Most community associations lose valuable property history when managers, boards and staff change. Time is lost, money is wasted, and high quality decisions are difficult to achieve. Learn how condos can turn their data into an asset.
In community association governance and management, everyone strives to get better control of their costs.
Whether it's trying to get capital repair and renovation projects completed in line with the cost estimate listed in the association's reserve fund study, or make sure expenses in your current fiscal year fall within what you had budgeted, a fundamental goal in community association governance and management is getting better value for the fees that owners contribute every month.
Being able to get better control of your capital fund and operational costs starts with one thing: Having quick and ready access to your all of your property's work history.
The uncomfortable question many boards and managers need to ask is simple.
I'm not just talking about the files you can see today in a shared online file folder system, hard drive, or filing cabinet. I'm talking about the full record of work performed and outcomes achieved at your property over the years. A property's work history includes all the reports, the recommendations, the decisions, the outcomes and the lessons learned. Files don't give the full picture, even if you have them all.
In most communities, their property work history is scattered, incomplete, or has already been lost. Every month, condo boards make decisions on how to spend tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, with partial information.
There is one constant in community association governance and management: Change.
There's no stopping change, but with each change there's a big risk that part of the property's knowledge will disappear.
Historically, property information lived on paper. Engineering reports, drawings, condition assessments, warranty documents, reserve fund studies, and maintenance recommendations were printed and filed in cabinets on site or at the management company.
Over time, records moved into electronic formats. Email became the main channel of communication. Well intentioned managers saved attachments into file folder systems following their own personal naming convention or that recommended by their management company employer.
Many of these data stores are lost over time. Laptops are replaced. Office servers are migrated from one system to another. Filing cabinets get moved, reorganized, and shrink over time. Banker boxes of records disappear.
With each transition, a part of your property's history becomes harder to find. In many cases, it disappears entirely.
Most community associations don't see it happen. They only experience the impact months or years later.
What about knowledge that doesn't live in files? Having access to your property's history is not just a question of where files live. It is a question of where the context lives.
Think about where you capture your experience with a certain trade or vendor, whether good or bad. Or the advice you received from your engineer or general contractor about how to maintain the new system or newly renovated common area.
In many communities, the real memory of the property lives in the heads of a few people.
When those people leave, that knowledge goes with them. There is often nowhere structured to put it, and no expectation that it will live with the property rather than with the individual or the management company.
All of this emphasizes the core problem: most communities do not have a central, permanent home for their data that is clearly owned by the corporation.
This is the quiet risk that sits behind every transition.
When your condo does not have reliable access to its historical data, the community association pays in three ways.
These costs show up in daily operations and in long term planning.
Community managers already do not have enough time in the day. They handle resident requests, emergencies, site inspections, trade coordination, board communication, and a constant flow of email.
On top of that, they are asked questions like:
If data is scattered across email accounts, old computers, file shares, and boxes in the office, and if knowledge was inadvertently lost with former managers and boards, your manager has to become a detective.
Managers and board directors waste time:
That detective work is invisible, but it consumes real time. It takes attention away from other responsibilities including preventative maintenance and proactive planning.
If a manager has only been at the property for a short period, there will always be a gap. There are things they simply cannot know.
Missing or inaccessible data translates directly into avoidable cost.
This is not rare. It is common.
Community associations have no choice but to make decisions on how to repair and maintain their properties - decisions that involve spend in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars - whether they have the context and work history, or not.
The most serious impact of partial or missing property history is on decision quality.
A community association board is responsible for managing the affairs of their community including reserve fund planning, major repair and replacement projects, tendering and contractor selection, and managing risk.
If your historical data is incomplete or difficult to access, those decisions are made with partial information.
Without that context, it becomes easier to delay necessary work, misjudge priorities, or approve projects that are not aligned with the long term an.
When something goes wrong later, everyone asks the same question.
Often, the answer is simple. The data existed once. The community association just could not find it when it mattered.
A particularly risky moment is when a manager changes. The incoming manager receives login credentials to the outgoing manager's computer and in most cases, access to their emails for that property.
Days, weeks or months later, an engineer requests a key report that guided past work. No one can locate it. The previous manager has left.
The engineer needs to redo an assessment that was likely performed recently, or the contractor has to redo work that may have been done to the building envelope. The board pays again. The reserve fund plan may need to be adjusted. Projects are delayed, sometimes by a year or more.
Residents do not see missing data. They see delays, cost increases, and special assessments. And they look to the board and the manager for answers.
This is the mindset shift that community associations need to make.
Your property's data is not an incidental byproduct of doing work. It is a core asset of the community.
A community association's data and knowledge should be treated like a valuable asset. This data and knowledge must be:
A simple test is this: If your board cannot answer basic questions about the history of a system or project in under a minute, you have a data problem.
When a community association has a central, structured home for its data, the experience changes for everyone involved.
Managers stop acting as detectives and can focus on managing. Instead of searching in multiple places, they can pull up a complete history for a common element or project in one view.
Boards stop relying on memory. They see recommendations, decisions, quotes, and work history together. Discussions shift from trying to remember the past or questioning the seasonal schedule, to evaluating clear options.
Engineers and auditors receive what they need in minutes. That reduces billable time spent chasing files and redoing work.
Transitions between managers or companies become safer because the data is anchored to the community, not to individuals.
Most importantly, waste is reduced:
That is how boards and managers truly control costs and deliver more value from the fees owners already pay.
Managemate is designed to address the challenges community associations have in preserving their data.
Managemate gives communities a proper home for their property history. Not just a place to store files, but a structured, searchable record of projects, recommendations, contracts, schedules, reminders and work history, all tied to the relevant topics, actual systems and common elements in the property.
When engineers, auditors, or contractors have questions, the board and manager are not scrambling through old email. They can open the history and see the full story in context.
Maintaining a complete record of your condos data and property work history allows the board and management team to make faster, better informed decisions, save time, and get more value from the corporations existing fees.
If you cannot confidently tell the story of your building from registration to today, that is the warning sign. The risk is already present. The only question is whether you will wait for the next crisis to expose it.
November 13, 2025
In community association governance and management, everyone strives to get better control of their costs.
Whether it's trying to get capital repair and renovation projects completed in line with the cost estimate listed in the association's reserve fund study, or make sure expenses in your current fiscal year fall within what you had budgeted, a fundamental goal in community association governance and management is getting better value for the fees that owners contribute every month.
Being able to get better control of your capital fund and operational costs starts with one thing: Having quick and ready access to your all of your property's work history.
The uncomfortable question many boards and managers need to ask is simple.
I'm not just talking about the files you can see today in a shared online file folder system, hard drive, or filing cabinet. I'm talking about the full record of work performed and outcomes achieved at your property over the years. A property's work history includes all the reports, the recommendations, the decisions, the outcomes and the lessons learned. Files don't give the full picture, even if you have them all.
In most communities, their property work history is scattered, incomplete, or has already been lost. Every month, condo boards make decisions on how to spend tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, with partial information.
There is one constant in community association governance and management: Change.
There's no stopping change, but with each change there's a big risk that part of the property's knowledge will disappear.
Historically, property information lived on paper. Engineering reports, drawings, condition assessments, warranty documents, reserve fund studies, and maintenance recommendations were printed and filed in cabinets on site or at the management company.
Over time, records moved into electronic formats. Email became the main channel of communication. Well intentioned managers saved attachments into file folder systems following their own personal naming convention or that recommended by their management company employer.
Many of these data stores are lost over time. Laptops are replaced. Office servers are migrated from one system to another. Filing cabinets get moved, reorganized, and shrink over time. Banker boxes of records disappear.
With each transition, a part of your property's history becomes harder to find. In many cases, it disappears entirely.
Most community associations don't see it happen. They only experience the impact months or years later.
What about knowledge that doesn't live in files? Having access to your property's history is not just a question of where files live. It is a question of where the context lives.
Think about where you capture your experience with a certain trade or vendor, whether good or bad. Or the advice you received from your engineer or general contractor about how to maintain the new system or newly renovated common area.
In many communities, the real memory of the property lives in the heads of a few people.
When those people leave, that knowledge goes with them. There is often nowhere structured to put it, and no expectation that it will live with the property rather than with the individual or the management company.
All of this emphasizes the core problem: most communities do not have a central, permanent home for their data that is clearly owned by the corporation.
This is the quiet risk that sits behind every transition.
When your condo does not have reliable access to its historical data, the community association pays in three ways.
These costs show up in daily operations and in long term planning.
Community managers already do not have enough time in the day. They handle resident requests, emergencies, site inspections, trade coordination, board communication, and a constant flow of email.
On top of that, they are asked questions like:
If data is scattered across email accounts, old computers, file shares, and boxes in the office, and if knowledge was inadvertently lost with former managers and boards, your manager has to become a detective.
Managers and board directors waste time:
That detective work is invisible, but it consumes real time. It takes attention away from other responsibilities including preventative maintenance and proactive planning.
If a manager has only been at the property for a short period, there will always be a gap. There are things they simply cannot know.
Missing or inaccessible data translates directly into avoidable cost.
This is not rare. It is common.
Community associations have no choice but to make decisions on how to repair and maintain their properties - decisions that involve spend in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars - whether they have the context and work history, or not.
The most serious impact of partial or missing property history is on decision quality.
A community association board is responsible for managing the affairs of their community including reserve fund planning, major repair and replacement projects, tendering and contractor selection, and managing risk.
If your historical data is incomplete or difficult to access, those decisions are made with partial information.
Without that context, it becomes easier to delay necessary work, misjudge priorities, or approve projects that are not aligned with the long term an.
When something goes wrong later, everyone asks the same question.
Often, the answer is simple. The data existed once. The community association just could not find it when it mattered.
A particularly risky moment is when a manager changes. The incoming manager receives login credentials to the outgoing manager's computer and in most cases, access to their emails for that property.
Days, weeks or months later, an engineer requests a key report that guided past work. No one can locate it. The previous manager has left.
The engineer needs to redo an assessment that was likely performed recently, or the contractor has to redo work that may have been done to the building envelope. The board pays again. The reserve fund plan may need to be adjusted. Projects are delayed, sometimes by a year or more.
Residents do not see missing data. They see delays, cost increases, and special assessments. And they look to the board and the manager for answers.
This is the mindset shift that community associations need to make.
Your property's data is not an incidental byproduct of doing work. It is a core asset of the community.
A community association's data and knowledge should be treated like a valuable asset. This data and knowledge must be:
A simple test is this: If your board cannot answer basic questions about the history of a system or project in under a minute, you have a data problem.
When a community association has a central, structured home for its data, the experience changes for everyone involved.
Managers stop acting as detectives and can focus on managing. Instead of searching in multiple places, they can pull up a complete history for a common element or project in one view.
Boards stop relying on memory. They see recommendations, decisions, quotes, and work history together. Discussions shift from trying to remember the past or questioning the seasonal schedule, to evaluating clear options.
Engineers and auditors receive what they need in minutes. That reduces billable time spent chasing files and redoing work.
Transitions between managers or companies become safer because the data is anchored to the community, not to individuals.
Most importantly, waste is reduced:
That is how boards and managers truly control costs and deliver more value from the fees owners already pay.
Managemate is designed to address the challenges community associations have in preserving their data.
Managemate gives communities a proper home for their property history. Not just a place to store files, but a structured, searchable record of projects, recommendations, contracts, schedules, reminders and work history, all tied to the relevant topics, actual systems and common elements in the property.
When engineers, auditors, or contractors have questions, the board and manager are not scrambling through old email. They can open the history and see the full story in context.
Maintaining a complete record of your condos data and property work history allows the board and management team to make faster, better informed decisions, save time, and get more value from the corporations existing fees.
If you cannot confidently tell the story of your building from registration to today, that is the warning sign. The risk is already present. The only question is whether you will wait for the next crisis to expose it.
