being paid, and a report that states both fund balances at a past date.

• Can operating and reserve funds be held as genuinely separate funds, not just as categories on one ledger?
• Can you produce a balance for each fund as at a past date, not only as at today?
• Does a correction to a prior period restate your earlier reports, and does anything record that it happened?
• Can you export the full general ledger at transaction level, in a format your accountant can use?
• Does the reserve side connect to your replacement schedule, or is that a spreadsheet you keep separately?

The third question is the one that catches people. If a product silently restates history, then the financial statements you presented at last year's meeting cannot be reproduced, and explaining that to owners is an unpleasant evening. For how the two funds should relate in the first place, see our guide to reserve funds, and for what the replacement schedule should come from, see depreciation reports and reserve studies.

What drives the price

Pricing in this category is usually per unit per month, sometimes with a floor that makes small associations disproportionately expensive. The headline figure is rarely the whole cost.

• Per unit per month: ask whether there is a minimum, and what it is. A 12-unit building often pays the 30-unit minimum
• Setup and migration: ask whether historical data is included and how far back. It is often quoted as free, then limited to current balances
• Payment processing: ask who pays the fee, the association or the owner. It changes the real cost per transaction a lot
• Training: ask how many sessions, and what happens when the board changes. Boards turn over annually and the knowledge leaves with them
• Support tier: ask whether a response time is committed in writing. That is the one thing you need in the week before an AGM
• Exit: ask what you get on the way out, and in what format. It decides whether leaving is possible at all

The migration row is worth pushing on. Products often include migration of current owners and balances, which sounds complete until you realise your violation history, architectural approvals and document archive are not in scope. Those are the records you will want during a dispute, and retyping them is nobody's job.

Ask the exit question first

The most informative question in the whole evaluation is what happens if you leave, and it is best asked early, before anybody is invested in the outcome.

• Can we export every record, including documents and the full ledger, without paying a fee?
• In what format, and can we see a sample export from a real account now?
• How long do we keep access after cancelling?
• Who owns the data, in the words of the contract rather than the salesperson?
• If the product is discontinued or the company is acquired, what are we entitled to?

A vendor confident in their product answers these plainly. A vendor who deflects has told you something important at no cost to you. If you are already in this position, our guide to switching HOA management software.

The adoption problem nobody puts in the budget

Software only helps if owners use it. A portal with 20 per cent adoption means you are running two systems: the portal, and the phone calls and emails from everybody else. That is more work than before, not less, and it is the most common reason a board concludes the software failed.

Adoption is a rollout problem rather than a product problem, and it is largely decided in the first month.

• Make the first thing owners do in the portal something they want: paying dues, or seeing their own account
• Send the invitation from the board, not from the vendor, so it does not read as spam
• Keep one non-digital route open for owners who will not use a portal, and plan for it rather than resenting it
• Put the portal link on every notice from then on, so it becomes the obvious place to look
• Expect to re-invite. A single launch email reaches a fraction of any building

Budget for the fact that your board changes. Whatever you buy, somebody has to be able to hand it over in a year, which argues for the product the least technical director can use rather than the one with the most features.

How to run a trial that tells you something

A demo shows you the product working on the vendor's data. A trial should show you your own worst month.

• Load real data, including the awkward records: a split ownership, an owner in arrears, a unit mid-sale
• Run one full cycle: raise dues, take a payment, pay a bill, produce the month's statements
• Record a reserve contribution and a reserve expenditure, and produce both fund balances
• Produce the exact reports your treasurer presents at a board meeting, not the vendor's samples
• Send a real notice to a small group of owners and see what arrives
• Export everything, mid-trial, and open the export yourself
• Raise a genuine support ticket and time the reply

The export step is the one most often skipped and the most revealing. If you cannot get your data out during a trial, when the vendor is trying to win you, that will not improve once you are a customer.

When the answer is not software

Not every association needs a platform. A small self-managed building with simple finances and a competent treasurer can run well on a bank account, a spreadsheet and a shared document folder, and adding a per-unit monthly fee to that is a cost without a benefit.

• Under about 20 units, simple finances, a stable treasurer: a spreadsheet plus online banking, with a proper document archive
• Dues arrears are the main pain: choose on collections and owner payment options
• The books are the main pain: lead the evaluation on the accounting and ledger questions above
• Communication and records are the main pain: a portal, with the adoption work properly budgeted
• A management company runs the building: ask what they already use, and what you get access to

The last row catches boards out. If a management company holds your records in their system, your access may end when the contract does. Ask now what you would receive, in what format, rather than during a transition. Our comparison of self-managed versus a management company.

Frequently asked questions

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