7 Criteria to Consider when Evaluating New HOA Software
As many communities begin to budget for the upcoming year, choosing new technology that checks all the right boxes can be overwhelming. For many HOA management companies that are re-evaluating their current processes or technology to make a bigger impact with their communities have many goals to consider. Essential goals such as keeping management teams aligned, residents happy, and board members empowered to fulfill their community responsibilities can be achieved with a diverse platform that speaks to those goals. In this blog post, we’ll share 7 criteria to consider as you evaluate new HOA management software and how Pilera’s platform for managers, boards, and residents can help you achieve those goals.
1) Manage your communities anywhere
Does the current software or process allow you to take your tasks on any mobile device, browser, or location? With the shift to remote work, having the flexibility to manage all of your community tasks from any location or device increases efficiency and productivity at work.
As Pilera is cloud-based, managers can handle resident outreach and interactions, maintenance, and collaboration with board members on any device or location.
2) Build better resident relationships
Managing many communities means that you will need to cater to the diverse needs of those communities. If you manage a senior living community, you will find that although some are starting to adopt more technology, a phone call is still the easiest and most convenient way for them to get information. Communities that comprise of always-on the go and busy workers are more receptive to receiving text messages, and according to studies, will open the text within 3 minutes of receiving it. Each individual prefers to consume information in a different way. That’s why, when you let them select their communication preference, you’re positioned to build a better relationship with them. An important question for you to ask is, does your communication system or process give you the flexibility to connect with residents the way they want?
In Pilera, residents can select their communication preferences (phone, email, and text) and choose from 103 languages to receive translated messages. Through the resident portal in Pilera, residents can view documents and events, make a payment, find answers to their questions, and more.
3) Secure community data
With communities handling an array of sensitive data about community members, finances, and contracts, it’s important to make data security a focus. Does your current process or software allow your staff, board members, and residents to gain access to important community information securely? As you schedule demos from software companies, be sure to keep this important question in mind.
Pilera uses some of the latest technology and standards making it safe for both residents and managers to perform all their activities. These security protocols include strong password encryption, HTTPS security, auto-renewal updates, and more. We continually add updates to our platform to maintain our client’s data to the highest security standards.
4) Improve accountability in your work
With incoming service requests and architectural requests increasing in the summertime, combined with a slew of other community responsibilities, it’s important to maintain accountability for all your tasks. Being able to show the work you’ve done to your boss or to your board member clients is critical. Ask these questions when evaluating new software. Can I assign tasks to other team members? Can I find an announcement that I sent to residents last month? A resident is asking why their architectural change request was rejected – can I go back to my records and see why?
Managers will have a single source of truth in one platform, which many other software platforms do not supply. Pilera’s ticketing and communication system provides managers with a history of all their tasks and messages. Managers can view all status changes, assignment changes, and comments to work orders, architectural changes, activity logs, tasks, and violations. The communication platform also provides managers with a complete archive of all messages they have sent, their recipients, and whether the message was delivered, opened, clicked, and more.
5) Keep all your staff members on the same page
Communicating back and forth with your team members is critical to ensuring that everyone can complete their tasks on time. In your current process, how do you communicate with other managers on resident correspondences, maintenance, and other tasks?
Through Pilera’s ticketing system, managers and staff members can easily communicate with one another, update the status of the ticket, and reassign them when a response or action is required by another team member. Additionally, an unlimited number of managers can log into Pilera, so that they can effectively manage their communities together from any device or location.
6) Empower your board member clients
With board members volunteering their time to serve the community, it’s important to provide them with tools that can empower them to lead effectively. Does your current process or software enable board members to keep track of community tasks and gain insight on their progress when needed?
Pilera’s Board+ features are designed from the ground up to give board members the tools they need to manage a wide variety of tasks, ACRs, and events while gaining high-level insight on them. Board members can create and assign tasks to managers or other board members after a meeting. As board members receive an influx of architectural requests, they can accept or reject it while adding comments to inform the resident of the same.
7) Build upon your accounting system
It’s important to be able to build upon your accounting system functionality to provide your staff members and communities with an all-encompassing system that saves costs, improves productivity, and increases resident satisfaction.
Pilera improves upon your accounting systems through multi-faceted communications, a complete tracking system for work order and tasks, and a self-service resident portal. We partner with some of the best accounting systems such as Jenark, VMS, TOPS, Caliber, CINC, and more to reduce duplication of data while managing community outreach and tasks efficiently. You can learn more about our accounting partners here.
Take Your HOA Management to the Next Level
As you evaluate HOA management software solutions, ask these questions if your current technology provider or internal processes enable you to effectively achieve your team collaboration, board empowerment, and resident engagement goals. If you would like to learn more about how Pilera can help you achieve operational efficiency and gain a competitive advantage, you can sign up for a personalized demo.
