Corporation settings

Settings. Council and managers only.

Settings is six tabs, each its own page:

Each tab is a real page with its own address, so you can bookmark the one you use and link a colleague straight to it.

Corporation details

SettingsCorporation, under Details. Name, strata plan number, number of lots and province. Street addresses are per building, on the Building tab.

The corporation name and plan number print on statutory forms, financial statements and owner emails. Use the registered form — The Owners, Strata Plan NW1234 — not the building's marketing name.

Province selects the rule set behind your notice periods, vote thresholds, reserve requirements and forms. Changing it re-derives everything on your compliance calendar; don't do it casually.

The plan number does more than print. It's how the registry finds your buildings when you press Fill in from the registry on the Building tab — so enter it exactly as it appears on your Form B, district prefix included (EPS3421, LMS2165).

Bylaws and shared facilities

SettingsCorporation, under Bylaws & shared facilities. The questions owners and buyers ask a council over and over — can I keep a dog, can I rent it out, is there visitor parking, what does the fee cover — answered once, in one place.

They're asked once per corporation, not per building: a plan covering several addresses still has one pet bylaw and one strata fee. Save them with Save these facts.

Bylaws last amended is the date of the most recent amendment filed at the Land Title Office. It's what makes every other answer here checkable.

BC law settles two of these

• Long-term rentals. Since 24 November 2022 a BC strata can't restrict rentals by bylaw. The form offers no way to record a live restriction — only that rentals are permitted, or that an old, unenforceable restriction is still on the books.
• Age. The only age restriction BC still permits is 55 and over.

Short-term rentals are a separate question, because a strata can still restrict those.

Blank means unanswered

Nothing left blank is read as an answer. Where the real answer is "none" — no visitor parking, no pets allowed — record it. Visitor stalls in particular: 0 says there are none; blank says nobody has told us.

If an older answer doesn't match any of the current choices, it's shown under the question as Also recorded here, kept when you save, and never shared.

This is general guidance on what the form accepts, not legal advice on your bylaws.

Sharing with the registry

At the foot of the bylaws form is one checkbox: Share these facts with the public strata registry. It's unticked until your council ticks it.

The SearchStrata registry publishes a record for every strata corporation in BC. For building envelopes and bylaws there's no open data anywhere in the province, so a council is the only source there is. Ticking the box offers your answers to it:

• It covers everything — the facts on this form, each building's facts on the Building tab, and a few basics: the corporation's name and lot count, and the date of your depreciation report if you've recorded one.
• Nothing is published until a person at the registry reviews it. Your answers go into their review queue, not straight onto a public page.
• Nothing names anybody. No owners, no council members.
• Only changed answers are sent, each time you save.
• A building's facts travel only once it's matched to its registry record. The Building tab says which are, and Fill in from the registry does the matching.
• Answers you typed that aren't among the registry's choices stay here.

After every save on the Corporation or Building tab, the banner says what happened — how many facts were offered, how many stayed behind and why, or that sharing is off and nothing was sent. If it says Changes saved. on its own, there was nothing new to send.

Buildings

SettingsBuilding. One card per civic address, each with its year built, storeys, construction, roof, rainscreen, remediation history and systems — typed, filled in from the registry, or read from your depreciation report. Buildings →

Financial controls

SettingsFinancial controls — the settings that decide what the finance screens are allowed to do, and what they may send on the corporation's behalf.

Fiscal year start

The month your financial year begins. It need not be January: a corporation running July to June says so here, and every budget, statement and fee run walks the right twelve months. A fiscal year is named for the calendar year it starts in, so a July 2027 – June 2028 year is "2027".

Time zone

Which clock your books keep. Invoices, interest runs, imports and prescribed forms are dated by this zone rather than the server's, which is the difference between a certificate stamped today and one stamped tomorrow when a manager posts at 5pm.

Leave it on the provincial default unless your corporation has a reason not to — the default is right for almost everyone.

Automatic strata-fee billing

Bill monthly strata fees automatically issues each month's fees from the adopted budget with no one pressing a button, and emails council and managers what was billed. Off by default. Full detail: billing strata fees.

Interest on overdue strata fees

Your bylaw rate, in percent per year. Blank by default, and the blank is load-bearing: with no rate recorded ManageStrata will not charge interest at all, because BC permits it only where your own bylaws set a rate (SPR 6.8) and has no statutory late fee to fall back on. The field will not accept a rate above the 10% cap.

Arrears reminder emails

Email arrears reminders writes to a lot that has fallen behind at 14, 30, 60 and 90 days past due, then monthly. Off by default, unlike the compliance reminder — this one chases a named person, and whether to chase turns on facts the product doesn't hold. It sends a reminder and never a demand: no late fee, no fine, no lien, and no mention of interest unless your bylaw rate is on file above. Full detail: arrears and interest.

Closing the books

Set the first date still open, usually the start of your current fiscal year.

Postings dated into a closed period are then refused — by the database, not just the form — so a late correction lands in the current period instead of silently rewriting a statement owners already approved. Clearing the date reopens the books; both actions are recorded in the audit trail.

A close date cannot be in the future: it would refuse every posting the corporation made until that date arrived.

Full detail in statements and closing the books.

Compliance reminders

SettingsCompliance.

Turn it on in your first session. Reminders go to council and manager accounts, so keep the roster current — someone who left last year shouldn't still be the one getting warned.

The same page holds your insurance renewal date and which duties you track, plus one fact the product cannot work out for you.

Regional district

BC phases two deadlines by regional district, and this one setting drives both:

Until you choose one, the row reads Not stated and the compliance calendar assumes the later deadline for each — it would rather be early than tell a Nanaimo or Kelowna corporation it's in breach while it has time left. Set it once.

Brand and logo

SettingsCorporation. Upload your logo and set a brand colour. Applied to owner emails, meeting notices, announcements and printed forms.

Worth two minutes: a notice that looks like it came from the corporation gets read; one that looks like a generic system email gets deleted.

Audit trail

SettingsRecords, council and managers only. A record of who did what and when, across the corporation. Money moved, invoices cancelled, roles changed, documents uploaded, notices sent, periods closed and reopened.

You'll rarely read it. It matters at exactly the moments when it matters a great deal:

• an owner questions a charge from two years ago;
• a council member wants to know who approved something;
• a dispute reaches a tribunal;
• an outgoing council hands over to a new one.

Data retention

SettingsRecords, under Retention. The same screen as the audit trail, because it's the other half of the same question: what the corporation keeps, and for how long.

Almost everything is kept at least as long as the Strata Property Act requires — in practice indefinitely — and can't be purged: minutes and resolutions, financial records, documents, and the audit trail itself.

The one exception is the communications log: the emails and texts the corporation sent, with each recipient, subject and body. It isn't a statutory record, it's full of personal information, and privacy law expects it not to be kept longer than needed.

• Keep the communications log for sets the window, in months, from 1 to 240. Leave it blank for the 24-month default. Press Save retention period.
• Anything older is purged automatically, once a week.
• Purge expired entries does it now. It shows you first how many entries would go and the cutoff date, with their subjects and dates — never the recipients — and asks you to confirm.

See also privacy, data and retention.

Billing and plan

SettingsBilling — your plan, payment method, invoices, and current AI action usage. See plans and billing.

A settings checklist

Worth confirming once a year, ideally just after the AGM:

• Corporation name and plan number correct
• Fiscal year start correct
• Time zone correct, or left on the provincial default
• Lot count matches the register
• Every building listed on the Building tab, and its facts current
• Bylaw answers updated for anything passed at the AGM, with the new amendment date
• Registry sharing on or off deliberately
• Compliance reminders on, going to the current council
• Regional district stated
• Communications-log retention period chosen, or the 24-month default kept deliberately
• Bylaw interest rate recorded, if your bylaws set one
• Automatic fee billing on or off deliberately, and this year's budget adopted if it's on
• Logo and brand colour set
• Prior fiscal year closed
• Plan still matches your lot count and usage