CAMS - Limitations

There are several limitations to CAMS (things that CAMS will not do) which are;

CAMS will not perform accounting functions. However, CAMS will keep track of changes to the COMMON ELEMENTS and will give total cost by Common Element change type such as replacing gutters or by project such as hurricane damage repairs if you enter the cost information.
Each copy of CAMS can only keep track of information for 1 community.
In order to use the electronic notification and e-mail, you must have Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Outlook Express OR Microsoft Send Mail installed on your PC and configured to work with your e-mail provider (AOL, Earthlink, G-Mail, etc.). The Microsoft mail software products previously listed are provided at no charge by Microsoft and are typically included with the software on a new PC.

Technical requirements. Your PC needs to have the following capabilities in order to use CAMS.

You must have a PC that is running Windows 98 or a later version of Windows.
Your PC must have an Internet connection in order to receive support or use the e-mail functions.
Your PC must have a CD drive in order to install CAMS.
You must have a PC with a USB port or the ability to make CD's in order to make copies of your data.
You need a copy of Microsoft Access 97, Access 2000, Access 2003 or Access 2007 installed on the PC from which you will run CAMS. The installation of Access is not included in the license price.

Note that in terms of disk space and memory, the requirements of CAMS are very minimal. 5 megabytes of disk space and 256 megabytes of memory (RAM) are sufficient.

Web Based Competing Products

Several products that compete with CAMS are web based products which means that you access your data through the Internet. CAMS installs on a PC in your office and does not need the Internet to operate for you to access your data. Here in Florida, hurricanes are a concern and if you use a web based product you will most likely not be able to access your data if there is an electrical outage. In 2004 and 2005, South Florida lost power three times for up to 8 days each time due to hurricanes. Since the electrical outages prevented access to the Internet, you would not have been able to access your data if you used a web based product. Since CAMS installs on the PC in your office, you would have been able to access your data during an electrical outage if you had access to a small electrical generator to run your PC if you were using CAMS.

Integrated Financial and Condo Management Products

Some competing products such as TOPS offer an integrated product that manages your accounting functions as well as some management functions. Other than owner names and addresses, there is little if any data that is common to the accounting functions and management functions. The integrated financial products such as TOPS are essentially accounting applications with some management functions added on. CAMS has consistently attempted to provide the best association management functions as our first and only priority. In an integrated product such as TOPS, you have different groups of people using the accounting functions (accountants and accounting clerks at the management office) and management functions (property manager and board members) so the two functions do not need to be integrated.

CAMS makes it easy to generate reports of changes to owner names and addresses to help you keep the owner information located in a separate accounting system in synch with the CAMS data.