The Tools Menu Item in the EasyHOA software

Inside of the EasyHOA software there is a main menu item in the bottom left hand corner of the page called "Tools". To the right of Tools there is an arrow pointing downward and when you click on the arrow it will expand the sub menu inside of the Tools menu. The tools sub menu includes items such as Boards, Committees, Directory, Import, Payment Processing, Print, Website, Settings, Late/Lien Rules. Each of these sub menu items are clickable and when clicked on will allow you to navigate to those particular pages. The first item on the Tools submenu located at the top of the submenu is Boards. When you click on Boards a page will appear that shows the current HOA board information. IF you are new to the EasyHOA software and have not added Board information, this page will not have much information on it. If that is the case and you are wanting to add in board member information, the first thing you need to do is make sure the Board Name is correct. The Board Name field is located on the left hand side of the page near the top. The EasyHOA software preloads the board name used when you initially signed up for the EasyHOA software. After you confirmed your Board name by checking whether it is correct in the board name field, you may also choose whether you want the Board information(ie. Name, Phone, Email) to be accessible to an owner when that owner is logged into their owner account or choose whether you want that same Board information to be visible to the general public on the HOA website that EasyHOA provides for your HOA by sliding the toggle button on/off. Both of those toggle button settings are found on the right hand side of the main Board page. After you have confirmed your Board name and have edited your settings on whether or not you want your board information to be seen by an owner in his/her owner account or whether you want the board information to be public on your HOA website, click on the button on the left called "Update" and the EasyHOA software will update your settings accordingly. In the upper right hand corner of the Board page, there is a button called "Add Board/Committee Titles" and when you click on that button, it will take you to a page that allows you to add in custom titles for board members and/or committee members. The EasyHOA software comes preloaded with 4 main titles: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer. If you want to add in a custom title, just type out what you want to add in the field and then add a comma at the end and the software will add it to the list of titles. When you are done on that page, click on the button in the bottom right hand corner called "Save". If you no longer wish to edit/change/add board or committee titles you can click on the button in the bottom left hand corner called "Cancel" or you can close the window by clicking the X at the top right hand corner of the page. On the main Boards page there is another button located in the upper right hand corner of the page next to "Add Board/Committee Titles" called "Board History". The board history page is where you can see any changes that have been made to the board such as when a member has been removed from the board, a title has been added or removed to/from the board members name along with a date and time the change was made and who made the change. The lower portion of the board page has 3 sections: The Board Members section, the Board Communication section, and the Board Notifications/Daily Report section. The Board Members section shows all the board members that have been added. If you are new to the EasyHOA software and need to add in board members, click on the button on the right hand side of the page called "Add Board Member". When you click on the Add Board Member button, a page appears that allows you to select from a dropdown list of all owners in the HOA. You can also toggle over and select team members from the list of team members that you have setup on the "my team" page. This comes in handy if/when a board member doesn't want to use their owner email(which might be their personal email address) for administrative board tasks. Then, after you select an owner or a team member as a board member, you can give that board member a title by selecting from the title drop down menu. Once you have selected a board member and give him/her a board member title, you can click on "Save" in the bottom right hand corner of the page or click on "Cancel" in the bottom left hand corner. On the board members section the board members appear in a list sorted chronologically according to when the board member was added in. If you would like to change the way board members are listed in this section you can click next to the board member name and drag the three horizontal lines (located in the order column) up or down to reposition the board member in the board member list. In the board member section there is also a toggle button next to each board member name that allows you to turn on/off whether or not that board members email is displayed either on the HOA website or is visible to the owners via their owner account. Another toggle button exists in this same section with a turn on/off feature allowing you to decide if the board members phone number can/ cannot be seen by the public via the HOA website or whether it can/cannot be seen by an owner when that owner logs into his/her owner account. On the far right hand side of the board member section there is a column called "Actions" and two icons appear. The pencil icon, when clicked, allows you to edit the title of the board member and the icon of the trash can allows you to remove the board member from the board. The Board Communication section of the page is not fully built out yet and displays a message of "coming soon". The Board Notifications/Daily Report section of the page, when clicked on, displays the options and/or events for which board members can be notified via email and/or text of any board member activity that has not been addressed during the previous day. Currently, the options and/or events for which board members can be notified via email and/or text of a board member activity include: New Emails, New Texts, New Voicemails, New Violations, and New Requests. Each member of the board can have custom settings regarding the daily report based on the previously listed options and/or events. On The Board Notifications/Daily Report section of the page you can customize whether board members receive a daily report email and/or text by checking the email box or by checking the text box next to each option and/or event (New Emails, New Texts, New Voicemails, New Violations, and New Requests.). On new emails, a board member will receive a daily report of new emails via email and text(if options are checked) if there is an email that comes into the EasyHOA software that a board member did not address the previous day. On new texts, a board member will receive a daily report of new texts via email and text(if options are checked) if there is a text that comes into the EasyHOA software that a board member did not address the previous day. On new voicemails, a board member will receive a daily report of new voicemails via email and text(if options are checked) if there is a voicemail that comes into the EasyHOA software that a board member did not address the previous day. On new violations, a board member will receive a daily report of new violations via email and text(if options are checked) if there is a violation that comes into the EasyHOA software that a board member did not address the previous day. On new requests, a board member will receive a daily report of new requests via email and text(if options are checked) if there is a request that comes into the EasyHOA software that a board member did not address the previous day. The second item on the Tools submenu is Committees. When you click on Committees a page will appear that shows the current HOA committees. If you are new to the EasyHOA software and have not added committees, this page will not have much information on it. If that is the case and you are wanting to add in a new committee, click on the button on the far right hand side of the page called "Add committee". After you click on the Add committee button, a committee information page will appear where you can create a new committee. There is a Title field. This is the name of your committee. You may also choose whether you want the Committee information(ie. Name, Phone, Email) to be accessible to an owner when that owner is logged into their owner account or choose whether you want that same Board information to be visible to the general public on the HOA website that EasyHOA provides for your HOA by sliding the toggle button on/off. Both of those toggle button settings are found on the left hand side of the committee information page. After you have given your committee a title and have edited your settings on whether or not you want your committee information to be seen by an owner in his/her owner account or whether you want the board information to be public on your HOA website, click on "Add Committee Member". When you click on the Add Committee Member button, a page appears that allows you to select from a dropdown list of all owners in the HOA. You can also toggle over and select team members from the list of team members that you have setup on the "my team" page. This comes in handy if/when a committee member doesn't want to use their owner email(which might be their personal email address) for administrative board tasks. Then, after you select an owner or a team member as a committee member, you can give that committee member a title by selecting from the title drop down menu. Then, after you select an owner as a committee member, you can give that committee member a title by selecting from the title drop down menu. Once you have selected a committee member and give him/her a title, you can click on "Add Owner" in the bottom right hand corner of the page or click on "Cancel" in the bottom left hand corner. There is also a section of this page that allows you to control the notifications that a committee member can and will receive. When you click on notifications, the options and/or events for which committee members can be notified via email and/or text of any committee member activity are displayed. Currently, the options and/or events for which committee members can be notified via email and/or text of a committee member activity include: New Requests, Requests Status Change, or New Request File Uploaded or Form Completed. Each member of the committee can have custom settings regarding the notifications on the previously listed options and/or events. On notifications section of the page you can customize whether committee members receive an email and/or text by checking the email box or by checking the text box next to each option and/or event (New Requests, Requests Status Change, or New Request File Uploaded or Form Completed). On new requests, a committee member will receive an email and text(if options are checked) if there is a new request that comes into the EasyHOA software. On request status changes, a committee member will receive an email and text(if options are checked) if there is a status change on a request. On new request file uploaded or form completed, a board member will receive an email and text(if options are checked) if there is a form that is completed that is associated with a request or if there is a new file uploaded to a request. After you customize all the notifications on this page, make sure to click on the button on the bottom right called "Save Notifications" After you add all of your committee members in and customize their notification settings, click on the button in the bottom right hand corner of the Committee Information page called "Create". After clicking on that create button, the newly created committee will now appear on the main committees page. In the upper right hand corner of the Committee page, there is a button called "Board/Committee Titles" and when you click on that button, it will take you to a page that allows you to add in custom titles for board members and/or committee members. The EasyHOA software comes preloaded with 4 main titles: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer. If you want to add in a custom title, just type out what you want to add in the field and then add a comma at the end and the software will add it to the list of titles. When you are done on that page, click on the button in the bottom right hand corner called "Save". If you no longer wish to edit/change/add board or committee titles you can click on the button in the bottom left hand corner called "Cancel" or you can close the window by clicking the X at the top right hand corner of the page. The third item on the Tools submenu is Directory. When you click on Directory a page will appear that shows the current HOA owners/members. The information for the HOA owners/members comes from the information that is entered in on the owners page in the Owners section of the main menu of the EasyHOA software. The owner information displayed on the directory page is formatted in a table with rows and columns. Each owner name is a row and information about that owner is formatted in columns. The first column on the directory page is an option/setting that allows you to control whether or not the owner name and unit information appears on the directory page when an owner logs in to their owner account and clicks on directory. This column is titled "Share Name/Unit" and under the column title there is a toggle button that allows you to globally turn the setting on/off for all owners. If the toggle button is off, none of the owners name and/or unit listed on the directory page will appear to owners when logged into their owner account. If you need need to control the visibility of a particular owner you can check the box or uncheck the box next to the owners name. The checkboxes are in the Share Name/Unit column and allow you to control sharing of the owners name and/or unit number on an individual basis. The arrows at the top of the directory page next to each column title name allow you to filter(when clicked)the information on the directory page by the column filtered in ascending and descending order. On the far right hand side of the page, there is a column that contains an option/setting that allows you to control whether or not the owner email address appears on the directory page when an owner logs in to their owner account and clicks on directory. This column is titled "Share Email" and under the column title there is a toggle button that allows you to globally turn the setting on/off for all owners. If the toggle button is off, none of the owner's email addresses listed on the directory page will appear to owners when logged into their owner account. If you need need to control the visibility of a particular owner's email address individually you can check the box or uncheck the box next in the owner's information row. The checkboxes are in the Share Email column and allow you to control sharing of the owner's email address on an individual basis. Next to the Share Email column, there is a column that contains an option/setting that allows you to control whether or not the owner's phone number appears on the directory page when an owner logs in to their owner account and clicks on directory. This column is titled "Share Phone" and under the column title there is a toggle button that allows you to globally turn the setting on/off for all owners. If the toggle button is off, none of the owner's phone numbers listed on the directory page will appear to owners when logged into their owner account. If you need need to control the visibility of a particular owner's phone number individually you can check the box or uncheck the box next in the owner's information row. The checkboxes are in the Share Phone column and allow you to control sharing of the owner's email address on an individual basis. At the top of the directory page in the EasyHOA software there is a search bar where you can search for owners and to the right of the search bar there is a button called "Export CSV". This button, when clicked on will automatically download the directory page in a CSV format file. The fourth item on the Tools submenu is Import. When you click on Import a page will appear that gives you information on how to import your owner's information into the EasyHOA software via a CSV file upload. On the left side of the import page you will see a “Download Template” link. Click on this link to download a spreadsheet with the titles/categories that you are able to import into the software. Enter the necessary information into the newly downloaded and formatted CSV and then send the completed CSV file to support@easyhoa.com and the support team will import the HOA data for you so we make sure that it all gets entered correctly. We strongly recommend that you send the file to us for importing. When the file is completely filled out and is accurate, if you do not wish to share the file with EasyHOA and you would like to do the import by yourself, click on the button found in the middle right hand side of the page labeled “select csv” and from there you will can upload the completed csv file from your own computer. The bottom of the import page contains a button called "Delete Imported Data". This button, when clicked, will remove all newly imported data such as units and owners from the EasyHOA software. The fifth item on the Tools submenu is Payment Processing. When you click on Payment Processing a page will appear that gives you information on what your payment processing fees are when you process payments for owners or when owners process their own payments while logged in to their owner account. At the bottom of the payment processing page there is a section that allows you to customize which payment methods you would like to accept in your HOA. To turn certain payment methods on/off just simply slide the toggle button on/off next to each payment method listed on the page. When you are done updating which payment methods you would like to accept, make sure you click on the button called "Update Settings" for the EasyHOA software to update your settings on the payment processing page. The privilege to process payments in the EasyHOA software is only given to HOA's that have gone through the process of getting approved to process payments. If you have not yet been accepted to process payments, click on the button at the top of the payment processing page called "Setup" to start the application process. Once your application has been filled out and you are approved and can now process payments, the "Setup" button no longer appears on the page. There is also a button on top of the payment processing page is called "Change Log" and if you click on it, it will display a list of all the changes that you(or anyone else on your team) has made to the payment processing settings. If your HOA is setup to pass convenience fees on to the owners in your HOA, the right hand side of the payment processing page will contain information on the fees that you will be charging owners to process payments. To edit those rates and fees, click on the button called "Setup Convenience Fees". This button only appears when your HOA is setup to charge a convenience fee. If you do not see that button and you would like to charge convenience fees to your owners, contact EasyHOA's support team by emailing support@easyhoa.com. The sixth item on the Tools submenu is "Print". When you click on Print a Print Invoices page will appear that has an informative table of all the owners in your HOA that have a balance on their account. The table has column titles and each column in the table can be sorted in ascending and descending order when the column title arrow is clicked. The purpose of this table is to inform you of who has a balance and to empower you with a way to print invoices for each of the listed owners in one bulk print batch. Note: The owners appearing on this list/table on the Print page may/may not be past due. The owners listed on Print Invoices are simply owners that have been recently invoiced and their invoice is not yet due or owners that have a past due balance. If you would like to print all the owner invoices for each owner listed on the table on the print invoices page you can click on the button on the far right hand side of the page called "Generate PDF Batch". Clicking on generate pdf batch will download a printable pdf file that contains the invoices of all the owners in the HOA that have a balance on their account. If you would like to add a note to each of the invoices included in the bulk pdf invoice batch you can do so on the Print Invoices page in the box at the top of the page under the words "Add Note to PDF". At the top of the Print Invoices page there is a button called "Print Custom Templates". When you click on the print custom template button, you can generate a pdf print batch of the template you are looking to print for owners. Before you click the generate templates pdf button, which is found on the far right of the page, you need to filter the owners list of who you are actually printing the custom template for. There is also a dropdown menu in the middle of the page at the top that allows you to select which custom template you would like to print. The print history button on the top of the page allows you to see a list of all the print batches you have generated. The generate pdf batch button will create zip file that includes all the invoices being generated in the batch. The seventh item on the Tools submenu is "Website". When you click on Website you will come to a page called manage pages. The manage pages page allows you to quickly view all the names/titles of each of the pages of your website. On this page you can also re-order the navigation of the pages by clicking on the icon on the far left of the page that has 3 horizontal lines on it and dragging that icon up or down the page. Note: You cannot change re-order the navigation of the Home page. Each of the website page names/titles also have a hyperlink(titled "View") to the right of the website page name/title that allows you to view that particular page of your website if you click on it. To the right of each "View" hyperlink designated for each website page there is a button called "Edit" that when clicked will take you to a page that allows you to edit the website content of that particular website page. To the side of the edit link there is a another link for each page called "Delete" that allows you to delete the website page. Note: You cannot delete the home page of your website. To the side of the delete link there is a another link for each page called "Clone page" that allows you to clone that particular page of the website page. Cloning pages helps when you need to keep the same general page layout/design and/or theme of your site and it also saves you time so you don't have to design each page from scratch if you want all or most of your website pages to be identical in regard to their layout/design. Note: We do not recommend having duplicate content on your website pages so when cloning a page make sure you edit the content so that not every page of your page has the exact words throughout your entire website. At the top of the manage pages there are two buttons. The button on the top left is called "Create Page" and the button on the top right is called "Create External Link". The create page button, when clicked, takes you to a page where you can create a new page of your website. The create external link button, when clicked, takes you to a page where you can create a navigational menu item on top of your website that when a visitor clicks on it, it will send them to an external website. There are buttons on the top of the manage pages page. Those buttons, from left to right, are: Pages, Events, News, Forms, Domain Name, Settings. The "Events" button is where you can go to add and edit the events in your HOA. The events you add and/or edit on that page will show up on your website under the events tab of your website. The "News" button is where you can go to add and edit the news in your HOA. The items you add and/or edit on that News page will show up under the news tab of your website. The "Forms" button is where you can go to manage the forms you use on your website. Each form list on the Forms page will show you the title of the form and the date the form was created. Each form listed on the page has an icon that looks like an "eye" where when clicked will show you the responses you have logged for that particular form. Each form also has a duplicate function in the middle of the page that when clicked allows you to duplicate a form. You can also copy a form from this page to other parts of the EasyHOA software that use forms such as the voting and survey portion of the software. The far right of the forms page has a column titled "Delete" that allows you to delete any form on the page. At the top right of the forms page there is a button called "New Form" which allows you to create a brand new form. The domain name button, when clicked, allows you to see what your current HOA website address is. If you need help changing your domain name that is shown on this page, please contact support@easyhoa.com and we can help you get it all setup and connected. The settings button, when clicked, will take you to a page that allows you to see which email address your website form notifications are being forwarded to. There is also a spot on this settings page that allows you to add an email recipient to be notified when a website form has been completed. Please remember to separate additional notification email addresses with a comma when adding multiple email addresses. The bottom portion of the settings page allows you to use a toggle button to hide certain parts of your website to the public. Example, if you slide the toggle button to "hide" for the owner login, the owner login button will not appear on your HOA's website. If you slide the toggle button to "hide" for the board login button, that button will not appear on you HOA's website. There are two more "hideable" options, The HOA contact phone number and the HOA contact email address. When the toggle has been slid over to "hide" on both of those settings, the HOA phone and email will be hidden to the general public when viewing the HOA website that EasyHOA provides for you as a software customer. The eighth item on the Tools submenu is "Settings". When you click on Settings you will come to a page that includes general settings for the HOA. The settings page allows you to edit the time zone for which your HOA is located in. Under the time zone section there is a field where you can enter in your HOA phone number. This phone number is the one that gets used in the placeholder called association phone number when used in custom templates. At the bottom of the page, there is a spot to add in the association address if your association actually has a physical address. The bottom of the settings page has a toggle button that you can turn on/off if you want remove all billing verbiage and buttons from the owner login portal. The toggle button by default is set to off. If the toggle button is turned to the "on" position, when the owner logs into their owner account, they will not be able to see any of their billing information and/or billing history and will not have buttons for the owner to pay. There is also a toggle button at the bottom of the settings page that you can turn on/off if you want to hide/remove the survey/voting menu from the owner login portal and/or owner app. The toggle button by default is set to off. If the toggle button is turned to the "on" position, when the owner logs into their owner account, they will not be able to see the survey/voting menu. The top right hand side of the settings page has a spot where you can upload your HOA's logo. At the top settings page there is a button called billing period. If you click on the billing period button it will take you to a page where you can control the billing period your EasyHOA software uses to create invoices for the owner dues in your HOA. The default setting is 10 days. That means that 10 days before the invoices in your HOA are due, the EasyHOA software will generate invoices and reminders via email and/or text to inform the owners in the HOA that the invoice is due in 10 days. If you need to change the billing period, you can edit that on the billing period page. Note: If the "billing period" is set to a greater number of days than the recurring due "repeat every / frequency", then the billing period will default to the same days as the frequency of the due. For example: if you set the billing period to 45 days but the frequency of the due is generated on a monthly cycle then the billing period will also be about 30 days. The billing period page also has a button at the bottom of the page called "Change log" which will show you what changes were made to the billing period and who made those changes and when the change was made(date and time). Next to the Billing Period Button on the top of the settings page there is a button called Fee Types. If you click on that button it allows you to manage the fee types in your HOA. On this page you can control which fee types are subject to autopay. To do this, you would need to check the box next to the fee type in the column titled "Subject to Autopay". Example: if you have an invoice for “special Assessment” that is enabled and subject to autopay, And the specific unit has autopay enabled then on the due date of the special assessment the unit will automatically pay the invoice. On this same page, next to the column titled subject to autopay there is a column named subject to late/lien rules. If you would like your fee type invoices to be subject to the late/lien rules you have put in place on on Tools>Late/Lien Rules for owners that do not pay their invoices on time, you need to check the box in the subject to late/lien rules column for the applicable fee type. Next to the "Fee Types" button on the Settings page there is a button called Email Settings. If you click on the email settings button it will take you to a page where you can control the settings of your email inbox. This is the same email settings page that is located under main menu item name Email, Text, & Phone. The ninth item on the Tools submenu is "Late/Lien Rules". When you click on Late/Lien Rules you will come to a page that allows you to edit and customize how you want the EasyHOA software to react when an owner is late and does not pay their invoice before the due date.