Community association software helps you with management, communication, accounting, which saves you time and effort. As well as all that, and most importantly it boosts resident satisfaction and engagement. This article looks at the top 5 features of community association software and the benefits it brings you. Then we examine the top 3 options out there for community associations.
Features & Benefits of Community Association Software
Different software options focus on different aspects of community association management. In this section, we’ll look at 5 of the most important features and their benefits.
1 – Communication
Being able to communicate with residents is a key aspect of community association software. Most software has different communication channels, such as email, chat, texts, calls, website posts, and app notifications.
Benefits of online communication:
Communicating transparently and consistently with residents improves their satisfaction with the board and the community as a whole. It also helps to improve resident engagement, they’ll be more aware of events and meetings, and more likely to appear and participate.
2 – Events
Having an online event calendar and clear information about meetings and events is important to include as many people as possible. Community association software will provide you with a calendar, as well as new channels to communicate with residents about meetings and get-togethers.
Benefits of software for events:
Community events can be anything from meetings to parties and get-togethers. They’re a great way to unite people and participate in community life. And often in HOAs and Condos, you get a group of people who feel left out of those invites. Software helps to include them and make sure that they know what’s going on.
3 – Documents
Document storage is a basic feature of community association software. It allows you to organize your by-laws, meeting minutes, and everything else into different folders and sub-folders. You can also choose who can access them so that different folders can different levels of privacy.
Benefits of online documents:
Storing documents, or copies of documents, online ensures that they can’t be damaged or lost. They would always be safely stored on a cloud-based platform, which makes board transitions easier as everything is clearly marked in one place. It also saves the board and manager, time. Since residents will no longer need to request a document, they can easily find it online.
4 – Resident Database
Boards and managers need to see and change resident information regularly. This is often done in spreadsheets, which becomes difficult. Different people have different versions of the spreadsheet and it needs to be constantly updated. All community association software should allow you to have an online resident database.
Benefits of an online database:
Having resident information stored securely online, where you can easily update it saves you time and confusion. It is an essential feature of community association software for staff, managers, board, and committee members.
5 – Accounting
Having control and a clear idea of your community association’s income and expenses is an important aspect of running an association. While most HOAs and Condos run very close to even, they can’t make a loss. They need a well-balanced budget to ensure that they stay in the clear. Software makes that easier, you can use it to view payments, send dues to residents, and input expenses.
Benefits of accounting software:
Accounting software helps the treasurer, finance committee, and the management team to be on the same page when it comes to the budget. It makes your finances more transparent and easier to follow. If you also use payment software, it can help you to request dues from residents.
Top 3 Community Association Software Options
There are lots of different options for community association software on the market. We’re looking at the top 3 and how they can help you.
1 – Neigbrs by Vinteum
Neigbrs by Vinteum is an award-winning communication and management solution. It focuses on improving communication, and in turn resident engagement and satisfaction. Its 5-channel approach to communication ensures that community associations can reach the most amount of residents with minimal effort.
As well as communication features, it also includes management features, a complete resident database, documents, an online events system, a mobile app, and a website. It also provides accounting, and payment options, maintenance requests, amenity reservations, and much more.
Our onboarding and training makes it easy for boards to get started, and focus on improving their community, rather than uploading all their information to a new system.
Neigbrs by Vinteum pricing starts at $30 per month.
2 – Buildium
Buildium is a property management system that provides accounting, payments, vendor, and maintenance management, as well as a resident portal. They also provide managers with tenant screening and e-signatures. It is a broad system, that allows for different stakeholders and industries to be successful using their software.
Their pricing starts at $52 per month, not including fees for bank account setup, among others.
3 – Wild Apricot
Wild Apricot provides software for membership management. This means it works well for community associations but isn’t designed specifically for them.
They provide you with a mobile app, a website, payments, event management, and most importantly a membership database to help you manage resident information.
They have a free plan for small communities, and then their pricing starts are $48 per month.
Wrapping Up Community Association Software
Community association software helps boards with different aspects of managing a community association. It saves you time and it brings information for the whole community into one place. This makes finding events, documents, and other information easier for everyone.
Find out how Neigbrs by Vinteum can help you save time and effort using our community association software. Do a free demo and find out how we can help you help your community.
