The HOA-OS Blog
Practical advice, product updates, and community management insights for HOA boards.
Condo vs HOA Management Software: Are They Different?
Vendors market condo association software and HOA software as separate products. The differences are smaller than the marketing suggests, but they are real. A guide to which category your community falls into and what it changes.
HOA Website Software: What Most Boards Get Wrong
A community website is not a brochure. Most HOA website software sells a pretty homepage and skips the part that matters, payments, documents, and requests. Here is what to look for instead.
Self-Managed HOA Software: The Honest Comparison
Self-managed boards have different software needs than communities with a management company. An honest look at what self-managed HOA software should do, by community size, and where the real trade-offs are.
HOA Accounting Software: What Boards Actually Need
HOA accounting is not regular small-business accounting. A guide to what makes community books different, the features that matter, and where boards routinely overpay for accounting software they do not need.
What to Really Look for in HOA Management Software
Vendors sell HOA management software on feature counts. Boards should buy on four jobs done well. A guide to ignoring the long list and choosing the platform that actually fits how your community runs.
HOA Software: A Buyer's Guide for First-Time Boards
A plain-English guide to buying HOA software when you have never bought software before. The categories that matter, what enough looks like at each price, and how to avoid paying for features you will never use.
HOA Financial Management: A Treasurer's Year-Round Playbook
A quarter-by-quarter playbook for HOA treasurers, tying together budgeting, bookkeeping, statements, banking, and audits into one year-round routine.
HOA Audits: When Your Board Needs One and What to Expect
When an HOA needs an audit versus a review or compilation, what each costs, and how a board should prepare for one without dread.
HOA Bank Accounts: How to Set Them Up the Right Way
How an HOA should structure its bank accounts, handle signers and FDIC limits, and transfer access cleanly when the treasurer changes.
HOA Financial Statements: How to Read Them With Confidence
A guide to the three financial statements every HOA board sees each month, what each one tells you, and the numbers worth checking before you approve them.
How to Build an HOA Chart of Accounts (With a Template)
A chart of accounts is the backbone of clean HOA books. Here is how to structure one for a community association, with a simple template to start from.
HOA Bookkeeping: A Practical Guide for Self-Managed Boards
A step-by-step bookkeeping routine for self-managed HOAs. What to record, how often, and the habits that keep a volunteer board's books clean.
HOA Accounting 101: A Plain-English Guide for Boards
What board members need to understand about HOA accounting without becoming accountants. Fund accounting, the reports that matter, and where money lives.
The Complete Roadmap for Starting and Running an HOA From Day One
Seven essentials for forming an HOA and sustaining it: from petition to governance to ongoing operations.
How to Find Out Who Your HOA Is (And What to Do If You Can't)
Step-by-step methods to identify your HOA and locate contact information for your community's governing association.
HOA Software in Texas: A Guide for Self-Managed Boards
Texas law sets specific deadlines and filing duties for HOA boards. Here is what Chapter 209 expects and how to choose software that keeps your board on the right side of it.
What Is a Declarant in an HOA? Meaning, Rights, and Control
The declarant is the developer who created your HOA - and may still control it. What their rights cover, when control ends, and what turnover means.
Self-Managed HOA: Pros, Cons, and What You're Signing Up For
The real trade-offs of running your HOA without a professional management company.
HOA vs POA vs COA: What's Actually Different
The real differences between HOA, POA, and COA structures — and whether they matter to your community.
Articles of Incorporation for an HOA: What They Are and How to File Them
The legal charter that creates an HOA. What goes in it, why it matters, and how to file it.