089 | Alternatives to Professional HOA Management: Community Financials - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Russell Munz (00:00):
And that's one of the main things we hear about

(00:01):
all the time, is it's difficultto recruit people to be on the
board, and then people feel, youknow, I'm using other people's
terminology, but it feel like alife sentence. They get off the
board because nobody else willvolunteer. Well, if Doing this
helps to, you know, alleviatethat, so that other people can
get involved in being on theboard, but in a way that's not

(00:22):
so you know, not, not sodifficult.

Announcer (00:25):
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies
that care about board members,association, insights and
marketplace Association,reserves, community, financials,
Hoa invest and Kevin Davis,Insurance Services. You'll find
links to their websites andsocial media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund (00:41):
Welcome back to Hoa insights, common sense for
common areas. I'm RobertNordlund. I'm here today for
episode number 89 for aconversation with Russell Munz
from community financials, oneof our sponsors, Russell is in
the enviable position of seeingthe entire community association
industry as an insider, helpingassociations all across the
country monitor their cash andtheir cash flow. He regularly

(01:04):
has some great insights, somethat he was sharing with me
right before we started therecording, and I'm eager to
share his perspective today onthe many options that are in
between self management and fullprofessional management. I
shared the opinion with him thattoo many associations. Think
it's just one or the other, andthere's actually a spectrum of

(01:26):
possibilities in between. Well,I hope you enjoyed last week's
episode number 88 with regularco host and insurance expert
Kevin Davis on cyber threats atcommunity associations. Before
that episode, have to admit, Ididn't know that there was going
to be much I was going tocontribute to that conversation
that was applicable to ouraudience, but I found out it's

(01:46):
an absolutely fascinating entiresegment of the insurance
industry. So if you missed thatepisode, it's worth your time to
catch up. You can find thatepisode and all other episodes
on our podcast website, Hoainsights.org, on your favorite
podcast platform or on ourYouTube channel, but better yet,
subscribe to the podcast inorder to get every episode

(02:08):
delivered right to your phone ormobile device. Well, those of
you watching on YouTube can seethe custom HOA insights mug that
I have here, that I got from ourmerch store, which you can
browse through from HOAinsights.org, our website, or
the show notes at the merchstore, you can find we have some

(02:30):
great free items like boardmember zoom backgrounds and some
specialty items for boardmembers, like this mug that I
have for sale now as a specialpromotion, go to the merch
store, browse through the itemsand pick a mug you'd like to
have, and if you're the 10thperson, to email
podcast@reservesday.com withyour name and address mentioning

(02:52):
episode 89 mug giveaway, I'llship it to you free of charge.
We enjoy hearing from you, andmost episodes are indeed in
response to a topic you'verecommended. So stay in contact,
letting us know what questionsyou have or topics that you'd
like to hear about. So leave usa voicemail at 805-203-3130,

(03:13):
leave a comment on a YouTubevideo or send us an email at
podcast at reserve, study.combut back to today's episode.
Today's episode is my choice.
Many board members are tellingus they're feeling the crush
from inflation. That's real. Weknow that, or the burden of
managing their Association'sfinances, just the burden of

(03:35):
being a volunteer board memberat a community association. So
to address that, Russell's heretoday to tell you about the many
services available in betweenself management and full
professional management. Thesein between services cost
effectively help boards tryingto do it all, and they also, on
the other end of the scale, theyoffer less expensive

(03:58):
alternatives to boards feelingthe high cost of full
professional management. SoRussell, welcome to the program.
Thank you. Robert, great to beback. Hey. Remind everyone how
long you've been runningcommunity financials. So I

started community financials about six and a half
years ago, and but before then,I was and how I got into the
business was, for 16 years, Iworked my way up to become
president of a regionalmanagement company. And during
that time, I kept hearing a few,few same things, right? I asked

(04:33):
people, why are you changingwhat you're doing? And one was,
they left working with theircurrent provider because of poor
response time. So communicationin this industry is really quite
poor, and the customerexperience was poor and so

(04:56):
unresponsive service emails thatdon't go responded to phone
calls. Also go to voicemail thatdon't get called back, or they
got called back, like a week ortwo later. The other thing was,
people felt, or the boards felt,the they lost trust in what was
happening with their money. Theydidn't have access to see what

(05:17):
was happening with their money.
They didn't get financialreports in a timely way when
they had questions about thefinancial reports they didn't
get answered. And so that lackof trust around handling their
funds was the second main reasonwhy they made a change. And then
add to that, smaller communitieskept telling me they felt

(05:38):
overcharged for the servicesthey were getting. Yeah

and so cost as much to run a 20 unit
Association as it does a 200seems like,

yeah, a lot of the same activities still go on.
Manager has to go do a sitevisit right at some point, they
have to a board meet afterhours, board meeting, usually on
a monthly basis. They have tocall vendors and get bids for
things. No matter what size youare, you still have the same
items. So you have these, thesecharges. But then I'll get into,

(06:13):
I know we can go into some moredetail, but it's, it's people
feel like they were. You know,if the managers attention gets
degraded, and then they feelthey have to do the work of the
manager, and they're stillpaying a high price. So it
doesn't work. All of thesethings led me to, you know, how
can we solve these problems, andhow can we bring, you know,

(06:37):
larger management companies,systems and processes to solve
these issues for communities,whether they're large or small.

Yeah, can I say it's maybe like the 8020 rule,
where handle 80% of the issueswith 20% of the cost, something
like that?

You know, you can't. I would say that 8020 is
more probably 80% of thecommunities have these similar
issues.

Ah, okay, yeah, and tell me about that. Do you
know how many self managedassociations there are out
there?

Yeah. So community Associations Institute has a
foundation for CommunityAssociation research, and
they've been doing this foryears, and every year it's about
the same. They say thatapproximately 30 to 40% of the
community associations are selfmanaged, so we're not using
professional management company,and that's a large number.

And yeah, I just looked it up here. My
recollection is estimate of375,000 nationwide. And 40% is
150,000 associations. So there'sa lot of associations out there
with board members that aretrying to do it all. You talked
about the trust issue, and I canimagine that in a now number

(08:01):
one, we believe that being aboard member is hard. It's a lot
of work, a lot of things ask ofyou and zero pay. And from my
perspective, preparing reservestudies, I see the management
industry, it's hard. Also you'reserving clients that are
nonprofits. Are very carefulabout their money, or they're
trying to be very careful aboutwhat they're spending on. As you

(08:22):
mentioned, they're pricesensitive. And so there's lots
of management companies thathire managers at low entry
points, and they're just are notall that skilled. And I can
imagine that that's what you'retalking about with trust, where
the board is trying to find outare do we have, can we spend
this $7,000 on this thing ornot, and the manager is flipping

(08:43):
through papers, looking for afile, and saying, I don't know.
And the board is saying, how dowe make a decision if we don't
have the financials? And thatsounds like that's that pressure
point where you're wondering,Where can I get to someone who
who knows my numbers and caresabout my numbers as much as I

(09:04):
care about them. Is that kind ofwhat drove you into this?

It is. And you know, just having access to the
information also, right? So manymanagers were great managers at
a management company, and thenthey left to start their own
thing, and they were solvingproblems, but they didn't come
out of the accountingdepartment. So, you know, it

(09:29):
might, they might have a strongsuit of solving problems, of
connecting with vendors, ofgetting bids, of, you know,
interacting with the issues atthe community, rules and
regulations and things likethat. And those are all great
things. I started off my careeras a property manager. That's
great. However you may beworking with, you know, if

(09:51):
you're, oftentimes they don'thave the skill set for
accounting. And so what happensis they start, you know, if
you're working with, you. Youknow, a community manager, and
they don't have the skill setaround accounting. How are they
going to supervise the persondoing the accounting or making
sure that the accounting iscorrect? So a lot of good
managers have that, but thereare sometimes when you have and

(10:15):
this is managers and boards,they don't know how to read the
financial reports and how to seewhether they one, they might not
get the financial reports in atimely way. Two, they might not
know how to see, look up andsee, can we spend that? Or do we
have these bills that we have topay, that are we have in our
budget? And, you know, how doyou how much money you have left
over to do on something that isnot budgeted? So you have an

(10:37):
unbudgeted expense that comes upfrom a natural disaster, or some
other, you know, a capitalrepair item that comes up sooner
than you thought it was going tocome up. And so what's, what's
the best way to handle that inthat moment? Do you have the
money out of your checkingaccount or your operating
account, or do you have to?
Should you do a specialassessment? Or should you do it

(10:57):
again? Borrow from reserves,from reserves, and then some
people don't put the money backin reserves. So there's a lot of
issues that come up that they'renot quite sure how to deal with.
That are accounting, you know,issues?

Yeah, it requires a lot of financial
literacy to run an association.
And I think of it being and someof our listeners remember my
story, and I came at it thisindustry, as president of our
condominium association. Andthere were months where the
financial literally, at thatpoint in time, it was a stack of
papers. And one month theybrought the financials from the

(11:33):
wrong Association, it's aportfolio management company,
and another month, the numberswere just plain wrong. They it
was a month behind somethinglike that. I forget exactly what
it was now, but yeah, we needfresh information to be able to
make wise decisions, and wewanted someone to look after it
and care about it as much as Idid. So okay, so you felt the

(11:56):
pressure a great Americanopportunity. You saw the need
and you created something, andyou called it community
financials. I would imagine youwere able to do something
absolutely wonderful. Have itelectronic access, so you don't
have to wait for the manager tocome in with stack of paper.

Yeah. So absolutely correct. So okay, you
know, I always share this story,like, back in the early 80s,
fast food restaurants came upwith the, you know, self serve
beverages and fixings bar, wherethe people could do that, they
could serve more peopleeffectively, and people get what
they want, so when they want it.
This is our industry hasn'tprovided that where, you know,

(12:39):
they kind of put a wall firewallbetween the customer and the
information. I get all the time,boards complaining, we don't get
information. We don't haveaccess to view information. We
have. It's like pulling teeth toget information. The information
is late. My stance is, you know,obviously the technology is
there to give access as muchtransparency and access as
possible, both to the board, andthen you can break that out and

(13:02):
give it also to the homeowner,where the homeowner can see
their account balance and theirtransactions, print out their
ledger, and they can, you know,then they're not asking the
board or the manager or anybodyfor it. They can get that
information themselves anytime aday. Yeah, and

I'm thinking two things, culturally. Number
one, it's going to make theboard member treasurer position
easier, and so you're going tohave less challenge getting a
treasurer to help with yourassociation. And number two,
you're going to have less well,you're going to have more
transparency. And so you're notgoing to have the average
homeowner thinking, well, theymight think at of course, but if

(13:41):
they click to look at thenumbers, they'll see that that's
a lean budget, and they can seeexactly where the money's going.
It's going to the pool service,it's going to electrical
utility, is going to waterutility, it's going to all these
kind of things. And I realize,oh yeah. And with probably
another click, they can seethat's about what it was last
year too, maybe a little moreexpensive, and they can see

(14:03):
exactly why the board is sayingthat we need to raise our
assessments 5% this year, orwhatever the number is, probably
that it really helps withtransparency and life at the
association, yes,

we have a lot of customers where, where we take a
balance sheet and thecomparative income expense
report that shows the actualversus budget and any variance
for a month and year to datethat gets shared with the
homeowner on a periodic basis.
So it's just those two simplereports, but it allows, and some
communities like this and othersdon't necessarily need it, but

(14:36):
it allows the homeowner to see,you know, we're on budget when
everything's okay, or if we'renot on budget, that's why maybe
you might get more peopleturning out at a board meeting.
That's okay too, because you'regetting input. And it's,
there's, it's, it's transparent,

yeah. And I guess another thing is it's
probably going to help withcontinuity as you go from one
board. Board, and either theentire board changes or a few
people change. When you havestability, if you have something
providing accurate financialinformation, again, that's going
to help provide continuity, yearover year over year over year.

(15:13):
Is that also a good factor?

That is also a good factor? You know, there are
term limit limits for many boardmembers, sometimes you may have
board members that get burnedout, so you're going to have
turnover in the board. And youknow, if you have one board
member, and sometimes, if you'reself managing, you've got a
board member who was doing allthe work themselves, and they

(15:36):
were a great benefit to all ofthe homeowners, and the
community was really lucky for along time. But if that person
gets ill, or that person decidesto move, you know, they no
longer have the board, may nothave access to the information.
They might not have access towhy, why did we do this, and why
was it like this? Or how come wedo things this way so? But if

(15:58):
you have something that providesthat continuity, then you've got
somebody to ask those questionsto while the board changes. And
also, by the way, not only thecontinuity, but good, good
financial reporting for a lot ofcommunities, as you know that
don't save money for for forreserves. When they go to get a
you know, if they need a loan,they're not going to get a be

(16:21):
able to get a loan with just aspreadsheet of some numbers, you
know, a one page spreadsheetthat somebody put together the
book. The bank's not going toloan that with that kind of
information. They're going tosay, Well, what's going on here?
We need, we need to make surethat the loan is going to be
paid back responsibly, notsomebody just throwing together

(16:42):
a spreadsheet and like, makingdeposits once a month and paying
bills here and there. Yeah,

there are so many stories out there, and I'll
just share one with our audiencehere. And it may sound familiar,
my son obviously grew up in thishousehold where we serve
community associations to doreserve studies. And he fell in
love with a young lady, gotengaged with a young lady who
owned a condominium, and herealized he was going to be

(17:12):
marrying into this ownership,and started asking questions
about what was going on with theAssociation. And learned there
was a lot of nightmare aboutthis association. People weren't
paying. They didn't havefinancials. It was almost a
voluntary type situation. And Ithink see my shoulders just
going up with attention no andknowing that there are so many

(17:34):
associations out there that arestruggling to run their
association. In our country,there's still that gap between
people who know that what it'slike to own a home and people
who know what it's like to rentan apartment, maybe in college
or after while they're havingtheir first job. And there's
that in between ground that isCO owning a home and a community

(17:56):
association. And we've saidbefore here on the program that
community associations presentcare free living because you're
sharing responsibilities. Butit's not free. It's expensive.
It takes someone and someone'stime, like you said that magic
board member who is out thereeven sweeping the sidewalk

(18:17):
because they like it clean. It'sMonday, and landscaper doesn't
come till Thursday, just thingslike that. There's a lot of time
and energy that goes intorunning an association, and we
have to appreciate that and

answer that Yes.
And you know, for thesecommunities that are self
managing, we most time consumingrule and the hardest to fill
from the board perspective is ofvolunteer treasurer who is
handling, collecting money,paying the bills and doing
financial reports on their own.

(18:54):
A lot of people don't want to bedoing that work. It's a real
it's a lot, you know, it's morework than people will and
answering questions as well asdoing the activities. Maybe
they're going to the bank andmaking deposits and filling out
deposit slips. Maybe they'regoing to the post office to pick
up items and their data,entering it into a system, you

(19:14):
know, the all of these things.
If you've been lucky to have aboard volunteer do that, you
know we you owe them. You know,you owe them. Huge kudos. Yeah,

after the program, thank them. Yeah.

This is a, this is a, this is a, a large job which
is unpaid, and, you know, I It'sa lot of work. And if you if
that person leaves, what happenswith the community? You know,
it's difficult to find avolunteer to step up and take
the place while doing all ofthose activities on their free

(19:47):
time. And that's where it's kindof like where a service like us
comes in. I'd say another storyeven, even if I was talking to a
volunteer, and that's 45 units,or something like that, there.
Accounting is done by amanagement company accounting
department. What shows up ontheir bank statements doesn't

(20:07):
isn't the same as what's ontheir financial reports. So this
no good. This person has beenspending 10 hours a week just
creating financial reports tomimic the what they're already
paying for with their provider.
And you know, that doesn'taccount for all the other hours
that they spend on the job ordoing other, you know, board

(20:30):
member activities. It's ifyou'll multiply whatever you
could get paid for in themarketplace times that amount of
hours that you spend doing thiswork, you know, it's, it's a
lot, and you're foregoing thatopportunity cost, or the cost of
spending time on things that youenjoy or loved ones. It's, you

(20:50):
know, it's a big ask. So Ithink, you know, when we get we
often get asked by boardtreasurers, they say, we're
looking to retire off the boardand but we want to make sure
we've got a good steward inplace that we can hand it off to
so that they can go they don'thave to do the work anymore
because they've been doing itfor a long time and they're

(21:11):
burned out. It's a it's some,it's a real consideration for
those two months. Yeah,

and not only the hours, but I'm thinking
liability also, because they'redoing something that a
professional should be doing,and that's that's a tough ask on
a board member. Well, Russell,let's take a break here time to
hear from one of our generoussponsors, after which we'll be
back with more from Russell ontoday's HOA insights podcast
episode to talk about what arethese in between, options that

(21:39):
associations can tap to helplife at their association. Is

your HOA or condo self managed and you don't want
to work as hard volunteering?
Are you full managed and lookingto save money, or are you
looking to split the accountingfrom a manager's role for better
service? Let communityfinancials handle the monthly
accounting for you. We collectdues, pay bills, produce
financial reports, includeportals and help with other
support services, all whileproviding awesome service, we
love the opportunity to help youmake your community accounting

(22:06):
stress free with our industryleading systems and expert team.
Visit our website, communityfinancials.com to learn more.
And

we're back.
We're here with Russell Munzfrom community financials
talking about this in between,whole big in between section of
the market where we're helpingboard members try to get
accurate financials, build trustwith the community, and also
perhaps find a way to save somemoney. So Russell, do you have
training on you've mentionedsome CAI training, some industry

(22:37):
training. Do you have anytraining on your website?

Sure, we've, we, the vast majority of volunteers
that will come across come fromall different backgrounds,
right? Some of them may be firsttime and we're living in a
community association. Some ofthem might be the first time
that they're on a board. So, andthey might have different
backgrounds, right? So

the community of a community association,

exactly. So we we want to provide information for
them, as well as when the boardturns over, right, some sort of
training for them. So we haveonline library best practices
and research reports and how toguides and step by step videos
and things for getting the mostout of our systems as well. But
it's more more geared towardsjust overall, running the

(23:28):
community and any type ofquestions they would have that
would that would be theresomething that we're going to be
launching later this year. It'scalled successful Hoa, and it's
a site where people will getaccess to that, but our, our,
our customers have access to tothat in order to get kind of up

(23:48):
to speed. Okay,

do you have to be a customer, or some of that
training available just on yourwebsite now,

we're going to be opening that up to the public
later on this year. Excellent.

Well, tell me, we tempted everyone around the
very beginning with a plethoraof services in between full
professional management and selfmanagement. We talked today
about getting financial support,I know, and we've had on the
program the owners of minutessolutions to help with getting

(24:22):
good, accurate minutes again,taking that burden off of
somebody's shoulders. What arethe things are there out there
that help fill in the gap? Ifthere are self managed
associations who just want someprofessional help, almost like a
customizing what you wantabsolutely

first, we'll talk about it. There's a couple of
different levels of tools andsupport that you can get. One is
the software has the ability tomake the board's job easier. So
there are, there are integratedsoftware systems that have, you
know, I that have a number offunctionality. Bodies that are
cobbled together by these selfmanaged boards, or by boards in

(25:04):
general. They use a bunch ofdifferent systems to try and do
their

their work.
It's already talked earlierabout even somebody just making
a spreadsheet that they created

that it's better if you have tools in one
ecosystem, because then youdon't have to update everybody's
name and contact informationwhen someone updates their
email. You don't have to updatewhen somebody sells. It's kind
of all in this one system thatthat. So everything gets updated
throughout. So it's easier tomanage a database like that. So

(25:38):
you have document storage,you've got communication tools
in there for like, obviouslyemails, but text message
broadcast, voicemail broadcaststhat you can get notifications
out to the community. There aresoftware tools that made
tracking and managing violationseasier, for handling
Architectural Review requests,for tracking maintenance, and so

(26:01):
all of these things make the jobof the board easier and save
hours and hours of time. Solet's just start with that
first, right? So that's a stepup from spreadsheets and a bunch
of different hop hold togetherpieces of software so you have
one cohesive system and you'rein much better place. I think
the next thing is, we get askeda lot boards don't want to

(26:23):
handle doing the estoppelpaperwork or or doing lender
questionnaires for refinance. Sowe have some customers where we
just do that alone for them, andso that's a separate service
where we're handling that forthe board, and that board does
other things. There's also wehave very popular where the

(26:43):
board doesn't want to have tohave phone calls during dinner
for maintenance emergencies, sothere's a call answering
service, and so those gethandled, you know, with the
homeowner. And we've definedwhat things are emergency, what
things are not an emergency. Theboard is kept in the loop
through text message. If it'snon emergency, they get emailed
the next day of a list of itemsthat came in through that

(27:08):
through that channel. So there'sa way of kind of handling those
types of items in a better waythan being interrupted. Then
there's next you know, this ismore it might not be applicable
to most communities, but there'ssome communities that want
whether a tenant needs to bescreened prior to it, you know,
during an application or a buyerbefore they're able to buy.

(27:30):
Sometimes there's theseevaluations that have to be
done. So there's a way of doingthat, in a systemized,
professional way too, so thatthe board doesn't have to do
that. You add all of thesepieces up, you know, you know, I
have customers that tell us thatwe handle probably 60 to 70% of
what a management, their priormanager did. And so you can pick

(27:54):
and choose kind of some of thesethings, and add on whether there
are service or somebody else'sservice. There are services out
there, and just like you talkedabout, you know, before, to help
the community do things like, ifthere's a way of having paneling
an election vote, so there are,there are businesses, but that's
what I was gonna say in terms ofelections, and whether some of

(28:16):
it's online, some of it's inperson, it, you know, It depends
on what your state's regulationsare, but that's a, there's a
whole business around doing thatalso, and like you said, we need
that. So there's a, there's anumber of tools out there to
make the job of being a boardmember easier.

Okay, so you talked about the idea of a tool,
a software platform, that putseverything together in one
place, and I imagine it saves alot of paperwork, it saves a lot
of redundancy. And then youtalked about, is it cafeteria
plan, where you can pick andchoose different things and

different bills, different services you could
probably add to, you know, acore set of services. So for our
customers, for example, andobviously we have our CO
offering of doing monthlyaccounting work, but then
there's others that will beadded, you know, kind of to
that, or we have some that justmeans those separate items
themselves.

Yeah, well, I would imagine that not only does
tasks, but it's good for theorganizational health of the
association, because it lowersthe threshold of being a board
member lowers the resistance,because if you have these
services to support you, and theboard's not doing it all
themselves, and it's being donefor a fraction of the cost of

(29:31):
full management, all of a suddenI'm feeling the burden lifted
off my shoulders, and I'm noteven living in one of those
associations,

absolutely. And you know the again, going back
to that very it takes a lot oftime, especially to be a
volunteer treasurer and a selfmanaged community, but if you
have these systems in place,you'll find it a lot easier to
source board members, people whowill volunteer their time if, if
there are efficient systems.
Decisions in place and somesupport to allow the you know,

(30:02):
these other homeowners, to stepup and fulfill a role that's not
so painful, right? Not so timeconsuming, not so you know,
they've got to reinvent thewheel. So it's you open up a new
kind of layer of potential boardmembers to come in and help, and
that's one of the main things wehear about all the time, is it's

(30:23):
difficult to recruit people tobe on the board, and then people
feel, you know, I'm using otherpeople's terminology, but it
feel like a life sentence. Sothey get off the board because
nobody else will volunteer.
Well, if Doing this helps to,you know, alleviate that so that
other people can get involved inbeing on the board, but in in a

(30:44):
way that's not so, you know, notnot so difficult,

right? Not so onerous. Hey, we spoke about
full professional management asif it's one thing on the side.
And I just realized there's anentire segment that we haven't
talked about, and that's an onsite manager who is a
professional, someone who sitsat a desk, maybe in the
clubhouse or something likethat, who is the employee of the

(31:09):
association, who runs a show.
And that person, again, may havebeen promoted as the facilities
manager. That person may havebeen the real estate agent who
was offered a job by theassociation. That person may be
a great former board member whowas hired to manage the
operational things, but they maynot have the financial backbone.

(31:32):
They may not have the financialsavvy to do all the numbers. So
would this all these servicesthat you're talking about, would
they be nicely complimentary toa physical on site manager?
Also, absolutely.

And we, you know, we have many times where that
physical manager, you know, isworking with us, whether they're
on site or whether it's somebodywho's a portfolio manager and
has a growing portfolio, but,you know, it's, it's like the
medical profession, where theyutilize specialists in the
things that they do. So, youknow, the manager is great at

(32:13):
dealing with homeowners, greatat dealing with enforcing the
rules and regulations, great atdealing with vendors over and,
you know, and getting bins andthings like that, but their
strong suit might not beaccounting. So then you go to
the specialist whose strong suitis accounting, who's been able
to, obviously, hire and vet andtrain, you know, degreed
accounts, and also has, youknow, systems and processes that

(32:37):
they've been able to invest into make this work efficient and
transparent, then you kind ofcombine those two, and you've
got kind of the best of bothworlds, and you've got
stability, because people aredoing what they're what they're
best at, right? Special,

yeah, and doing what they're doing, yeah,
literally doing what they'regood at doing. Imagine that your
company, and companies likeyours have the systems in place
so they know that by the 10th ofthe month they need to have the
monthly financials

ready to get us the information and the bank
state some of the bankstatements. So then we can
produce them in a timely way andreconcile them and get them to
them in a timely way. So, yeah,we've these sort of these best
practice guidelines for them inorder for us to get them
financial information on aspecific period of time. And,
you know, they get, they haveall of this information that

(33:28):
then they can use to operatetheir community more effective.
I also say at not just the onsite manager, but sometimes
there's an on site accountingperson. We've been brought in in
a lot of situations where the onsite accounting person who's
retiring or moving, and theythere's not a big can pull the
candidates to who arespecialized in HOA or condo

(33:49):
accounting. And so they say,Well, you know, they look to us
to help fill that with ourservice. And you know, it's
that's also a great solutiontoo.

Yeah, there may be the GM, there may be the
administrator, there may be theperson who processes the mail,
and they may be good at thosephysical tasks, but they still
could use some financialbackbone and kind of the
resources that communityfinancials has to offer. Boy, my
brain is kind of exploding onthe possibilities and the

(34:22):
resources and how this can begood for so many associations.
Well, Russell, thank you fortaking the time to join us on
today's program and making mybrain spin on the vast number of
possibilities in between theburden of running the
association with all volunteerlabor and full professional
management, there's a lot inbetween. So do you have any

(34:44):
closing remarks for our boardmember audience today?

I'd say that they don't have to go it alone, and
100% self management can bedaunting, but self managing with
the support of a companyoffering 60. Plus of management.
It's very doable for a board, nomatter if you're smaller or
larger. We work with both, bothends and spectrums. It's, you

(35:10):
know, it's, it's, there's amiddle, there's a middle
solution, like you said, andit's worth investigating. So

Russell, if someone has any questions about
you or community financials. Howcan they get in touch with

you? Sure, so thanks for asking. So best way
is to go to communityfinancials.com and they can
learn all about us there.
There's a lot of information.
And also, you go through theContact Us website, contact us
page of our website, and youknow, we'll be happy to get in
touch with them, or they cancall there's our number there

(35:43):
too.

Yeah, I'm thinking for board member
audience, there's help outthere, and there's hope out
there and on that. We hope youlearned some HOA insights from
our discussion today that helpsyou bring common sense to your
common areas. We look forward tohaving you join us again for
another great episode next week,

Announcer (36:05):
you've been listening to Hoa insights common sense for
common areas. If you like theshow and want to support the
work that we do, you can do soin a number of ways. The most
important thing that you can dois engage in the conversation.
Leave a question in the commentsection on our YouTube videos.
You can also email yourquestions or voice memos to
podcast@reservestudy.com orleave us a voicemail at

(36:28):
805-203-3130, if you gain anyinsights from the show, please
do us a HUGE favor by sharingthe show with other board
members that you know. You canalso support us by supporting
the brands that sponsor thisprogram. The opinions expressed
in this program are for generalinformation purposes only, and
are not intended to providespecific advice or

(36:50):
recommendations for anyindividual or on any specific
security. It is only intended toprovide education about the
financial industry to determinewhich investments may be
appropriate for you, consultyour financial advisor prior to
investing. Any past performancediscussed during this program is
no guarantee of future results.
Any indices referenced forcomparison are unmanaged and
cannot be invested into directlyas always. Please remember

(37:14):
investing involves risk andpossible loss of principal
capital. Please seek advice froma licensed professional. Capital
CS Group LLC is a registeredinvestment advisor. Advisory
services are only offered toclients or prospective clients
where capital CS Group LLC andits representatives are properly
licensed or exempt fromlicensure. No advice may be
rendered by capital CS Group LLCunless a client service

(37:38):
agreement is in place. Finally,this podcast was expertly mixed
and mastered by Stoke Lightvideo and marketing with stoke
white on your team, you'll reachmore customers with marketing
expertise that inspires action.
See the show notes to connectwith Stoke Light you

All Episodes

089 | Alternatives to Professional HOA Management: Community Financials

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}089 | Alternatives to Professional HOA Management: Community Financials