As a community manager, one of your most important responsibilities is to improve property values, curb appeal, and the overall resident experience of the communities under your care. You are commonly tasked with managing the requests for proposal process for your communities. Your HOA management company RFP process involves creating an RFP document to distribute to vendors, evaluating their proposals, and working with your board member clients to decide who the right vendor for your project is.
The process of exchanging multiple emails, sharing documents, and engaging in conversations with vendors, staff, and board members can prove to be a challenging and overwhelming task. However, when managed efficiently, your team is able to gather better bids, improve relationships with vendors, predict costs better, and improve board satisfaction.
With automated RFP software, you can securely send out RFPs and documents, communicate with vendors, and organize all your RFPs in one place. We’ll be sharing best practices on how RFP Plus can help you get better bids, keep your team focused, and exceed board member expectations.
HOA Management RFP Best Practices
1) Kickoff the RFP process with your requirements
The first step to an efficient HOA management company RFP process is identifying the project your community needs to be completed. A well-crafted RFP document outlines what your communities are hoping to achieve with their project and also sets expectations for vendors. In your RFP it’s important to outline the project’s requirements, set a deadline, and include any important attachments such as a scope of work, forms to fill out, blueprints/diagrams, or images of the property.
In RFP Plus, when you open an RFP ticket, you can add a description, deadline, category, and attachments. You can then can assign the RFP to another manager or board member for approval. Once the RFP is approved, you can then assign it to a vendor who will receive an email notification with all the details.
2) Build strong vendor relationships
Keeping vendors informed during an RFP process builds trust and transparency, enabling them to give the best possible response. In turn, this allows you to increase vendor participation, get optimal bids, and then select the most appropriate vendor who can offer the best value to the community. Check out these best practices to manage vendor relationships in RFP Plus:
- Vendor database – You can track key vendor information such as contact, staff members, and license expiration dates.
- Communication – When assigning a vendor to an RFP, you can include all of your requirements and any attachments. Throughout the progress of an RFP, you can communicate with vendors and see their responses directly in the app. You can see their replies in two places: The Message Inbox and within the ticket itself in the conversation section.
- Vendor response tracking – A vendor can respond to your RFP without needing to log into RFP Plus, which can be a great way to increase participation rates. Their responses are automatically tracked within the RFP itself and in the Message Center, enabling you to see a history of all conversations that took place.
- License expiration tracking – Keep your team in compliance with an automated license expiration report that our system automatically sends to staff and vendors.
3) Organize all your RFP activities in a single place
Managing RFPs through spreadsheets, long email chains, or multiple apps prevents teams from organizing their RFPs. The new RFP system centralizes all your RFP activity, documents, conversations, and status updates in one place. Here’s why having a central place to manage your RFP process is important:
- Stay Focused – Oftentimes, staff or board members may try to cram other issues in an email but knowing that there is one single record for an RFP can keep everyone focused on the task at hand.
- Staff changes – When new staff members or board members join, they can easily find RFP projects that are complete or in progress.
- Evaluation – A single place to track your RFPs makes it easy to compare vendor proposals.
- Improve Budgeting – By keeping all your RFPs in one place, you can review past RFPs, create better cost analyses, and improve budgeting. Through the filterable dashboard, you can also see all approved and rejected projects for a vendor or category.
4) Create happier boards through collaboration & visibility
Effective collaboration between managers and board members leads to a well-run and harmonious community. RFP Plus is collaborative at its core, enabling managers and board members to communicate about an RFP and see all activity related to it. Here’s how:
- Dashboard – Board members can log into the system at any time to view an RFP and all activity associated with it.
- In-app comments & email notifications – Managers and board members can respond in the app to RFPs and can choose to send out an email notification.
- Reports – Managers can generate professional-looking PDF and Excel-style reports to share with board members during a meeting.
Conclusion
With an efficient HOA management company RFP process, you can help the communities under your care improve property values, resulting in happier board members and residents. Collaborative technology can take your RFP process to the next level by empowering your team to manage your entire RFP process in a single place, build strong vendor relationships, and meet client expectations.
About RFP Plus & How to get started
RFP Plus is a collaborative request for proposal platform empowering your team to organize your RFPs, communicate with vendors, and compare bids to make the best decision for your clients.
As a brand new platform, RFP Plus is excited to offer free access until January 1, 2024! The free access program allows you to experience the ease of use with our RFP Platform while we gain valuable feedback to improve the product. Sign up for free now!
For Pilera customers
RFP Plus is offering free access to its RFP software through Pilera’s platform until January 1, 2024. As a Pilera customer, you can start using RFP Plus right away by navigating to the Tickets and clicking on Request for Proposal.
