TOPS Software: onTOPS Issue 38

Welcome to onTOPS, an email magazine produced by TOPS Software to keep you informed about TOPS products and services.

Beginning in October, the onTOPS and TOPS Home e-zines will be combined and published in a new format. You'll still find many of your favorite onTOPS and TOPS Home features, but now they will include the latest updates and information about the entire TOPS Software suite of products, including the TOPS Interactive Web Site service.

TOPS Software hosted out first ever National TOPS User Group on September 15, 2005 at The e^deltatorium, (a state of the facility) in Atlanta, GA. Facilitating the User Group we had, from TOPS, Jeff Hardy, President; Ryan Allen, VP of Technical Services; and Bruce R Gran, CMCA®, AMS™,PCAM®, Director of Sales. The guest speakers were Pete Dutton of Association Ready, and Susan Sanders of AtHomeNet.

The interaction of over 50 attendees in the open forum session is exactly the kind of fuel that helps drive our development efforts at TOPS Software. Participants shared some great ideas and best practices with each other and offered a lot of good suggestions to the TOPS staff. The strength of our product comes from listening to our clients. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated in the first TOPS User Group.

The next national TOPS User Group conference will be held in the Phoenix area sometime in January 2006. Look for details in the onTOPS e-zine and the TOPS NEWS newsletter as they become available.

Please call the TOPS Software Sales office at 800-760-9966 or e-mail to sales@topssoft.com for additional information.

So you took the customized information packet you received from TOPS Web Sales and showed it to the board, and they liked what they saw. But now that it's budget time, the only thing on everyone's mind is money. So while they like the idea of a community web site, all they want to know is "Who's Gonna Pay For It?

With a little planning and help from the TOPS web sales staff, your Community Web Site can easily be turned into a money maker. Here are a few suggestions that will help you get the buy-in you need:

By using the classifieds feature in your TOPS community web site, you are able to charge local businesses and your existing vendors for targeted advertising to your community residents. We even help you out with contact info for companies who are interested in advertising to communities like yours. (See our TOPS Administrator Forum for this information.)
How many reams of paper, and how much ink do you use in a year? Not to mention the money spent on postage. With built in features such as Documents, residents can easily access, review and print community documents and reports via the Internet. The eForms feature allows for the creation of online e-mailable forms for anything from reservations for the club house to requests for maintenance. Many communities even convert their costly monthly newsletter to an inexpensive online format.
TOPS Software has partnered with several outstanding companies to provide interfaces to popular industry programs. ReadyResale from AssociationReady is one example of a program that can generate income for you. Use it to create and sell resale packages accessed via a secured online interface through your web site. Another moneymaker also from AssociationReady is ReadyDocs, which allows you to create custom document packages and securely sell them from your web site.
Another service that your web site can provide is the Online Payments feature. This feature costs nothing to your company or community, but provides a valuable service that community members will certainly want to take advantage of.

Using the suggestions above you can easily offset a huge portion if not the entire cost of having a TOPS community web site.

To learn more about TOPS Interactive Web Sites and how they benefit you, the HOA Officers, and residents, go to www.topshome.com or Contact TOPS Web Sales at (800) 556-7852 or websales@topssoft.com.

For our current customers, we are offering a 20% discount on any single add-on module purchase.*

For all new TOPS Software system purchases, we are offering a 20% discount on the purchase of any single add-on module* when you purchase the TOPS 2000™ Basic System.

This 20th anniversary special is valid through November 30, 2005.
* Excludes association packs and workstation licenses.

And it doesn't stop with "Thank you for purchasing TOPS 2000™, your association accounting and management solution" and "Good Luck!"

Your purchase of TOPS 2000™ not only provides you with the best product available in the community management industry, but you are also given a free phone orientation/overview with a highly trained TOPS professional. The phone orientation is designed to assist you in the initial setup of your community files and to help familiarize you with the TOPS 2000™ basic system. Your complimentary orientation covers:

Complimentary orientations are conducted by telephone and Internet. The orientation takes approximately 3 hours and can be spread over 2 or 3 sessions. Additional orientations are available for other TOPS modules, or if you would like, you can schedule a TOPS 2000™ orientation for other members of your staff. The additional orientations are available at a modest fee. Contact the TOPS Sales Office at 800-760-9966 or e-mail Orientations@topssoft.com for more information.

To schedule an orientation, please send an e-mail to Orientations@topssoft.com, listing several dates and times of your availability for the orientation. All orientations are performed Monday through Friday between the hours of 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM, Eastern Time. Alternate times are available for West Coast customers.

Autumn has arrived, and with it the first holiday of the season: Halloween. This month, we have created three great new themes for the season: Autumn Splendor - offers a nice view of the season; Trick or Treat offers a family friendly halloween theme; and for those of you who enjoy a little horror for All Hallows Eve, we have a special treat, Monster Mash, which is so creepy, we had to have a debate in house about whether it was too scary to include in the software or not!

We want to thank everyone for the kind words we have gotten regarding the TOPS Theme Manager. If you have a suggestion or a request for a future theme, please drop us a line at insider@topssoft.com.

Please be advised that the Internet Updater is restricted to customers on a current maintenance support agreement. If you are interested in our support plans, please go to http://www.topssoft.com/Support/MSA_plans.htm.

Direct questions to TOPS Support at 1-800-899-5689 or via email at support@topssoft.com.

For those of you working on your 2006 budgets, you may find this utility helpful! The Budget Utility option allows you to quickly copy your budgets to the next year.

onTOPS Issue 38

September 2005