Online Bill Approval & Research Demo
Hello, my name is Cathy Imes, and I’m the onboarding specialist here at Community Financials. Today, we’re going to go through the online bill approval system that you’ll be using. It’s a tool called Strongroom, which is used to approve all invoices so they can be paid to your vendors. When a vendor mails or emails an invoice into the system, the board will see the bill in the system. They can view the bill amount, the general ledger account code it’s assigned to, and any other details. The accounts payable department will send a link to two approvers; we recommend having two board approvers for each property. This setup provides a good check and balance and ensures better internal controls.
Each user will have a unique login. You’ll receive a link from our accounts payable department, which will allow you to create a username and password to log into Strongroom. Once logged in, you’ll see the invoices for your association. Every invoice will be listed, and you can highlight the invoice number, click on it, and if it’s awaiting approval, you can double-check it, review the details, and click approve or reject. We will not pay a bill to a vendor unless both board members have approved it. The benefit of this system is that you have complete control over your expenses. You also have the ability to view the history of an invoice through the system, which helps in auditing why a payment may have been paid late, such as if a board approver was out of town and unable to approve it. You can also search for invoices by vendor, date range, GL code, etc., and run reports.
This system helps the board analyze their expenses and saves hours of time. To search for specific invoices, you can go to the invoice search feature, click on “My Invoices,” or select “Invoice Search.” This will allow you to search by a specific invoice name, vendor name, date range, or any other criteria tied to a general ledger account.
For a handy reference on all of these features, please see the online tools marketing sheet provided with our proposal. We hope you enjoyed this quick overview of the main online bill approval system, called Strongroom, which provides ease of use for board members, reduces time spent on communication items, and offers visibility and control over your community’s financials. If you have any questions, please reach out to our staff using the “Contact Us” page on our website, call us at 833-266-3646, extension 5, or email us at hello@communityfinancials.com. Thank you, and have a great day.
