7 HOA Bookkeeping Services and Maintenance Tasks for Summer

While many volunteer Bookkeepers are more than capable of rising to this task, they may not necessarily have a professional accounting background or have unlimited time to dedicate to their association duties. Whether they have time or not, HOA bookkeeping is a year-round endeavor for community managers of HOAs of all sizes and complexity. 

Keeping accurate, transparent accounting records, budgeting well, and tracking fees and assessments for homeowners are all critical to the financial health of your neighborhood and the happiness and well-being of your residents.

For this reason, board members may benefit from implementing systems that streamline bookkeeping services for their communities, such as PayHOA accounting and management software, as well as prioritizing certain tasks this summer—setting your neighborhood up for year-round financial success.

PayHOA offers a comprehensive digital hub for managing HOA communities, with robust software tools. PayHOA also offers Bookkeeping as a service, freeing up your volunteers to do other tasks. 

Here are seven bookkeeping services and maintenance tasks for HOA boards to implement this summer.

1. Reconcile Your Accounts

If you’re like many self-managed HOAs, you may need to periodically spend time catching up as far as line-item budgets and expense tracking are concerned. For those using older accounting systems, spreadsheets, or written ledgers, it’s even more laborious to keep your numbers in sync and rectify discrepancies.

When your records don’t match your bank statements, it takes time to find and correct any errors or missing transactions. Summer is the perfect time to dig in and make sure your books are up to date before it gets busy in the fall. HOA bookkeeping software like PayHOA can help automate this process and avoid multiple unreconciled transactions, relieving much of the pressure on volunteers to tackle this issue.

2. Yearly Goal Check-In

Don’t wait until it’s too late to check in on your financial goals. Board members need to examine their goals to measure progress on critical bookkeeping services, so they have a clear understanding of whether they’re on track or need to course correct to meet those goals.

• What are your collections or revenue goals for the year? 
• Did your board set goals to cut expenses? 

You can use several key performance indicators (KPIs) to track financial success as an HOA, coupled with regularly checking financial reporting to make sure you stay on track.

PayHOA accounting software lets you produce a number of different exportable reports to analyze your financial data, including a general ledger, budget, balance sheet, budget vs actual, profit and loss, bank reconciliation, and various others.

3. Financial Reassessment

For Bookkeepers who begin their fiscal year in the summer, this is the perfect time to set the tone for the year by bucking down and getting your budget on track. For others, summer is a great time for a mid-year check-in.

• Are you on track or do you need to make adjustments? 
• Do you need to include unexpected expenses, such as maintenance, in your budget?
• Should you adjust for an unforeseen increase in costs?

Putting thought and preparation into your budget now could be the difference later in avoiding increased fees or special assessments that impact homeowners in your community.

4. Committee Check-Ins

HOA committees are often tasked with critical functions within a neighborhood, managing everything from architectural research to landscaping to community safety and more. It’s critical to check in regularly with your committee members.

You’ll want to meet with committees and volunteers to ensure they’re using association funds effectively and achieving their goals.

If there’s a community function that’s not currently being fulfilled, and it fits within your budget, you may also decide it’s a good time to recruit volunteers for additional committees to fill those gaps.

5. Outstanding Dues and Fees Reminders

There’s a fine line between harassing neighbors about outstanding dues and setting aside certain times of year to check in with those who may have outstanding dues and fees owed, especially when homeowners know you’ll be getting in touch with them about dues at predetermined times, such as conducting a mid-summer review.

Now is a good time to send a friendly reminder that the association checks the books every summer as a policy and that you noticed an outstanding balance on their account. Let them know how they can get caught up to avoid further late fees. These periodic reminders can potentially improve your collection rates.

The right HOA software helps you automate digital dues payments, making it even easier for you to collect dues and fees and for homeowners to pay from their mobile devices.

6. Quarterly Tax Update

Tax season is a headache for any organization, especially when you don’t have a certified CPA on staff, and avoiding a costly audit by the IRS means ensuring your bookkeeping services are performed thoroughly and accurately.

While HOAs may be largely tax-exempt, it’s still important to keep detailed monthly expense reports and other financial records for the IRS, as well as to be prepared to pay any tax liabilities as they arise.

If your association owes quarterly taxes, now’s the time to update your quarterly tax amounts and ensure you’re paying what’s owed.

7. Give Homeowners a Voice with a Mid-Year Poll

Financial or otherwise, running polls with your residents can help you gauge the temperature of your neighborhood and give homeowners a voice, assessing the popularity of certain projects, potential initiatives, and any ongoing problems that they feel should be addressed. These are items you can then build into the budget when possible while refocusing funds away from unpopular projects.

Connect with your neighbors quickly and efficiently using a digital polling system like the one featured by PayHOA software.

Bonus Bookkeeping Services Task: Find a Little Cash? Throw a Bonus Summer Party!

Sometimes, when you take the time to put time and energy into ensuring your accounts are in order, you may find room in the budget for some additional funds. Even if it’s just a few hundred dollars, that’s enough to throw a summer party for your residents.

Perhaps this summer is the perfect time to cool off with an ice cream social, nighttime movies on the lawn, or a pool party to show your residents how much you appreciate them and to bring people together to bond.

When you prioritize HOA bookkeeping services this summer, everyone wins.

PayHOA Bookkeeping Offers Support for Every Season

PayHOA provides ongoing support to board volunteers and community managers. Whether you’re catching up on your bookkeeping services this summer or looking to streamline and automate HOA management at any time of year, PayHOA can help.

—As an HOA manager, PayHOA offers you an all-in-one software platform to replace all those fragmented tools so accounting, communications, payments, documents, violations, and owner requests can all live in one place. PayHOA is the single portal where you can connect directly with the needs of your homeowners. Your residents can use PayHOA to make online payments, view their payment history and important documents, submit requests, and access important updates, streamlining management for your whole -community. Try a 30-day free trial today or contact us at info@payhoa.com to learn more.