Everything an association needs, in eleven articles.
Every feature below is included for every association, whether a management company runs it or volunteers do.
The owner portal
One place owners go instead of calling the office, branded for their association.
- § I.1 Balance and online payments
- Current balance, every charge, statements, ACH or card payments, and autopay.
- § I.2 Requests with photos
- Maintenance requests from a phone, with status updates until the job is closed.
- § I.3 Home improvement (ARC) requests
- Submit plans, get an instant reference number and a checklist of anything missing, then track the decision.
- § I.4 Amenity reservations
- Book the clubhouse, pool or guest suite, pay fees and deposits, and see availability.
- § I.5 Documents, directory and calendar
- Governing documents, minutes, newsletters, a privacy-respecting neighbor directory, and community events.
- § I.6 One sign-in for everything you own
- Owners with several units, or seats on several boards, switch associations from the top bar.
- § I.7 Installable app with alerts
- Add it to the home screen; get email, text and push alerts, each person choosing what they want.
Accounting
Full fund accounting that closes the month, not a billing add-on.
- § II.1 Operating and reserve funds
- Double-entry general ledger by fund, chart of accounts templates, period locks, and reversing entries.
- § II.2 Assessments that bill themselves
- Monthly, quarterly or annual dues by flat rate, ownership percentage or class; special assessments with installments.
- § II.3 Bills read automatically
- Upload or email vendor invoices; the coding, amounts and due dates are filled in for you to check.
- § II.4 Board approvals
- Invoices over your limit, and the annual budget, go to the designated board members for one-click approval.
- § II.5 Budgets
- Build next year from actuals, spread by month, route for board approval, and report budget against actual.
- § II.6 Bank reconciliation
- Upload a statement (CSV, OFX or PDF); matching transactions reconcile automatically and only exceptions need a person.
- § II.7 Month-end packet
- Balance sheet, income statement against budget with variance notes, aging and cash summary in one board-ready PDF.
- § II.8 Collections
- Late fees, reminder and demand letters, payment plans, holds and attorney referral, all on a schedule you set.
Payments
Owners pay online; the association receives the full amount.
- § III.1 Your association’s own account
- Payments deposit to the association’s bank through its own Stripe account.
- § III.2 Payer covers the convenience fee
- Card and ACH fees are shown to the owner before paying, so dues arrive in full.
- § III.3 Autopay and saved methods
- Owners enroll once; payments post to the ledger the moment they clear.
Meetings and voting
Run board and annual meetings without a separate video account.
- § IV.1 Video meetings built in
- Board, annual, special and committee meetings with screen sharing, recording and a branded room.
- § IV.2 Agendas and notices
- Agenda builder, executive-session items, and notices sent with the legally required lead time.
- § IV.3 Quorum, motions and live votes
- Check-in by unit, a live quorum meter, and motions voted in the room and written into the minutes.
- § IV.4 Board packets
- Agenda, prior minutes, financial summary and open items assembled into a pre-read with an executive summary.
- § IV.5 Minutes
- Drafted from the meeting record, approved at the next meeting, and published to owners.
- § IV.6 Elections and ballots
- Board elections, budget ratifications and amendments with weighting, secret ballots, proxies and certified results.
Operations
Requests become work orders, and every job has an owner.
- § V.1 Work orders and delegation
- Assign to staff, board members, committees or vendors, with priorities, due dates and SLA timers.
- § V.2 Internal notes kept internal
- Updates the owner sees, and notes only management or the board can see, on the same record.
- § V.3 Preventive maintenance
- Recurring tasks such as filter changes and inspections create their own work orders.
- § V.4 Violations and drive-by inspections
- Phone-first inspections with photos, a rules library, notice letters, cure dates, hearings and fines.
- § V.5 Architectural review
- Committee voting, conditions, decision letters and deemed-approval deadline tracking.
Vendors
A self-serve vendor portal, and a vendor list that keeps itself current.
- § VI.1 Self-serve vendor portal
- Vendors sign up, upload insurance and W-9, set how they get paid, accept work and track invoices.
- § VI.2 Insurance and license tracking
- Expiring certificates trigger reminders to the vendor and to you, and warn before assigning work.
- § VI.3 Bids
- Send a job to several vendors, compare quotes side by side, and award it.
Communication
Every conversation with an owner, in one timeline, with privacy built in.
- § VII.1 Announcements and emergency alerts
- Email, text and push to everyone, owners only, a building or a list. Emergency alerts reach every phone.
- § VII.2 Communications log (CRM)
- Calls, emails, texts, letters and notes per owner and unit, each marked management-only, board or owner-visible.
- § VII.3 Secure messaging
- Owners message management from the portal; threads can be assigned, escalated to the board, and closed.
- § VII.4 Email assistant
- Forward any email to your association’s address; it is sorted, summarized and turned into a thread or work order with a draft reply.
- § VII.5 Letters
- Templates with merge fields, generated as PDFs and logged when mailed.
Records, insurance and closings
The paperwork side of running an association.
- § VIII.1 Document management
- Folders, versions, permissions by audience, review dates, retention, records requests and full-text search.
- § VIII.2 Insurance
- Policies, renewals, claims and owner HO-6 proof, with declarations pages read automatically.
- § VIII.3 Insurance broker marketplace
- Request quotes from community-association brokers with a submission package built from your records.
- § VIII.4 Resale certificates and estoppels
- Title companies order online, pay now or at closing, and download a package assembled from the ledger and documents.
- § VIII.5 Reserve studies
- Components, a 30-year funding projection and percent funded, with import from Reserves.Express.
Management companies
Your brand on every community you manage.
- § IX.1 Portfolio view
- Every association, its doors, adoption, open work and receivables on one screen.
- § IX.2 Staff roles
- Owners, administrators, managers, accountants and staff, limited to the associations they work.
- § IX.3 Two-level branding
- Your company leads the portal; each association’s logo and color appear inside it.
- § IX.4 Your own web address
- yourcompany.bylawly.io automatically, or your own domain.
AI assistants
Work that used to take an afternoon, drafted for a person to approve.
- § X.1 Community onboarding
- Upload an owner roster in any format and the units, owners and contacts are set up for review.
- § X.2 Bill and statement reading
- Invoices and bank statements are read into the books for review.
- § X.3 Meeting prep and minutes
- Board pre-reads and draft minutes from the meeting record.
- § X.4 Email triage
- Incoming email sorted into requests, questions and complaints with suggested replies.
Security
Owners’ information stays with the people who should see it.
- § XI.1 Two-step sign-in
- Authenticator-app codes, emailed sign-in links, and device management.
- § XI.2 Permissions by role
- Owner, tenant, board, committee, staff and vendor access is separate and enforced on every file and record.
- § XI.3 Audit log
- Every change to records, roles and money, with who made it and when.