[all] [nh] Finally ditched the spreadsheet system for our self-managed HOA after 9 years. Here's what actually worked.
Our small HOA had been self-managed for 9 years. The "system" was a shared Google Sheet for dues, Venmo for payments, a Gmail account three board members shared, and a folder of Word docs nobody could find.
Every month was the same: chase down the people who forgot to pay, manually update the spreadsheet, email the person who paid the wrong amount, argue about whether the late fee applied. It was a part-time job that nobody signed up for.
We looked at the big HOA platforms and most of them want $200-500/month, require a demo call, and are clearly built for professional management companies. Not a board of volunteers who just want to stop texting their neighbors about overdue dues.
We eventually landed on AffordableHOA. It is $5/unit/month, dues go straight to your HOA bank account via Stripe, and it covers the stuff that was actually killing us: online dues with autopay and late fees, violations, maintenance requests, vendor compliance tracking, meeting minutes, payment plans for the chronically late homeowners, and a resident portal so people can check their own status instead of emailing the board.
Sharing mostly because I wish someone had pointed us here sooner.
Has anyone else found something that works well for a small self-managed community? Curious what people are using.