Getting Started
Set up the board portal, invite residents, configure dues, publish documents, and understand core workflows.
Overview
The board portal is the operational workspace for managing an HOA. It covers residents, dues, violations, maintenance, documents, announcements, meetings, financials, vendors, reports, audit history, notifications, community tools, settings, automation, and resident portal setup.
Every board page is scoped to the signed-in user's community. Most pages are available to board members, but sensitive actions use role checks.
Board Navigation
| Group | Pages |
|---|---|
| Overview | Dashboard |
| Operations | Homeowners, Dues, Violations, Maintenance |
| Finance | Financials, Vendors, Reports |
| Communications | Announcements, Documents, Meetings |
| Community | Calendar, Forum, Polls, Messaging, Help & Requests |
| Administration | Templates, Audit Log, Settings |
The header also includes global search, notifications, theme controls, profile menu, and documentation access.
Recommended Setup Order
- Complete community settings - confirm name, units, timezone, address, and logo.
- Add homeowners - manually add residents or import a CSV.
- Set board roles - president-only action from homeowner profiles.
- Configure dues - amount, frequency, and due day in Settings.
- Generate first dues period - creates one payment record per active homeowner.
- Upload governing documents - mark resident-facing documents public.
- Invite residents - send portal invites from the Homeowners page.
- Connect Stripe - optional, but required for online resident payments.
- Review automation - confirm reminders, late marking, and escalation behavior.
- Run tutorials - use Settings to rerun module walkthroughs as needed.
The dashboard setup health panel tracks several of these items.
Roles and Permissions
Board roles are ordered from least to most privileged:
| Role | Typical access |
|---|---|
| Member | General board portal access |
| Secretary | Document and announcement management |
| Treasurer | Dues, financials, billing, and payment management |
| Vice President | Inherits lower role capabilities |
| President | Community settings, board role assignment, deletion, and automation control |
Some modules are visible broadly, but writes are role-gated. Examples:
- President changes community settings and board roles.
- President deletes/restores homeowners and violations.
- Treasurer records dues payments, waives payments, generates periods, refunds online payments, and manages budgets.
- Secretary uploads/deletes documents and creates/publishes announcements.
Resident Portal Relationship
The board portal controls what residents see:
| Board action | Resident impact |
|---|---|
| Add homeowner with email | Enables invite flow |
| Send invite | Resident can link account to homeowner profile |
| Generate dues period | Creates resident payment records |
| Connect Stripe | Shows online Pay Now button |
| File violation | Shows notice in resident portal and can notify resident |
| Update maintenance status | Updates resident request detail and notifications |
| Mark document public | Shows document to residents |
| Publish portal announcement | Shows update in resident portal |
| Create public calendar event | Shows event in resident calendar |
| Create poll | Residents can vote |
Soft Deletes
Many modules use soft delete. Deleted records are hidden from the default list but remain recoverable from a deleted view.
Soft-deleted modules include:
- Homeowners
- Violations
- Maintenance requests
- Documents
- Vendors
- Templates
- Announcements
Some delete actions cascade. Deleting a homeowner soft-deletes that homeowner's violations and maintenance requests, and restoring the homeowner restores those related records.
Audit Trail
Major changes are logged to the audit trail, including create, update, delete, restore, payment, report generation, automation, and resident interaction events.
Audit entries capture:
- Timestamp
- Actor
- Action
- Entity type
- Entity link when available
- Before/after metadata for many actions
Use the Audit Log when reconciling who changed a record or when preparing board materials.
Automation
Daily scheduled jobs can:
- Send board digests
- Send meeting reminders
- Generate dues periods
- Send resident dues reminders
- Escalate stale violations
- Alert on stale urgent maintenance
- Monitor maintenance SLA thresholds
- Mark dues late
- Expire trials
Automation is configured in Settings and takes effect on the next scheduled run.