The board of directors exists to serve the needs of your community and to ensure that all official business proceeds efficiently and smoothly. Meanwhile, your HOA manager is there to help with daily tasks, including record-keeping, finance, administration, and more.

How about the HOA vendors?

Within any homeowners association, it’s important to enlist the help of maintenance crews, lawn care experts, bookkeepers, and other specialists. A responsible association must not close a deal with a mere handshake and smile though. The board shouldn’t offer the job to the first provider they find.

There’s a bit more involved in the vendor procurement process than a simple internet search. Working with a remote assistant brings clarity to the process. Part of their job is to find, vet, contract, manage, and negotiate with the best vendors on behalf of the board.

What is HOA vendor management?

This is the process of developing and managing activities and performance related to vendors. The main objective is to build a strong relationship that drives vendors to deliver excellent service throughout the contract period. This allows HOAs to reduce risks and get the best value out of it.

It seems simple but when you have to deal with a dozen vendors, it becomes complicated. Each vendor needs their own contract, pricing, communication line, work orders, and payment schedules. If you’re unable to keep yourself organised, you’re going to have misunderstandings, lose contracts, and miss payments.

Why are HOA vendor agreements important?

After awarding a project to a certain vendor, your HOA needs to draft a contract to clarify the legal obligations of both parties towards each other. This gets confusing for some, which is why a handful of boards refuse to deal with it. All the same, contracts are a critical component of all vendor projects for these reasons:

To outline the consequences

Every community must define the consequences should the vendor fail to deliver on their promises. Sadly, not all providers have proven track records for you to refer to. Some of them are going to make mistakes—some more grave than others.

Without proper management, they may easily get away with abject failures scot-free. Worst case scenario, your association will lose a large amount of money without having anything to show for it. An assistant ensures your agreements specify penalties levied against vendors in case of unfulfilled obligations thereby protecting you from financial losses.

To cover circumstantial changes

You may be wondering what happens when your project is delayed due to inclement weather. For instance, a hurricane might destroy all of the progress in the middle of the work. Unforeseen situations like force majeure are going to affect the way projects are done.

These exceptions need to be included in your contracts to avoid misunderstandings. In many cases, HOA boards and vendors get into disputes over sudden changes. With a proper vendor contract, you will often be spared from any misinterpretations.

To set expectations for both parties

The primary purpose of vendor agreements is to define what each party owes the other. Contracts detail the project, such as what need to be accomplished, when they have to be completed, and how much they are going to cost the community.

Verbal agreements may have worked in the past but they are unreliable when transacting with vendors. With the help of a virtual assistant, you may make the right preparations. These include allocating a budget for the entire project while the vendor prepares a timetable.

To assure confidentiality and privacy

With the help of an assistant, you may have vendor contracts indicate privacy clauses to protect your homeowners association. This might not apply for all vendors but they come in handy in case you want to keep the project private or if the vendor will be working with sensitive data.

Sometimes, you want to keep the details of the contract itself confidential. It may be that you don’t want them to share the pricing with other companies or that you don’t want them to tell their suppliers how much your allocated budget is.

How do assistants help with vendor management?

Not all communities are made equal. Smaller associations prefer to manage their projects themselves, whereas bigger ones typically turn to experts for assistance. Regardless of size, every HOA is sure to appreciate the help of a remote HOA manager for vendor management.

They are experienced

A virtual HOA assistant has the expertise, experience, and resources necessary to oversee vendors. If you want, you may specify that you want to hire someone who has been in a similar role for a while now. Years of working with different boards and vendors shape the way they approach the matter.

They streamline processes

An experienced manager is familiar with using advanced technological tools, such as vendor management software. This allows them to save your association time and money, thereby redirecting your resources towards more important things than on things like documentation or record-keeping.

They include legal assistance

While they may not be a full-blown attorney, they are still capable of helping you to navigate the fine print and complicated legal terms. Having another person look over the contracts ensures that your community gets a fair deal. They also assist with dispute resolution and finding solutions that work for both parties.

They are connected

Though they may work remotely most of the time, you will see that they have their own network of reliable and proven vendors. The selection process moves forward at a faster and more organised rate. Long-standing relationships also lead to possible discounts or deals in your future.

Where to find a remote assistant

Now that we’ve arrived at this point, you might be asking where to find an assistant who is reliable and skilled. All we can say is that you don’t have to rely on your local talent pool for candidates. It’s a good idea to turn to the global workforce for virtual professionals.

We at Remote Workmate are an offshore staffing agency that is connected to online workers from the Philippines and elsewhere. We choose our candidates through stringent screening and perform initial checks for employers like you.