FRONTSTEPS: Features, Pricing and Integrations

FRONTSTEPS is a suite for community management companies sold in five named parts, with an assistant on top. Caliber is the accounting module, described as budgets and daily financial tasks with automated workflows and reporting. Community is the set of mobile apps for managers, boards and residents. Payments runs on what the site calls a PCI DSS compliant processor. Dwelling is a web-based security platform for gated and secured communities, covering the gate and visitor side. Manager is the back-office web tool set. ALLi Enterprise is the assistant, sold under its own brand. Twelve banking partners appear on the partners page, which also claims 40 integration partners. In the guide to software for community association managers it sits with the association-native back offices. Caliber Software was named on its own by TownSq’s homepage and by Vantaca’s blog, and it is now sold as FRONTSTEPS Caliber, so a buyer who has heard the two names is hearing one product. The facts panel below is rendered from our vendor database with a source and verification date on each entry.

Who it fits

The database tags HOA communities, and the research tags management companies, community association managers and boards, in that order. FRONTSTEPS is the system of record for a company running many associations, and the testimonials on its homepage describe the two jobs it is bought for: the ease of use is critical to our managers being efficient in their daily tasks, and it enables collaborative management between our managers and volunteer board members. The manager runs the books and the workflow in Caliber and Manager; the board and the homeowners live in Community.

Dwelling is the piece that separates it from the other back offices. A company with gated communities that needs visitor and gate management from the same vendor as the ledger has a reason to look here first. A company with no gates does not need it and should ask whether it is priced out.

A self-managed board is a stated buyer, but the site’s material is written for management companies, so a board evaluating on its own should ask for a reference at an association without a manager. The PayHOA profile covers the vendor that leads with that buyer.

Pricing

Pricing is not published. Ask for the per-unit or per-door rate, the monthly minimum, the setup fee per association and the contract term. The suite is sold in named pieces, so ask which are bundled and what each costs alone: Caliber, Community, Payments, Dwelling, Manager and ALLi Enterprise. Ask what a payment costs per transaction through the FRONTSTEPS processor and whether the owner or the association pays it. Ask what Dwelling costs per gate. Then run the annual figure at your door count now and in two years.

Integrations

The database record carries no integration entry, because the partners page names banks and nothing else, and the integrations page returned a 404 when we checked. The banks it names are Western Alliance, Axos, BankUnited, First Citizens, Webster, Columbia, SmartStreet, Truist, Enterprise Bank, Northrim, Association Prime and Wintrust. That is one of the longest sets of named banks in the category, and it matters because association funds sit in lockbox, operating and reserve accounts, and a direct connection to your bank removes a reconciliation job per association per month. If your banks are among the twelve, ask what the connection covers for each: lockbox file, balance feed, reconciliation, or all three. If they are not, ask what the manual process is.

The 40 integration partners are unnamed. Ask for the full set, and ask which are live integrations and which are referral relationships. TownSq’s homepage names Caliber Software as a system it integrates with, so a company on FRONTSTEPS can put TownSq in front of homeowners instead of the Community app; ask what that connection carries. No property management system is named, which is normal here; the platform is the system of record.

Limitations and questions to ask

Five modules means five things to test. Ask FRONTSTEPS to walk an invoice from receipt through board approval to payment in Caliber, then a violation from inspection through notice to hearing, then an architectural request from submission to board vote, and count the screens and the exports.

Ask what a board member sees in Community without the manager, whether an invoice can be approved from a phone, and how the monthly financial package is produced. Ask how many associations one accountant on your team carries once the bank feeds are live.

Ask what Dwelling requires at the gate, what hardware it works with, and what happens to visitor records if you leave. Ask what ALLi does to a specific record in your data, what it costs, and what happens when it is wrong. Ask for the data export format and the exit terms.

Alternatives

The category’s vendors compared side by side covers every vendor. Other back offices for a management company include CINC Systems, which claims 38 direct bank integrations without naming them, and Vantaca, which sells workflow first. eUnify names five banks, three of which, First Citizens, Webster and SmartStreet, are also FRONTSTEPS partners. A company that wants a different homeowner app on top of Caliber should read the TownSq profile. Every other hoa management software vendor is set side by side on the Vantaca alternatives page. FRONTSTEPS set against CINC Systems is on one page.

AI visibility

The current edition’s numbers sit in the Live from the Index section below, read from the run files each month; the prompts and sources behind them are on the row page it links.