033 | Being a Servant Leader for Your HOA Community

Vishnu Sharma: 0:00

What we saw through COVID or started through COVID, with the remote employment where if we want to work someplace else, or not come into the office five days a week. That's not changing much in this industry. There's a number of roles and positions that if you want to hire in this industry today, you have to be accommodated for it. And if you're not, you're not going to be able to hire.

Announcer: HOA Insights: 0:23

Common Sense for Common Areas exists to help all 2 million volunteer board members nationwide have the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their future. This podcast is sponsored by four companies that care about Board Members Association insights & Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, and Kevin Davis Insurance Services. You'll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 0:53

We'll come back to Hoa insights common sense for common areas. I'm Robert Nordlund. And I'm here today with a special guest to talk about how individually and collectively, volunteers are carrying this entire community association industry forward. This is episode 33. And before I make the introduction to our guest expert, want to encourage everyone to check out Episode 32, which was a great discussion with regular co host and insurance expert Kevin Davis. On the growing number of claims for reputational damage, you may wonder what's that? And I assure you it's fascinating and something you need to know about. So if you missed any other prior episodes, take a moment after this episode to subscribe to this podcast on any of the most popular podcast platforms. You can also listen from our podcast website, www. HOAinsights.org or watch on our YouTube channel. And of course, if you have a hot topic, crazy story or a question you'd like us to address, leave us a voicemail message at 805-203-3130 or send us an email at podcast@reservestudy.com. Today it's my pleasure to welcome Vishnu Sharma to the program. Vishnu is at least two things right now. He's a CPA with 19 years spent serving the community association, the industry first as founder of Sharma and Associates. And for the last three years as the head of the Financial Services Division of innumerate LLC. That's a large association management software company. I met Vishnu through our years serving on the CAI's National Business Partners Council. And for those of you unfamiliar with CAI, it's our industry's largest trade organization. So Vishnu and I eventually termed out of our positions after spending a few years together. And while I moved on, Vishnu moved up. And he's now CAI, national chairman of the Board of Trustees. In other words, the top leader at CAI. So Vishnu, welcome to the program today.

Vishnu Sharma: 3:02

Hey, Robert, so grateful to be here. Thanks for giving back and doing what you do with this podcast. It's incredible to be providing this level of information back to the community.

Robert Nordlund: 3:12

Thank you for joining us here today. I thought we could get started with today's program by asking what got you going serving the community association industry about 20 years ago.

Vishnu Sharma: 3:22

So I think like everyone in this industry, it always seems to be a second or third career for us. I started out in corporate retail, went through my third corporate reorganization in about six years and kind of had enough for that world joined the local CPA back in 2005, who had a very small practice, we started out with two communities, one bookkeeper and 2005.

Robert Nordlund: 3:44

I think that's the definition of a small practice to clients. That is,

Vishnu Sharma: 3:48

well he had an audit and he had a tax practice. But for the community sanitation side, it was like it was brand new, is nascent for us, he had some dabbling in it. And it was just figured, let's try this. And see there was just an underserved market out there for quality accounting, but also far more importantly, the segregation of duties that we saw was my background as a CPA and a Certified Fraud Examiner walked into this industry and saw that management was doing both accounting and management, whether they were doing it in house at the association level, or they were doing it through professional management company. And in our perspective, you know, management accounting, and the board should be three separate pieces with three separate roles, and no one should mix the two of them with management being you know, the person or the group that would help you and assist you in selecting that business partner to work with scope of work, proving invoices, and such accounting would be the only people who have the ability to touch the accounting program or make any changes in it, and that gives them their independence, and their reconciling and preparing the monthly financials. And then the board ultimately is the signer. They're the ultimate signer to everything The end of the day. So it gives you three separate roles, segregation of duties, it's a perfect model.

Robert Nordlund: 5:05

And you have, like you said the board is signing it, the manager is perhaps guiding the vision and handling the correspondence. orchestrating the vendors that are coming to mow the lawn, clean the pool, do all those other things, and pushing out invoices and collecting the accounts receivable, someone's going to be able to bring order to that and say your hands off, I got this and not have someone who's best at communicating to a disgruntled homeowner, be the one who is also responsible for putting the monthly financials together

Vishnu Sharma: 5:40

is a very complex industry. I like to tell the the joke that in this industry of accounting, we have three schools of thought we have not for profit for profit and governmental. And those are the three pillars that make up the accounting industry. And my running joke is the gods of all three of those one day walked into a bar got rip roaring drunk and on the back of an envelope created CIRA accounting, which stands for common interest Realty Association, which governs condo HOA, coops etc. We have an amalgamation of rules from each of those three schools of thought. So we aren't a clean body of accounting for any one of those schools. We're an amalgamation, where we have a fund balance on our balance sheet not retained earnings like you would have for a for profit. But we do have to maintain fund accounting, keeping track of the reserve the operating and potentially a special assessment. We have a income statement, we don't call it a Profit Loss. We call it a statement of revenue expenses. And we have a gain or loss at the end of the year. We don't have net income, because we're not a for profit entity. So therefore we can have retained earnings or net income.

Robert Nordlund: 6:54

And it's that combination where people wonder, is a community association, a government? The answer is no. Is it a club? No. It is a mandatory membership. But like you say it's not a for profit, although hopefully every homeowners homeless are rising in value. Incredible mixture, you are putting your your home in the hands of someone else. So you are giving control over to someone else. And that someone else the entity will write the rules and regulations and the governing documents have the the overall legal structure for the association. There's so many different things going on. And you can imagine that there's complexity there and a need for having someone who knows the details about how the numbers are to be handled there and

Vishnu Sharma: 7:48

no, no different than you would not go to a podiatrist if you had a heart problem. Same thing within our industry of community association. You want to go to an accountant or a CPA that actually practices in this field and understands the nuances of this industry. You mentioned not for profit. This industry, we have all of these unique classifications where the confusion always abounds with boards and even managers at times, were understanding that an association may be classified by their state Division of Corporations as being a nonprofit entity for the purpose of corporate classification. However, from a tax perspective, the IRS does not recognize community associations as not for profit 501 C three, for example, which is the most common not for profit 501. C three talks about a charitable organization. That's a classification Community Association wouldn't fit into. There are however, civic groups or community organizations that are granted tax exempt status 501 C four or 501 C six potentially, the only problem is community associations restrict their benefits to their members. And by doing that, they fail that test to qualify for those classifications. So the IRS created a special code 528 in the Internal Revenue Code just for homeowners associations, and the majority of homeowner associations, condo associations and the like, file under a 1128, which is specifically designed for community associations that exempt income from the owners per se, but they are taxable for anything they earn. So it gets very complicated. And that's why you have to make sure you're seeking out a CPA, an accountant, somebody who's a professional field that understands this field.

Robert Nordlund: 9:41

It's not just adding and subtracting and what do we have in the bank? There's a lot of how many months or how many clients did it take for you to realize we're on to something here we can really provide some help that these associations need

Vishnu Sharma: 9:59

I think off, right off the start. I mean, when we started, we started with a couple of small associated a couple large associations. But we were pretty small with at least one bookkeeper at the time in 2005. With us, with me doing, you know, the financials and everything. And it's like any other small business where you're starting, you're kind of doing everything. And then as you get bigger, you kind of specialize into different areas. But I think it took us probably a year or two to get our feet wet and off the ground and understanding and then you kind of build name recognition, CAI, completely invaluable to me, in growing my practice, and I will give a shout out to see CAI all day every day because out. So I started as a more or less a solo practitioner starting in a field, nobody knew my name, did not have any recognition and join the local CAI chapter. And I'm going to give a huge shout out to Andy Rand. The one thing, Robert, I think you know, super well in this industry, we all have mentors, we all have people who bring us along and or introduce us to new things, Andy introduced me to see CAI, he was going to be president, we've known each other for a while. He's an accountant in the industry. And he needed the treasurer. And he said, Hey, Vishnu, a CPA come on over, you can be treasurer of a local chapter, and I said, What's CAI and he tells me all about it. And that's how I got started. And you know, 17 years later, it's, you know, I've been blessed to be able to rise to the level of being, you know, the President, the board trustees, and, and, you know, heading up the organization for a year. And it's a it's a gifted year, we get to learn all facets about this organization. But that was my way in that local chapter, volunteering, to turn around and say, Andy, I don't know what I can do, but I'm going to help you tell me what you need. There's a concept I learned a long time ago from my dad, my dad was a community leader. And, and this, there's two parts to it. There's this the concept of servant leader, and I've always followed that servant leader where just, I'm happy to volunteer, you tell me what you need, I'm not coming in to run the organization, I'm not coming in to be the next whatever. You just tell me how I can help. And then what happens is, leaders develop within that model, as you work through that servant leader concept. The other part is from father to son, I think that we all have, or a friend a friend, like Andy with me, you get voluntold a lot. And the voluntold concept is great, where it's like, Hey, how about could you help me out with this, and then suddenly, you're to help me here? Exactly. And suddenly, you're the head of that committee, or you're running that program or doing whatever needs to get done?

Robert Nordlund: 12:36

Well, this puts a smile on my face. Because my story is similar. I remember starting Association reserves forever ago, a little bit longer in my case, but doing a lot of before email, smiling and dialing and trying to get our business started. And the first smart thing I did was join CAI and start rubbing elbows with the people who are making this industry work. And for me, it was the greater Los Angeles chapter. And working with a board of directors learning a lot, helping a lot. And finding out I can do this, I can help here. And with the reserves days, people were saying, oh, we need that help. And a knife fell into a sweet spot I became chapter president early on. And the person who followed me, I believe, if memory serves me correct was Kevin Davis. He was an employee at a insurance company. And Kevin Davis is now widely known national provider of insurance for community associations. And he's one of the sponsors of this program. So yes, it's a learning from the people around you. And sometimes being asked to do something for the board members here in the audience. Why did you become a board member? Well, someone may have asked me, and then they realized, I can do this, I can help. And it's that resonating feeling that you get inside your your chest when you realize I can I can really do something good for the community. And there's just a lot of good things. But yes, CAI was instrumental for us. And Vishnu, I think all the time I've spent with you I'm glad that CAI is under your leadership here in 2023. Wall will tell me, we talked a little bit about the things you learned about associations how you could help. And I think that's a lot of what board members find out they're new to the board. They wonder, what is this all about? How many hours am i into this? How can I plug in? I imagine there's some that find that they have their role with the numbers. They have their role with the the vendors and the business providers selecting the people following up. Maybe they're the ones who helped run the agenda set the agenda for the board meetings. It's a matter of finding out where you fit and I think that's so remarkable thing here with this community association industry, so many opportunities to serve. And I just want to, can't cease to just praise the board members who served tirelessly. What can you can you summarize a few things, a few helpful hints that our board member audience it with us today could learn to make their lives a little bit easier about the monthly financials.

Vishnu Sharma: 15:24

I love being you know, let's go back to the Godfather, I love being consistently airy, you know, to my boards, because our job is not just to process the numbers at the function sharing the knowledge that we build in this industry being part of CAI, or in my case, my immediate group, which was the Florida Institute of CPAs, or the American Institute of CPAs, as a CPA, but within your world of of reserve study, or the attorneys within their world, we all bring that professional skill, set knowledge, but we learn about the industry, I happen to be in South Florida, where, you know, I could tell you so many things about concrete restoration way beyond my world of accounting, because I've sat in on I've listened to any number of board meetings where I've listened to the engineers and the project managers talk about this, or the insurance guys explain about the insurance, I never sit through a meeting with an insurance rep and do not walk away having learned something new about that industry, because it is so complex. So we have the ability, being able to sit at the table and explain and enlighten our boards. And I think that's what the professionals that you have, whether it's your CPA, or it's your whatever professional you're going to deal with at a particular time. They are a wealth of knowledge if they're practicing, and you should be as a board member looking for those business partners. And I'll make a quick plug a distinction that we like to make within the industry of CAI, we make a distinction between a vendor and a business partner. We don't call vendors vendors. In our world of CAI, we call them business partners. And the distinction we make is the vendors, the guy who shows up and they're there for a one hit deal. They're going to sell you something they're going to be willing to take what they get and then move on. We're business partners in CAI, and we're lifetime partners, we want to be there tomorrow, we want to be there next year, we want to be here five years from now. So we're never about the short game, we're always about the long game, we want to partner with you, we want to be that resource to provide the skills to you. Right, and that's what you're looking for. So my first kernel of nugget, when you're, when you're picking a vendor, pick a business partner, pick somebody who is deep in the industry, understands what you what your product is, and is willing to give back to you and partner with you long term to make sure that you're going to be successful three years, five years down the road on the financials itself. Don't focus on net income, per se. Everybody focuses on net income, it says I have a gain or loss. That's important for a budget same point, that your your debt, you're trending and you're looking at how you're performing this year. And that's important enough to start. The second thing however, I'd say to that would be what's your cash position, because too many associations take a net income number and equate that to cash. But just because I'm running a net gain for the year of 75,000, or $100,000, doesn't mean I have that cash in the bank. Right, because I may have a high level of receivables, I may have a deficit that I've been carrying for years. This morning, I was on a call with one of my boards. And we were having a conversation about special assessments in general. But I was kind of guiding them saying, let's look at your cash position, their cash position, they had 97,000 all in the operating bank account. However, what I tried to guide all my associations are look at the prepaid maintenance. It's listed under liabilities on your balance sheet. Prepaid maintenance means you've collected future assessments from owners that's already sitting in the bank. And you need to take that away from your cash on hand to get a true sense of your cash position. So if I've $97,000 cash in the bank, but I have $125,000 in prepaid maintenance, they have your negative, they have a negative$28,000 cash position, which is what I told him this morning. And my recommendation was when you're doing your next special assessment, which they're planning one, put in $250,000 into that special assessment, get your cash back in the positive, you will get your annual audits and your reviews at the end of the year. Usually you're getting advised by your CPA that you should have between one to two months worth of cash on hand at the end of any given month. So I would tell you that cash on hand should be net out prepaid, because prepaid isn't your money to use. That's a fee that you've got expenses next month that needs to be used with that money to pay those bills.

Robert Nordlund: 19:47

I like that I like that clarity. Well, let's take a quick break here for a message from our sponsor, and we'll be right back.

Kevin Davis: 19:54

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Robert Nordlund: 20:23

Vishnu, when you were talking about the distinction between vendors and business partners, it brought me back to when my kids were in school. And we were just amazed by the teachers that made them fall in love with a subject. And sometimes I measure the people around me the people who support me and association reserves by can they take something complicated and make it simple? I think that's what a business partner can do. Rather than just try to impress you with their knowledge, they can say, Okay, this is what's good for you. And I see that in a business partner that they can say, Okay, here's how I can help you, your association, get through this area, that could be an insurance consultant that could be counting, a CPA that can be a reserved a provider that can be an attorney, someone who helps you navigate the association forward, and not just overwhelm you with decisions because a board member listeners know, they got plenty of decisions when they need his help.

Vishnu Sharma: 21:22

Look, the skill sets that are on boards. Boards are amazing, as you said, because they are volunteer, and it's an it's an unsung, underappreciated appreciated role. And I say this knowing because I've served as my president for my condo association for two years, and managed to special assess my own self $42,000 for major repairs that needed to be done when it didn't go over well, in my own household, the rest of my unit owners, but it's a thankless job. And you've got to have the courage and the fortitude to do what's right in the best interests of the association. troubling signs for me is when the board sits down at budget season, which we're right now in the heart of, and my first comment that I get is, yeah, we're not raising maintenance this year, you've already started off in the hole that's like that can't be a conversation we have in the set. Let's see what the actual expenses are. Because right now we're going through so many crises in the country across the industry, insurance in the state of Florida. We're doubling and tripling insurance costs. I have associations that paid$300,000.02 years ago that are paying $900,000 For the same policy,

Robert Nordlund: 22:28

how can you do that without an increase in homeowner assessments? Correct.

Vishnu Sharma: 22:32

And we have other issues where we have mandatory reserves that are going to kick in and 2025 2026. And associations now have to go ahead and figure out how they're going to do it. And it's becoming millions of dollars and special assessments that are being passed, because too many buildings have chosen not to account for the work that needs to get done or set that money aside. So that bill is coming due, and it becomes a it becomes a game of hot potato or musical chairs. Okay, well, the person who's sitting in that chair owns that unit. When that bill comes around, that's the person who picks up the tab. Somebody lives in a unit for 18 years sells out then you guy buys in, suddenly the next year, there's a roof special assessment is a concrete restoration, special assessment, and now they're looking at a bill of $5 million, or $7 million. And that's what's happening right now across the industry, not only in South Florida, but across any number of states. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 23:25

well, two things. I want to follow up on that you gave the illustration of the prepaid assessments for maintenance. That is not cash that the association has to work with. It's there for something specific. And so just like you mentioned, with reserves there, you can't just look at the cash position. What is where are we trending? Where are we going and appreciate that there are responsibilities the association has, there's money that's already allocated to things, and they need to be moving the association forward. So I'm wiggling my chair because I'm getting so uncomfortable. But then the big picture, we see the same thing with reserves with the board saying, Oh, we've got$500,000 in reserves, let's use that to make up for our shortfall or to pay our insurance premium for this year. And I have to say, that is a foolish decision, folks, because that money is there for the roof. It's there for the asphalt that's already allocated to something else. It's not available cash for paying bills, you need to ask that from your homeowners and raised the homeowner assessments. So thank you for sharing that. That's the reality of looking at the numbers. Numbers measure progress, they measure your benchmarks, but I wanted to also twist this a little bit and go. You said the things you're seeing in Florida from your position leading CAI national what kind of bigger trends do you see across the country? What kind of insights can you give to our board members?

Vishnu Sharma: 24:56

AI is coming to the community association industry. It'll come to you through your business partners technology, I'll tell you, our firm we're looking at a AI digital assistant that answers calls. So we did a demo of this back in April, we picked two associations about 1000 units. And we turned on this AI feature that you have the ability now to when you call in, or you go straight to it, and using your phone via text, and it recognizes your phone number that you're calling in on off the database that we already have. It automatically recognizes you, acknowledges you and says, Hello, Mr. Smith, how can we assist you, we see that you have three units across our entire canopy of associations, which 1,2,3 Would you like? And it will go ahead and you can ask it, what's my balance? Where do I send my payment, when was my last payment received, you can ask for a copy of your ledger, it will it will send you a PDF version via text of your of your ledger. So we looked at that software as a way to A: be able to serve our car or association unit owners way faster, way better at their level, because so many people are into texting now. And they want fast, immediate results. That's the way to do it. That demo came back, Robert, we had 791 calls responded to 91% were resolved by AI.

Robert Nordlund: 26:25

Nice.

Vishnu Sharma: 26:27

that's what's coming. That's a that's a big trend in the industry. And you're gonna see it in different forms, in different industries as it as it branches out, The DEI and you can call it whatever you want. remote working, where

Robert Nordlund: 26:41

Woah wait DEI, I think that, help me, diversity...

Vishnu Sharma: 26:45

equality, and inclusion, inclusion. Got it. All right. So with that, it's a recognition that you're going to have doesn't matter what state you're in, you're going to have people that are going to be want to be especially after COVID they're gonna want to be recognized for who they are what they are. And you're going to have to if you want that employment workforce, unemployment is 3.7% in the nation, depending on the state that you live in the city that you live in, it is way less Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, Miami were 2.6 unemployment. And if you want somebody in the accounting field, I laughingly joke that we're negative, because you cannot find anybody in the accounting field to hire. The Wall Street Journal had a huge article about two weeks ago, the diminishing number of students that are going into this industry, for a number of reasons pay being one of them. So there's some changes coming about in employment, I will tell you that that what we saw through COVID are started through COVID, with the remote employment, where everybody wants to work someplace else, or not come into the office five days a week, that's not changing much in this industry. There's a number of roles and positions, that if you want to hire in this industry today, you have to be accommodated for it. And if you're not, you're not going to be able to hire. The other thing is, is labor inflation, I will tell you candidly, in my firm, we're looking at 25 to 33% increases from pre COVID to today, for the same roles and positions. We're seeing it across janitorial, landscaping valet within all of our associations in South Florida, they're all up 35 to 50%, for what they were paying pre COVID to what they have to pay today just to find people to work. Because once you have Walmart, Target the banks at now 18-20$22 an hour to start, all that's going to rise. And that's I'm using South Florida numbers, you can translate that to whatever it is and whatever part of the country that you're in, but just know there's been truly significant inflation in there. So that's another huge trend is both managing that cost, and also managing your workforce of being understanding that they're not all going to want to come into that office anymore. And how do you manage and get that same level of efficiency and productivity out of your team? While they're remote? Well, it's

Robert Nordlund: 29:07

some, I guess the two realities of that is a board member? As a manager? I'll I'll just say that, I mean, number one, it's going to make life in a community association more expensive, because the costs are going up. And I get the same Heebie Jeebie feeling when someone says we don't want to raise our assessments and I realized, you know, have a heavy herd there's been inflation in the last few years and things are getting more expensive. So you do have to seriously consider raising your homeowner's aspects. It's just a reality. And the other part is community. We've been talking about this being the Community Association industry. And if people are not going into the office, they're at home and in our industry, that means they're in their unit, more hours per day. They're in the hallway, they're in the elevator, they're walking their dog. They are hearing the kids in the tot lot outside that they never heard before because they were gone and rubbing elbows and chair I think we need to be very conscious that we are raising building communities here. And that's neighbors looking after neighbors. And I trust that is new smiles, new faces, new friends, new opportunities to talk about the latest, big game last night to look after one another. To do a favor for one another. I'm going to the grocery store, can I pick up something for you, boy, so many opportunities to be community. And I love that part of our industry. While a vision I'm looking at the time. And I want to thank you for joining us today. It was great to have you on the program, sharing your insights on accounting on CAI on the big picture, any parting thoughts for our audience, as Robert, we've said this before, many times managers are one of the toughest jobs in any industry, they take it from all sides, and but a manager and a board member, that's got to be a link. That's got to be probably one of the most important out there because you have to be able to have somebody that is going to delegate and be able to get the work done that the board needs because the board there's that division, and the manager is there to execute and you need that relationship. So super vital piece that needs to be in place. Yep. Fantastic. I, I agree with that so much. Okay, how can our audience get in touch with you if they want to follow up, they

Vishnu Sharma: 31:28

can reach out to me directly at Vishnu.Sharma@goenumerate.com. It also works VSharma@goenumerate.com. So that's probably the easiest way to get a hold of me by email. Fantastic.

Robert Nordlund: 31:41

Well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode. Next week.

Announcer: 31:54

You've been listening to HOA Insights, Common Sense for Common Areas. You can listen to the show on our podcast website, hoainsights.org, or subscribe on any of the most popular podcast platforms. You can also watch the show on our YouTube channel. Check the show notes for helpful links. If you liked the show, and want to support the work we do, you can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing you can do is to engage in the conversation, email your questions or voice memos to podcast@reserve study.com Or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130. If you gain any insights from the show, please do us a HUGE favor by sharing the show with other board members you know, you can also support us by supporting the brands that sponsor this program. Please remember that the views and opinions expressed by the podcast do not constitute legal advice. You'll want to consult your own legal counsel before making any important decisions. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stoke Light Video and Marketing. With Stoke Light on your team, you'll reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the show notes to connect with Stoke Light.