Excel vs. HOA Accounting Software to Manage Your HOA

If your association is considering the switch to using HOA accounting software, it’s important to compare this to other common HOA management tools.

Generally, self managed HOAs who don’t use HOA software end up wasting time and energy switching between different outdated tools to accomplish different tasks. Whereas, HOA software lets you streamline a variety of accounting and community management tasks all from one centralized digital hub.

Why Self Management?

Small to medium sized associations are increasingly turning to self management. Cost savings tops the list of reasons an HOA may switch from a third-party management company, which can cost a community tens of thousands of dollars per year in unit fees and other expenses.

However, while self management offers HOAs more savings and control over their communities’ management needs, it’s important to have the right tools to get the most out of your volunteers’ time and efforts.

Sometimes the methods we’re used to aren’t the most efficient to get the job done. Consider whether your treasurer may be spending too much time having to navigate between accounting programs like QuickBooks, physical invoices and dues checks, and multiple bank accounts, juggling vendor contracts, and fielding maintenance requests, emails, phone calls, and texts all using different tools.

Is There a More Efficient Use of Volunteers’ Time?

Here’s the good news: The answer is yes. HOA accounting software lets a treasurer budget, manage finances, and manage other community tasks easily and intuitively, without needing an accounting background.

Using multiple spreadsheets, software tools, and physical documents serves as a workaround at best and wastes your time as you must organize these and switch between multiple usernames and passwords.

Here’s why it’s time to switch from all those separate systems and Excel spreadsheets to HOA accounting software.

Table of Contents:

1.      HOA Accounting Software Automates Bookkeeping

2.      HOA Accounting Software Adds Flexibility

3.      Plan Better with Dynamic Financial Reporting

4.      Transitioning to HOA Accounting Software Is Easy

HOA Accounting Software Automates Bookkeeping

Associations may use Excel spreadsheets for tracking income and expenses, balance sheets, taxes, statements of accounts, cash flow reports, and other accounting documents.

Yet, while a digital tool like Excel is preferable to keeping hand-written ledgers, these spreadsheets require constant manual effort to keep organized and updated. Take for instance that with Excel you may need to:

·        Download templates for the different types of documents you want to use.

·        Manually enter and organize transactions into different categories.

·        Manually check and enter updated banking data.

·        Enter certain formulas to get the desired results you need.

·        Manually check for errors.

This increases the chance for human error, miscommunication, and a lack of transparency.

HOA accounting software automatically updates and organizes everything and syncs ledgers to your bank accounts in real time. This helps increase transparency. It also allows someone new to step into the treasurer role when needed, since the information is already organized.

HOA Accounting Software Adds Flexibility

At best, Excel is a workaround that needs the support of numerous other platforms and tools to function. There’s only so much it can do.

This forces association treasurers into repetitive time-wasting tasks and tool switching, with rigid functionality and glaring bottlenecks when it comes to efficiency. Excel requires manual data entry and limits the types of accounting activities you can perform.

HOA accounting software gives you the flexibility to keep the tools and processes you’re already comfortable with. You can use it how you need to in order to fill the gaps in your HOA management.

HOA software provides a dynamic management experience, with tools like automated bulk billing per unit and digital dues collection that inputs and tracks this data. This way the HOA board can maximize collection rates, track the financial health of their communities in real time, and minimize the risk of budget shortfalls or surprise special assessments.

Plan Better with Dynamic Financial Reporting

To ensure the financial health of an HOA, associations must rely on financial reporting. Having access to accurate financial data helps the HOA board plan smarter, mitigate risk, stay compliant, and increase transparency. Yet piecing together reports using Excel is still an arduous, manual process.

HOA accounting software gives you reporting templates that can instantly add financial clarity to the HOA. Quickly and easily produce, download, and share reports for profit and loss, budget vs. actual, balance sheets, and more.

Access real-time analytics and other important community data at the click of a button every time you log into your HOA accounting software’s central dashboard.

HOA software keeps volunteers’ fingers on the pulse of their community finances, securely storing this data. This makes it a cinch to close your HOA’s yearly finances and transition to a new accounting period.

Transitioning to HOA Accounting Software Is Easy

When any business or nonprofit weighs the pros and cons of switching to a new management system, the time and effort needed for set up and training top the list of considerations.

Yet when it comes to HOA accounting software, there’s no reason to feel intimidated by the transition process. HOA software allows for volunteers to easily set up and transfer data from QuickBooks or Excel files with the click of a button. Within minutes of setup, HOA software immediately starts providing value.

Compare this to Excel, which can take months to create and implement.

PayHOA’s accounting software gives you a holistic digital management tool to manage finances and other community data from a central online hub. Using PayHOA you can assign owners to units, set up vendor profiles, and instantly search and access all important documents, maintenance history, communications, and payment history.

PayHOA is an industry leader in providing superior accounting software tools to meet and exceed the needs of any association treasurer, from the seasoned accountant to the motivated newbie. Over 7,000 HOAs across the country trust PayHOA to help make their neighborhoods a better place to live, and 98% of our users recommend PayHOA.

PayHOA offers an HOA management software solution for HOAs of any size or managerial priorities. To find out if PayHOA fits all your HOA management needs, try our software free for 30 days.