How to Choose the Right Association Management Software

Are you frustrated with your current association management tools?

Are you able to fully perform your accounting and produce appropriate reports for your board, manage facilities, keep boards informed, communicate effectively with members, and comply with association management regulations?

Do you have limited features and customizability issues? Is there no technical support?

New Platforms Have the Services you Need

Many association managers find out the hard way that some HOA/CAM software simply doesn’t work for them. From desktop installation to lack of integration, it’s just not syncing with modern association management practices and processes. Popular legacy association software wasn’t developed for the financial, computing, security and accounting challenges that you and your staff must deal with.

Cloud-based SaaS delivery along with smart automation is the new standard.   The new generation platforms are simplified, integrated, streamlined, and fully featured. Let’s look at what you might get with a modern HOA/CAM software.

What Do You Need in a Good HOA/CAM Software?

Rather than review bells and whistles features and promises, evaluate these 16 major areas of concern before buying HOA or community association software:

1. Complexity and Usability: A few association management software solutions can be overly complex, making it challenging for managers and association members to use them effectively. If the software isn’t simplified, with smart automation and user-friendly dashboard, it can frustrate staff, board members and residents.
2. Unlimited Flexible Features: software may have essential features missing or can’t allow for important customization for each unique HOA or community association. Using ManageCasa for instance, you are able to efficiently charge and collect owner dues, track violations, review architectural applications, create groups, manage board member approvals, share documents, and much more. Also, an integrated association website extends functionality.
3. Data Migration and Integration: Transitioning from one software to another is easier than you imagine.  Yet sometimes data migration can require some technical help. (Our team can assist you with this initial setup activity).
4. Software All-in-One Integration: Using a mix of legacy apps side-by-side creates a lot of time-wasting friction and compatibility issues. A platform that integrates accounting, payments, maintenance tickets, communications, and more saves time and makes work easy for tired, overworked staff.
5. Work Automation Features: tasks that can be automated including financial transactions, bank reconciliation, report production, resident fee collection, violation tracking, and maintenance requests are accelerated.
6. Technical Support and Customer Service: Poor technical support and customer service can be a major frustration. When your issues arise, timely and effective support staff resolve problems quickly and get you up and running again.
7. Security and Data Privacy: With cybersecurity becoming a priority for online businesses, a robust internet security architecture is a must have. Access to and theft of your proprietary and member information is now a legal issue under the Data Security and Compliance Acts. Knowing your data is backed up securely is comforting too.
8. Performance and Reliability: Software that is slow, prone to crashes, or has downtime can disrupt day-to-day association operations. Reliability and performance are critical factors in choosing association management software.
9. Cost and Budget: Some software can hide fees and rising costs as you scale up your association or your management company. Getting a breakdown of the full cost of software subscriptions, migration, and extra add-on services is important.
10. Accounting Power: Software with a built-in professional-grade accounting solution is one of the most prized features, as bookkeeping errors and manual administration eat valuable time. Pro-level solutions offer smart automation of repetitive transactions, produce meaningful reports, and allow you to issue HOA violation tickets and accept payment from residents.
11. Support for All Digital Devices: With a dashboard that is usable on any device, on a highly secure cloud-based system, encrypted connection, and an app for mobile users (Apple iOS or Android), there’s little concern for serving users on the device they have.
12. Adequate Reporting and Analytics: Track financials, member engagement, and other key metrics. Software that lacks these features can hinder decision-making and planning.
13. Updates and Maintenance: Regular software updates are necessary to fix bugs, improve functionality, and address security concerns. Having an experienced technical team to manage updates for you is priceless, since you may not have an IT specialist.
14. Scalable Growth: As your association grows, legacy software may struggle to scale with a growing workload and service demands. The result is bottlenecks, angry users, and lower confidence in your management team. SaaS software offers limitless scalability. And with your monthly subscription, you get this flexibility to pay less if you should shrink your staff and membership.
15. Overcoming Resistance to Change: HOA/CAM staff value comfort and simplicity too.  An unfamiliar software dashboard may cause them to resist modern association management tools. This resistance might be lessened by introducing them to a simplified, easy-to-use platform that helps them get more work done leaving them time for more important tasks.
16. Demos and FREE trials: this added benefit allows you to investigate the solution firsthand to ensure it has the features and services you need.

No association software is perfect and some are simply outdated and cannot meet expectations. You’ve likely discovered that and need to upgrade to a modern CAM/HOA software platform.  This is where ManageCasa™ comes in.

ManageCasa’s association management software platform is much like a full-featured property management software. You’ll find it resolves all of the 14 major software buying challenges mentioned above. Your transition will be smooth and painless. Let our team help you make your association successful.

To discover more about the full ManageCasa™ HOA/CAM platform call us now at 415 800 1245.