Run Your Scheme with Less Admin and More Trust

CommunityDesk is built around the Sectional Titles Schemes Management Act (STSMA), its management and conduct rules and the Community Schemes Ombud Service (CSOS) requirements: for example the administrative and reserve funds, AGM notices, proxies, quorum and voting by participation quota, and the CSOS levy. HOAs can set it up to follow their own constitution. It helps you comply but isn’t legal advice: the trustees, and the managing agent where there is one, remain responsible for the scheme’s compliance, and specific questions are best checked with an attorney or CSOS.

No. Owners pay into the scheme’s own bank account, or through the scheme’s own account with a payment provider such as Netcash, Paystack or Payfast, so levy money never passes through CommunityDesk. Managing agents keep handling funds under their own legal and professional obligations. CommunityDesk records each payment and matches it to the right unit.

Once the scheme connects its own payment provider, owners can pay by card or instant EFT from their portal, save a card for automatic monthly payments, or sign up for a DebiCheck debit order, which they confirm with their own bank. Ordinary bank transfers still work: CommunityDesk suggests which unit each payment on the bank statement belongs to, and a person confirms it. The provider sets its own transaction fees, and the scheme decides whether to absorb them or pass them on.

There is one plan with every feature, the same for trustees and managing agents, priced per unit you administer, occupied or vacant. Each unit is priced in its band, like tax brackets: R50 a month for units 1–50, R35 for units 51–200, R22 for units 201–1 000 and R15 above that, with a minimum of R750 a month. Email, SMS and WhatsApp messages are included, paying annually gives you two months free, and large portfolios can ask about contracted pricing. Prices exclude VAT.

The trial runs for 60 days and needs no card. Everything works except SMS and WhatsApp messages, which switch on when your subscription starts. Email, in-app chat, online levy payments and debit orders all work from day one, because payments run through your scheme’s own provider account. Each organisation gets one trial.

Nothing is charged until someone with authority authorises billing in Settings → Billing, and you can start your subscription early if you need text messages sooner. Invoices are issued monthly in advance on your billing day and are due within seven days. If the trial ends without billing being authorised, the account becomes read-only: nothing is deleted, and you can authorise billing at any time to carry on.

Your scheme’s records belong to you. Under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), the scheme is the responsible party for the personal information it loads, and CommunityDesk is its operator: we process that information only to provide the service and as you instruct, and we never sell it. You can export your records while your subscription is active, and when it ends we delete or anonymise them, except where the law requires us to keep them.

Each customer’s records are kept separate, people only see what their role allows, two-step login can be required for everyone in the Management Portal, and every change is recorded in an audit log. Information travels encrypted, and our support team can only enter a customer’s account with a recorded reason, for a limited time. We use established cloud providers, some of which store information outside South Africa; we only use providers bound by laws or agreements that protect it to the standard POPIA requires.

Yes. Units, owners, tenants, opening balances and suppliers import from a spreadsheet or from another system’s exports, with a row-by-row preview so nothing is saved until you have checked it. We help you with opening balances and your first levy run, so you can start with figures you trust.

No. CommunityDesk works in the web browser on any phone, tablet or computer, and can be added to a phone’s home screen like an app. Owners and tenants sign in with a one-time code sent to their email, so there are no passwords to remember. Their portal is available in English, Afrikaans, isiZulu, Sepedi, French and Portuguese.

Help guides are built into the Management Portal and the owner portal, and you can log a support request from either one or email us. Every enquiry is answered within one working day, and we help new schemes set up their records and run their first levies.