Managers run the HOA.
Boards pick the vendors.
Two different products, so the rows worth reading are about scope and about who chooses. Your management company keeps the association; HOAcrew is where its vendors are chosen and recorded.
Dues, books and meetings
Covenant enforcement
Who picks each vendor
How the price reaches you
Sales tax and processing
Proof a visit happened
What the platform costs
“A property management company” is a category, not a named product, and firms differ enormously — many run vendor compliance and reporting extremely well. Dues, books, meetings and covenant enforcement stay with your management company, which is why the first two rows are dashes on our side. On compliance, precisely: Each vendor’s insurance and trade credentials are verified and stored with their expiry dates. When a renewal window closes, they stop being able to bid for or be awarded work at your community until the document is current.
The building is your manager's. The ground is your vendor's.
Dues, meetings and covenants happen inside. Mowing, mulch, irrigation and the walks happen outside. Both are in this frame.
Four companies answered. Your board picked one.
Same scope, same terms, four written answers side by side. Your board picks the name, and the contract runs between the community and the company it chose.
Example — one scope, four answers
One landscaping scope for eleven acres of common area at a 214-home community drew four proposals from insurance-current companies, ranging from $1840 to $2260 a month. The community selected Bluestem Property Services at $2110 a month for three rounds a week with the same crew each visit — the second most expensive of the four — and contracted with them directly. Sales tax and payment processing are their own lines on the invoice, never folded into a company’s price.
You post the scope
Landscaping — common areas, 11.2 acres
Willow Creek HOA · 214 homes · posted Feb 18
Vetted companies send proposalsin arrival order
Ridgeline Grounds Co.
Two rounds a week, Tuesday and Friday
Insurance current
$1,840.00
per month
Cedar Gate Maintenance
Three rounds a week, quarterly pressure washing
Insurance current
$2,260.00
per month
Harborline Facility Care
Two rounds a week plus storm callouts
Insurance current
$1,975.00
per month
- You picked this one
Bluestem Property Services
Three rounds a week, same crew each visit
Insurance current
$2,110.00
per month
You compare the proposals and the companies, you select one, and you contract with them.
Prices shown are each company’s own price for the service. Sales tax and payment processing are their own lines on the invoice, never folded into that price. Companies, prices and cadences here are an example.
Four jobs that stay with your manager.
These four sit outside this product entirely, and a board running without a manager will feel every one of them.
- Dues, arrears and the books
Collections, delinquency letters, reserve accounting and the annual budget. None of it is here, and a board without a treasurer will feel that fast.
- Meetings and minutes
Notices, agendas, quorum, minutes, elections — all your manager’s. HOAcrew runs the board vote on a stack of proposals, which is one narrow slice of that work.
- Covenant enforcement
Violation notices, hearings, fines and the correspondence that goes with them. That is a manager’s work and it is often the reason a board hires one.
- Being on site
A manager who walks the property and knows the residents is doing something no console does. What a console adds is that the walk is written down.
A filed visit, on the amenity it happened at.
Readings, a photograph and a captured arrival and departure — filed the same way every time, by every company, at every community.
Sample record
Pool — twice-weekly service
Tue 7:12 AM
7:12 AM – 7:58 AM(46m)
Recorded this visit
- Free chlorine
- 2.4 ppm
- pH
- 7.5
- Total alkalinity
- 95 ppm
- Baskets
- Emptied
Vendor insurance verified before this vendor could bid the work.
Boards run both, and plenty do.
A manager for the association, HOAcrew for the vendor side. Run a quote on your own address and see what the vendor half would cost — no signup, nothing held back.
Looking to join the HOAcrew vendor network instead? Join for free.