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FRONTSTEPS: HOA Management Software

When your business is community management, it’s always good to have more time and effort to spend on what’s really important: building strong, productive relationships with HOA board members and homeowners within the communities you oversee.

HOA management software from FRONTSTEPS streamlines everyday tasks for you. Everyone gains the advantages of a comprehensive technology tool that combines all the aspects of HOA management — HOA accounting software, community security, neighborhood communication, assessments and more — all in one accessible and user-friendly package.

Why use HOA management software?

Trusted, proven HOA software saves time and money. It is an indispensable tool for your management company.

Dedicated HOA management software takes repetitive, exhausting tasks out of your hands, automating them and making them a snap. The FRONTSTEPS platform is designed specifically for the association management space, meaning its feature set is precisely targeted to your needs and ready to start providing value from day one.

Because FRONTSTEPS is an all-in-one platform, it is one piece of technology that can take the place of several disparate, non-specialized systems. Convenience and communication for you, your board members and the homeowners in your communities are key elements of value and return on investment. FRONTSTEPS unlocks these benefits for you.

Other management companies have already seen the advantages of FRONTSTEPS, and have incorporated the platform into their technology stacks. Discover the difference the best HOA software and technology can make.

FRONTSTEPS: Trusted by 1,400 Management
Companies and 34,000 Communities

Why is FRONTSTEPS your ideal HOA management choice?

HOA software isn’t all the same — you need an all-in-one platform purpose-built to suit the day-to-day needs of management companies. 

What are the issues keeping your homeowners association management company from achieving greater efficiency, better ROI? Are there breakdowns in communication? Too many manual platforms? A lack of features board members and residents want, such as mobile access and access control?

You can address these points and more by choosing the best HOA management software platform for your needs.

While there are dozens of features of FRONTSTEPS that deliver important capabilities and HOA manager advantages, the following are the top three reasons why over 1,400 management companies trust FRONTSTEPS to connect them with nearly 6 million individual homes:

A Unified Platform

Putting together many disparate technologies is a complex, potentially frustrating way to run a tech stack. Purchasing and licensing solutions to handle everything from homeowner communications and community safety to HOA accounting typically means dealing with multiple vendors, and making all their software tools “play nice” together can be a major challenge. What you need is the unified FRONTSTEPS HOA software ecosystem: one implementation from one vendor, ready to serve all your organizational tech needs, right out of the box. 

Connectivity & Automation

Managing one HOA is a complex task. Overseeing multiple communities, as so many management companies do, adds still more complexity. There are vast amounts of property management data to be captured, stored and analyzed, all of which must be both accessible and secure. On top of this tangled data environment, there are dozens of manual backend processes taking up your employees’ time and effort. FRONTSTEPS HOA software provides a unified, connected environment where everyday tasks are automated to give your people their time back.

Back-Office Management

Every capability you need to perform HOA management tasks is at your fingertips when you use FRONTSTEPS as your technology platform of choice. Even when working from a mobile device, everything is on one screen, a single touch away. From the community security and access control features that set board members’ minds at ease to essential HOA accounting software workflows and user-friendly communications tools, all these features and more are now available from anywhere.

All the tasks that go into being an attentive and responsible HOA management company become simplified when the right technology platform is powering the business. Letting FRONTSTEPS be the framework for these workflows is a way to limit manual effort while still getting results.

The end result is that you, your property managers and your back-office employees have more time and energy left over to put into value-adding activities, such as focusing more closely on the needs of each HOA member while the labor is offloaded to the automated and powerful FRONTSTEPS system. Business growth and expansion come more naturally when your organization is saving so much time and money on backend processes.

What are the key features of FRONTSTEPS?

Native mobile app or community portal
for board members and homeowners

How do board members or homeowners communicate with the HOA management company, access essential documents or make public posts for the community? Using FRONTSTEPS as your homeowners association management software platform gives two options — a desktop community portal and a dedicated mobile app. While community portals are becoming more common in the HOA management space, a dedicated iOS and Android mobile app is a distinctive capability of FRONTSTEPS. The app gives a more fully featured mobile experience than having community members use their web browsers.

Through the app or the community portal, board members and homeowners can:

  • Reserve use of community areas, amenities and equipment — managers can set permissions so simple requests are automatically approved, creating convenience and saving time.
  • Access the entire knowledge base for the community, along with the covenants, codes and restrictions, as well as the penalties and violations for infractions.
  • Log maintenance requests in ways that will directly connect them with the relevant and approved vendor.
  • Submit architectural requests for their homes, along with all the collateral documents that need to accompany these processes.
  • Make payments and check transaction history, all securely and with an app interface designed to work perfectly on mobile device screens.
  • Access and view community documentation and updates, with every important piece of HOA collateral just a few seconds away.

Community security and access control functionality

Your choice of HOA software can truly impact the experience of living in a community you manage: Your software platform determines the technology tools available to board members and homeowners, including security and access control features. 

Security and access control are some of the most in-demand features among residents. Focusing on these capabilities sends a clear message that your management company cares about the safety, property and livelihood of the homeowners residing in the community.

When you use the FRONTSTEPS suite of advanced community security capabilities, you can:

  • Customize every factor around resident access, with different types of passes and access control zones enabling you to manage each community exactly according to your intent.
  • Create secure databases of data on residents and properties within the community. Some of this information can be managed by the homeowners themselves — you choose which fields they can access and edit.
  • Deploy an application specifically for guards, attendants and access control personnel. The app lets them process guests and continues functioning offline even if the network connection is temporarily lost.
  • Collect real-time information from access control systems, so there’s always a record of who is on community property. This can include logging the license plates of vehicles that enter the community, in case the information is needed for law enforcement purposes.
  • Build a list of approved vendors for services within the community including landscaping and other home maintenance tasks. Vendors can use these profiles themselves to manage their relationships with board members and homeowners.

Back-office automation and convenient workflows

Community management tasks such as accounting tend to require numerous steps, even when they have access to digital platforms. FRONTSTEPS brings automation and convenience to workflows, as it’s purpose-built for the community management space. The FRONTSTEPS platform is a leading piece of HOA software capable of turning even the most complex financial tasks into quick, highly automated processes. Not only will these smooth workflows leave your employees with free time to provide value, but they’ll also reassure homeowners, who will enjoy the quick and convenient payment processing.

With FRONTSTEPS in place, you can:

  • View and process property management, work order management and architectural request tasks while in the field through an easy mobile interface accessible via a WiFi connection.
  • Automatically process lockbox transactions and receive detailed reporting on these financial interactions, through direct integration between FRONTSTEPS HOA accounting functions and banks’ software.
  • Manage all vendors and partner organizations, along with detailed records around these companies’ insurance, contact information, work order management and more.
  • Process interest, generate financial reports and perform other essential accounting tasks as part of an automated workflow, and with full visibility for homeowners, to show your commitment to fairness and transparency.
  • Move overdue payments into the collections process, based on the custom logic and workflow created to suit your community collection policy.

A streamlined payments and account management experience

More convenient payment processing doesn’t just apply to your own personnel. Homeowners will appreciate having a streamlined, reliable way to make and track community assessment payments and HOA fees, and to call up information about their account status. To make or view a payment to the homeowners association, a resident simply has to log into the community portal or use the dedicated mobile app. These secure, responsive methods provide a level of reassurance: The only entity a resident has to deal with is your management company.

When you deploy the FRONTSTEPS payments experience you can:

  • Give community members peace of mind with features such as real-time posting of payments to each resident’s ledger and the general ledger.
  • Grant the capability to view recurring payments or cancel them — along with automatic cancellation of those recurring changes when a resident moves out.
  • Automatically group payments together into single bank deposits for a simple reconciliation process.
  • Deliver a seamless experience directly in the community portal or mobile application, taking away the inconvenience or doubt associated with sending users to third-party payment sites.

Ready to grow your HOA management company?

When it’s time to embark on a period of growth for your management company, it pays to streamline your operations as much as possible. This is where FRONTSTEPS shines, delivering a superior experience for every resident and property manager while making your team’s tasks quicker and more precise, giving them extra time for value creation.

Connect with a FRONTSTEPS representative today and discover the difference the best HOA software and technology can make.