Vendors
When an association changes software or changes managers, the work everyone plans for is the ledger. Doors, owners, opening balances. It is the part with a total, so it is the part people check.
The vendor file has no total. It lives in a folder of PDFs, an old inbox, and a treasurer’s memory. Nobody notices it is missing until a resident asks who mows, or the landscaper sends an invoice for a price nobody can find.
What the vendor file actually is
It is four things that belong together:
- The quote the board compared before it chose.
- The agreement with the price and the end date.
- The invoices that came in against it.
- The work, as residents see it: who does the job and how to ask.
In most associations those four live in four places. The quote is in email, the agreement is a scan, the invoices are in the books, and the answer to “who mows” is whoever on the board happens to remember.
Why one record matters
When the four sit on one record, two people can answer from the same facts. The treasurer sees the price and the end date. A resident sees who does the job and how to request it, not the contract. Same record, different permissions.
That is how Hoavik is built to hold vendors. It is also why we treat the vendor file as part of moving in, not a cleanup project for later.
What to do this week
Before you change anything, find the current agreement for each recurring vendor and write down the end date. That one list answers most of the questions that arrive in month two.
This is not legal or accounting advice. It is how the software is meant to hold the work.