Smart Membership Software and Other Tools Large Associations Use

Large associations manage thousands of homeowner-related activities and massive properties with multiple neighborhoods.

In fact, large-scale community associations, like master planned communities with sub-associations typically have a minimum of 1000 homes or a minimum of 1000 acres with an annual budget of 2 million dollars or more according to the Community Associations Institute.

Table of contents

• What is membership software?
• Top membership software features large associations benefit from
• Other tools used by large associations
• Large associations must use tools to manage their communities

Now, can you imagine the feat it is to keep so many homeowners engaged, up-to-date, and happy while running a large-scale community? The reality is, it’s next to impossible for large associations to do so without engaging various tools to support their efforts.    

Let’s take a look at what some of those tools are, stating with the most important, membership software.

What is membership software?

Membership software is an operating system or application that large associations use to help manage the numerous community living activities related to members.

In other words, the software and its functionality are used to make ongoing activities that take place in a large, shared community more:

• Streamlined
• Accountable
• Efficient

Think of membership software as a good friend you can rely on and that helps you get you need to get done, done well.

Example

For example, membership software for large associations includes various features. One of those features is the ability to manage visitors and parking.

You see, there are over 273 million registered motor vehicles in the US.  Which means not only thousands of homeowner vehicles need parking space, but so do their guests, not to mention service and repair companies that come to the community.

Comparatively, in a small homeowner’s association, you may see a paper log, where visitors sign in and out and make use of the visitor parking as they please. However, in large associations using a paper log is like putting out a spreading fire with a bottle of water. It just won’t do.

Instead, the membership software can help security and concierge:

• Manage the amount parking spots
• Locate available spots
• Retain details about who visited for added safety
• Track time stamped entries and exits
• Track length of parking time (daytime, overnight, days)
• Facilitate parking enforcement.

A paper log pales in comparison to the parking feature in membership software, and simply can’t handle the volume of daily visitors, whether personal or service professionals that come to the property daily.  So, membership software is a necessity.

Now, this is just one of the features available in membership software, there are many more helpful functions, but let’s look at some of the most popular ones.

Top membership software features large associations benefit from

Large-scale associations can better facilitate community decisions, actions and activities by using membership software, because there are so many that take place simultaneously that without it, chaos is guaranteed.

Here are some of the popular solutions membership software provides to large associations makes shared living communities run smoothly:

1.      Announcements & Bulletins

Communication is one of the biggest challenges large associations face. Ensuring members are informed and kept up to date about developments in the community is a must for successful management. But a lot of homeowners will tell you that they feel out of the loop and that could be for a number of reasons:

• Late messaging
• Lack of frequency
• Not enough outlets to share announcements.

On the other hand, membership software can boost communication and engagement with its robust communication options to:

• Schedule announcements to go out on time
• Set push dates for frequent, automatic distribution of announcements
• Use tv screens, email, text to make sure residents see messages.

When members see announcements early and frequently they are more likely to engage.

2.      Vendor management

The number of vendors/suppliers a large association and its sub-associations use are numerous. Between landscaping, repairs, maintenance and services who can keep it all straight.

The vendor management feature helps:

• Mange quotes, contracts and billing  
• Streamlines the hiring process
• Improves communication
• Create the vendor job in the system.

The outcome is that all vendor activities are managed and tracked in a single space for quick and easy reference. Documents aren’t kept in various filing cabinets in a bunch of different offices; so there is a unified workflow and work is able to get done quickly.

3.      E-Voting

Voting is a regular activity in large associations. It might revolve around voting for board members, amendments to governing documents or voting for something as seemingly simple as a paint color for a shared space.

In large associations with thousands of people residents are busy with different schedules. It’s difficult to get enough people together in one place, at one time, to make quorum, in order to  enough votes to move things along—so decisions and activities end up delayed.

To deal with the struggle  of getting thousands of residents together to vote, large associations implement the e-vote feature.

With it, residents are no longer burdened to attend meetings in-person, if they can’t make it.

E-voting will:

• Save valuable time used in a manual voting process
• Let residents vote online  
• Make quorum
• Eliminate paper proxies
• Tally votes automatically.

Large associations benefit greatly from e-voting because it’s a dependable, transparent and accurate voting system, so they can expedite decision making and maintain progress in the community.

4.      Online payments

Collecting dues, violation payments or fees for items sold by property management is far more efficient and convenient for residents if they can do it online, rather than by mail or in person at the property management office.

Large associations have staff, but to manually collect all the funds from thousands of homeowners is not practical.

Online payments:

• Give residents convenience and control to make on-time payments
• Improves security by eliminating the need to handle cash and cheques
• Allow for a record all transactions, so large associations can run detailed reports
• Reduce administrative workload.

Yes, large associations may still receive cheques from time to time but just as people have moved to online banking in droves, homeowners now also expect to make payments online to their associations and property management too.  

5.      Violation Tracking

We expect that homeowners in large associations, who pay good money to live there, and have signed agreements with the association’s rules and regulations, will live accordingly. This is true in most cases, but sometimes homeowners may violate rules once or often.

At this point large associations need to address the situation and can do so with the violation tracking feature to manage the process. With it, the association can:

• Customize violation categories and types to log violations, i.e. pets
• Send personalized notices to the offending homeowner online
• Manage the process with status updates such as open, pending, closed
• See a running list of violations and their progress.

Violation management can be addressed discreetly and professionally managed through membership software.

6.      Community Calendar

When homeowners live in a large, planned community they expect that they won’t have to leave the property to meet their social, entertainment or fitness needs because large associations usually offer events and services that fall into these categories. Still, they need to make sure people know about it and can sign up quickly so they have an idea of interest.

The online community calendar feature lets associations:

• Keep track of every community event in one calendar
• Include details of each event
• Attach photos and posters
• Send digital invitations to specific groups
• Schedule reminders

This feature encourages members to participate and get to know each other to create a closer community.

7.      Amenities

Large associations are responsible for providing a variety of shared amenities for use by homeowners in multiple neighborhoods and for maintaining them.  

With thousands of homeowners and their guests using the amenities on a regular basis, large associations need assistance to monitor, maintain and track amenity use.

With the amenities feature:

• Residents can book the amenities themselves (self-serve)
• Large associations can include pricing options for amenities that require a fee
• Residents can link different amenities together (book a bbq and party room at the same time)
• Associations can track who booked the amenity, when it was booked, but also can cancel the booking if need be.

Amenities in large associations often have open access to their members, so keeping track is important.

8.      Maintenance requests

Maintenance requests in large associations is a non-stop activity. Anything could stop working at any given moment, whether it be a homeowner issue or issue in the common areas, the need for maintenance support is 24/7.

When large associations use the maintenance tracking feature in membership software, they can:

• Schedule recurring maintenance activities
• Organize and track repairs
• Attach all relevant document to each activity
• Keep detailed maintenance records
• Assign tasks to staff

Maintenance tracking is a necessity with so many requests coming in daily, weekly and monthly.

Again, there are many other membership software features large associations benefit from, with ample features best suited of the profile and nature of the large association and community it serves.

Besides membership software, large associations make use of other tools, let’s take a look at a few.

Other tools used by large associations

Membership software is the primary tool used by large associations, however there are other tools membership software may integrate with, in order to build an effective solution for the association’s operations to help manage their communities. Other tools include:

Financial

Large associations require expert accounting to ensure their fiduciary responsibilities are met. They have to deal with high-volume data.

In fact, assessments collected from homeowners in 2023 totaled $108.8 billion for things like property management services, security and insurance.  So, financial tools make sure they have record keeping, accounting, and reporting needed.

They may use tools like:

• Condo Manager
• Constar Finance
• Quick Books
• Shiftsuite

Website

Websites for any association, far less a large association is a must. With an effective website they can engage and inform residents. Additionally, a professionally designed website enhances trust and integrity in the community.  To build and maintain their website, large associations may choose to engage:

• A HOA software company that builds websites exclusively for homeowners associations.
• A website builder
• Hire an agency

Ultimately, a provider that understands how large associations operate combined with website building expertise is the best option.

Legal

Some large associations may opt to engage a legal management software tool where they are able to track deadlines that adhere to:

• State requirements and regulatory changes
• License validity and renewals
• Compliance to municipal-type services like roadway maintenance and stormwater management

Large homeowner associations run as a business and can benefit from the use of legal management software as a tool to avoid and manage legal challenges.

Large associations must use tools to manage their communities

Large associations in planned communities hold a great deal of responsibility as they manage a multitude of actions and activities for thousands of homeowners in multiple neighborhoods.  

So, the more effective and accessible the tools they use are, like membership software, the better success large associations have as these tools facilitate the day-to-day activities in the community and help keep the association organized and accountable.

Together, leadership in large associations with the tools they leverage, help create an issue-free community that runs effectively and leads to happy homeowners.  

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