Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: payment systems?

[Leila Tite (leila.tite]

One drawback of having the banks mail the checks is that the US Postal
service has become much more unreliable. The banks often consolidate
multiple payments into a single delivery. If an envelope containing the
dues checks for multiple households doesn't get delivered, it becomes even
more work for everyone.

Quickbooks does offer the option to debit someone's bank account directly.
They don't (yet) charge for this, but it is something we started using here
last October. They require you to obtain written authorization and it is
something that requires a great deal of trust.

Thanks for spelling out your acronyms! I had never heard of NORC and SPOF.
Leila

On Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 12:11 PM Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> Agreed on the irony -- why does having a bank print and physically mail a
> paper check (with first class postage!) cost me nothing but it costs big
> money to perform the same transaction electronically?
>
> Like you, most of our folks pay via automated paper check and I enter those
> manually into Quickbooks. It's not terrible, but it could be so much better
> -- in a perfect world, members could pay however they like electronically
> with ease, whether that's by credit card (fee to be covered by themselves),
> member-initiated transfer, or automatic transfer, and it would all go
> straight into quickbooks without manual (i.e. error-prone) involvement from
> me. They could also have a record of past payments, view open invoices,
> securely put in their banking info, etc. Our condo fees are significant --
> $300 - $1300 a month! I can manage all my other big bills (mortgage,
> electricity, insurance) and most small ones (Netflix, magazine
> subscriptions) this way, why not this one?
>
> In addition to the convenience both to myself as bookkeeper and to our
> members (including me!), it's also not a great look that we are using paper
> and snail mail at our "eco village". It's also a totally foreign system to
> younger folks at a time when we would really like to attract younger buyers
> and renters so as not to become a NORC (naturally occurring retirement
> community).  I recently rented my mom's house out to a pair of
> 20-somethings who looked at me like I had two heads when I suggested they
> could pay the rent by check. (We settled on PayPal, which isn't an option
> for the HOA fees because PayPal charges business an outrageous 2.99%.)
>
> Finally, I am acutely aware that as the bookkeeper, I am (as we say in the
> software field), a SPOF (single point of failure). Having automated payment
> and bookkeeping systems would make it so much easier and faster to onboard
> new folks into my job when needed.
>
> Diana
>
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 12:50 PM roger cunningham <nengaku1 [at] gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Here at Cantine’s Island Cohousing HOA we continue using Quickbooks
> online
> > but we don’t do online payments. Nearly all of our members have automatic
> > payment set up through their banks and I don’t think banks charge for
> this.
> > We receive a paper check directly from the bank. It’s a little more work
> > than direct deposits but we only have 19 households so I really don’t
> mind.
> > I do find it ironic though. Processing a paper check costs at least ten
> > times more than processing a direct deposit. Maybe someday the banks will
> > figure that out.
> > Cheers
> > Roger Cunningham
> > Bookkeeper
> > Cantine’s island
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 12:39 PM Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] 
> > gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hello, fellow cohousing bookkeepers, accountants, treasurers or
> > > trustee-type-folk!
> > >
> > > Here at Mosaic Commons, we have used QuickBooks for managing our
> > community
> > > finances for many years.  For a long time, our members were able to pay
> > > their HOA fees via QuickBooks bank transfer for no fee, but a couple
> > years
> > > ago, Intuit started charging a 1% fee for ACH transfers, which is kind
> of
> > > nuts.
> > >
> > > Looking around for other options, I see there are HOA management
> > platforms
> > > that would let us do this much cheaper, e.g. PayHOA which would charge
> a
> > > much more reasonable $1.95 flat fee per transaction.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have experience with this or other similar platforms for
> > > payments? (Or for general HOA management?) What do you think?
> > >
> > > I know about Gather and Mosaic cohousing management applications but as
> > > best I can tell, neither offer any help with managing payments.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > > Diana, on behalf of Mosaic Commons in Berlin, MA
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