Two Verified Gaps
These are the two claims on this page sourced directly from Buildium's own public pricing page and documentation, not inference. Everything else on this page compares what CommunityPay has built against what Buildium has publicly stated — where Buildium hasn't published a claim, we say so rather than guess. Buildium is a large platform with negotiated, volume-based pricing; the published list-price figures on this page won't match every association's actual quote, and we say that plainly in Section 2.
No published CIRA-standard fund reporting
Buildium's own blog describes "GAAP-recognized reporting" — balance sheets, bank reconciliations, cash flow statements. No product page or help article describes a CIRA-specific statement set: changes in fund balances, RSI, budget-and-actual, or per-fund cash flows.
31 financial reports, generated live
Balance sheet, changes in fund balances, budget-and-actual, RSI, cash flows by fund — the statement set an association's own audit actually requires, not general-purpose GAAP reporting adapted after the fact.
No published resale certificate feature
Buildium publishes educational blog content about HOA resale packages, but no product page or help-center article describes an in-app resale certificate generator or a named third-party partner for it.
Resale certificates and condo questionnaires from live ledger data
Statute-mapped resale certificates and Fannie 1076 / Freddie 476 condo questionnaires, generated directly from the association's own accounting records — no handoff to a separate vendor or platform.
Total Cost Over Time
Buildium and AppFolio both sell on a promotional entry rate: a discounted platform fee and, often, a waived transaction fee for the first year or two. Buildium's own pricing page shows this directly — on its Premium tier, incoming EFT is free for the first 12 months, then $0.60 per transaction. We say plainly where that helps a large association more than we currently can: at real negotiated volume, Buildium's per-transaction ACH pricing can beat CommunityPay's on raw cost alone, at least in the promotional years. Where CommunityPay pulls ahead is the shape of the cost over time.
| Fee | CommunityPay | Buildium (published, list price) |
|---|---|---|
| Outgoing vendor ACH/EFT payment | No CommunityPay fee on vendor payments. The processor's $1.50 payout fee leaves the association's balance and is shown beside the amount. | $0.99 per transaction, every tier |
| Incoming resident payment (ACH) | Fee is itemized to the association, not charged to the resident or absorbed by the manager | $2.35 (Essential) / $1.35 (Growth) / free 12 months then $0.60 (Premium) |
| Platform fee after year one | Flat — does not increase after signing | Promotional-rate structure; published tiers step from a discounted entry rate |
| Additional bank account setup | No per-account fee | $99 per account beyond tier allowance |
| Entry-tier monthly price (list) | See pricing | $62/mo (Essential) – $400/mo (Premium) |
Enforcement & System of Record
This is where "enterprise" stops being a marketing word and starts meaning something specific: every posting evaluated against a fixed rule set before it lands, logged whether it passes or not. Buildium does not publish claims in this category — it's built as general-purpose property management accounting, not an enforcement layer over the ledger.
| Feature | CommunityPay | Buildium |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-posting transaction evaluation | 18 enforcement guards, every transaction | No |
| Immutable decision log | SHA-256 hashed, append-only | No |
| Fund segregation enforcement | Automated, blocks cross-fund violations | Discussed as best practice; no enforced feature published |
| Bank reconciliation | Bank feed: daily posted transactions and the live balance, matched one to one by machine; a person reconciles and completes the month. Three-way reconciliation (bank, ledger, client liabilities) is the trust accounting product. | Transaction matching + read-only bank connections |
| Token-gated CPA audit portal | SHA-256 hashed tokens, no login required | No |
| Enterprise debt subledger | Event-sourced, covenant evaluation | No |
| Reserve funding status report (RSI) | Institutional packet, SHA-256 hashed | No |
| Multi-state resale compliance profiles | 10 states, 14 profiles | No published feature |
| Vendor ACH payments | No CommunityPay fee on vendor payments. The processor's $1.50 payout fee leaves the association's balance and is shown beside the amount. | $0.99 per transaction, all tiers |
Reporting, Legal Corpus & Institutional Tools
Beyond enforcement, this is the depth a real audit or lending relationship actually requires — CIRA-standard financial statements, a living record of the statutes a certificate cites, and requests tracked by status for resident handling.
| Feature | CommunityPay | Buildium |
|---|---|---|
| CIRA-standard financial reporting | 31 financial reports — balance sheet, changes in fund balances, budget-and-actual, RSI, cash flows by fund | General-purpose GAAP reporting (balance sheet, bank rec, cash flow) — no CIRA-specific statement set published |
| Token-gated CPA audit portal | No login required, scope-controlled per engagement, every access logged | No |
| Living legal corpus | Statute, case law, session law & regulation tracking with sourced quotes | No |
| Condo questionnaire API (Fannie 1076 / Freddie 476) | Auto-filled from live ledger data | No |
| Resident handling | Violation reports and maintenance requests are submitted, handled, and tracked by status in the database; violation fines can be linked to an accounting invoice. ARC requests run as signed documents. | General AI assistant included at Essential tier — scope not published |
| Resident statement access | Available to all residents | Not published as a distinct capability |
| CARIScore — community association risk index | 5-component, 0–100 score for lenders, insurers & buyers | No |
| Budget builder | Native to the ledger — ties budget lines directly to GL accounts | Included |
| Full ledger read/write access for board & manager | Every entry itemized, no curated-report ceiling | Not published as a distinct capability |
| Invoice inbox for AP automation | Invoice inbox: two readings of each emailed invoice feed 23 deterministic gates; the outcome is submitted for approval, drafted, or held with one sentence. It never approves or pays. | No published feature |
| Deterministic account-role matching (FLASH) | Accounts resolved by role from a scored rule lookup, not a model's guess. | No published feature |
Governance, Trust & Vendor Risk
The controls a board actually needs when real money and real vendors are involved — separation of duties on approvals, trust funds that reconcile against the bank and the client independently, and vendors verified before they get paid, not after something goes wrong.
| Feature | CommunityPay | Buildium |
|---|---|---|
| Trust accounting, three-way reconciliation | Bank = GL = client, automated daily | No published feature |
| Board approval workflow & separation of duties | Approval tiers by amount and approval workflows, with separation-of-duties settings recorded on every decision. The treasurer self-approves until the board sets a tier. | Optional second-person review on reconciliation adjustments; no published payment-approval workflow |
| Vendor risk check before payment | For a vendor matched to a Washington or Oregon licensing record, debarment, license status, license expiry, insurance expiry, and active contractor strikes are read before the payment posts. Bond is recorded, not enforced. An unmatched vendor passes and the decision says so. | No |
| Fraud controls on payments | Velocity limits and a risk score that flags a resident payment for review. Vendor payments are governed by the bill's approval, the three-business-day wait on a changed vendor bank, and an email to the board on every payment. | No published feature |
| Violation tracking | Included | Included — photos, automated notices, homeowner portal visibility |
| Two-factor authentication | Authenticator app with recovery codes, available on every account. A fresh code within ten minutes is required to pay a vendor, change a vendor's bank, or change who holds authority; a text-message code never confirms a money action. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
Money-Out Controls
What stands between an association's balance and a vendor's bank account. Each row is enforced on the server and recorded.
| Control | CommunityPay | Buildium |
|---|---|---|
| Who changes authority | Only the association's admin changes, demotes, or removes a member who holds authority; staff cannot, and the board is emailed. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| Fresh code before money moves | A fresh authenticator code within ten minutes to pay a vendor, approve a bill, change a vendor's bank, write an override, or change the payout bank. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| Bank PIN | An association bank PIN, separate from any login, checked on the server; five wrong tries lock it; staff cannot set it. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| Changing the payout bank | Two board members: one asks, a different one confirms. The board is emailed and the first payout to the new bank is held until a person releases it. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| A vendor's bank changes | The rail waits three business days before paying it. A different board member can end the wait after calling the vendor at a number already on file, with a fresh code and the bank PIN. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| Notice to the board | Every vendor payment sent by transfer and every top-up from the association's bank is emailed to the whole board. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| What an approval covers | A bill's approval binds the amount, the vendor, and the fund, and on the transfer rail the bank, and a payment spends it once. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |
| Entry with no recorded decision | Refused by the database. | Not independently verified from Buildium's public documentation |