Vendor Outsourcing: Ways To Make A Manager's Life Easier

As the HOA industry continues to evolve, new technologies and services are evolving to help fill the void. Ten years ago, the HOA management company did everything in house. Now, we are seeing an increasing number of companies embrace outsourced partners to help carry the load. With need for community association managers at an alltime high, every part of the job should be examined to see if it can be delegated to another position in the company or to outside partners.

By Rob Buffington

ELECTION ADMINISTRATION

One of these partners is Bellwether Election Solutions, based in Roseville, California. As any manager knows, elections, special assessments, governing docs modifications are key times for HOAs and can add stress to a manager who is overworked and rushed.

Election administration companies like Bellwether take over the entire process, from drafting the notices to mailing and counting the ballots. Most importantly, they track the calendar. When a missed deadline can require the entire process to start over, it can be helpful to have a partner who does nothing but watch the calendar and mail the notices and ballots.

They also review the governing documents and election rules for each association so that the process is compliant. Using a company in this space can take pressure off of community managers that are overworked and don’t handle elections every day.

VENDOR SCREENING

Another vendor that is taking an existing service into a new area is VendorSmart, based out of Plantation, Florida. Vendor screening companies have been around for a while. One of the community manager key roles is to ensure that all vendors who work on the property are properly licensed and insured. There are several services in the HOA space that offer this, but VendorSmart has taken it a step further, offering RFP coordination for companies.

One of the most time consuming parts of a manager’s job is to solicit RFPs and follow-up with vendors. What manager hasn’t been putting together a board packet only to realize that a vendor didn’t send in a proposal that they agreed to send before the meeting?

VendorSmart has offloaded this part of the manager’s job by not only getting RFPs from vendors but using their existing vendor network to suggest new vendors that are already qualified and screened to managers as well. VendorSmart can also coordinate site walks, compare scopes of work, and put the proposals in a professional presentation format for the board.

INSPECTIONS

Inspections have always been an important, yet disruptive part of the community manager’s job. Aside from the drive time, community managers are often stopped onsite by homeowners with issues that rarely need the community manager’s time.

By the time they return to the office, emails and phone messages have piled up, meaning that inspection notes usually don’t get processed for days or weeks. Additionally, many community managers don’t receive proper training on walkthroughs, meaning they don’t properly record their visit in the event a violation is challenged.

Compliance View 360 is a new player in the HOA space that offers mobile inspection services. Taking a car with 360 cameras on top, Compliance View 360 can drive through all of your communities on any frequency that you like, taking video and still footage of the community. The inspectors can also wear body cams as they walk into the common areas such as mail rooms, laundry rooms, and other areas where a car can’t reach.

Once complete, the footage can be accessed through their custom software, which has the footage geotagged as well as date and time stamped. In the software, managers can mark violations and automatically mail the notices to the homeowners. The software can also mark maintenance issues like a broken sprinkler head or overgrown grass and send it to the vendor of choice.

With integrations to many of the major software options, this saves several steps in the violation and work order process. Customers can also pay for long term storage, meaning video records can be saved indefinitely to be used for insurance claims, court cases, reserve studies, etc.

With the continuing staffing shortage and increased cost of labor, partnering with third-party providers to offload parts of the job can save managers from falling permanently behind due to lack of support. Client expectations are at an all-time high and these new services offer a lifeline to weary managers.

Rob Buffington

Rob Buffington is the Owner of East West Building Works and President of Gordian Staffing, both of which are located in San Jose.