Finances overview

The finance section is built for a volunteer treasurer, not an accountant. You do not need to know debits from credits. You do need to understand three ideas, and after that everything else is a form.

Idea 1 — two funds

Your corporation keeps two pots of money, and they are accounted for separately.

Operating fund — this year's recurring costs. Insurance, utilities, landscaping, cleaning, small repairs, management fees.

Contingency reserve fund (CRF) — savings for big, infrequent replacements. Roof, elevator, boiler, envelope.

Every transaction belongs to one fund or the other. Money moves between them only as a deliberate, recorded transfer. See contingency reserve fund.

Operating fund

$184,200

Contingency (CRF)

$612,800

Idea 2 — two views of the same money

Fund transactions is the corporation's view: every fund posting in date order with a running balance per fund, narrowable by fund, by money in or out, by budget line, by payee, and to any span of days you ask for. FinancesFund transactions. The date filters →

Owner accounts is the lots' view: what every lot owes and how long it has owed it, and behind each lot its own ledger of charges, payments and corrections. FinancesOwner accounts.

They're two windows onto the same transactions. Bill a lot and the charge appears on their ledger; take their payment and it appears on both.

Fund transactions is paged — newest postings first, with Newer and Older at the foot and a count of what you're looking at. The running balance is computed over the entire fund rather than over what's on screen, so it stays true on page 40, and the closing balances at the top are the funds' real balances, not the sum of the page.

Idea 3 — nothing is ever deleted

Where you stand

The overview's tiles say what the funds hold. A tile says $179,000 and the question underneath it is always "is that enough, and for how long" — arithmetic that most of a council, being volunteers who look at the building's books a few times a year, shouldn't have to do in their heads at a meeting.

So above the tiles there are three readings of the same figures, each naming the figure it came from so the working is visible rather than being a verdict to trust:

Operating cover — the operating balance against what the fund actually spends in a month. Averaged over the months you have posted rather than a fixed twelve, so a corporation six months into its books doesn't have its average halved by six months of nothing.

Collection — what owners have paid of what they were billed.

Arrears shape — whether the arrears are one lot's problem or the building's. A single arrears figure cannot tell one lot four hundred days late from forty lots five days late, and those two ask for opposite decisions.

The finance pages

Getting started with real books

1. Pick a start date

   The first day of a month, or better, of your fiscal year. Entering years of back-history is rarely worth it.

2. Enter opening fund balances

   What each fund actually held on that date, per your bank.

3. Enter opening owner balances

   Any lot in arrears at that date needs its balance recorded, or its ledger starts a lie. Enter it as arrears, not as cash — the two are separate boxes for a reason. Opening balances and imports →

4. Bill from there forward

   Bill each period's fees — from your adopted budget once you have one — and record everything as it happens.

5. Reconcile monthly

   Match to the bank every month. Small discrepancies found in four weeks are trivial; found in a year they're an archaeology project. How →

The treasurer's monthly rhythm

What owners see

An owner sees their own lot's ledger, invoices and balance — never the corporation's overall finances or another owner's account. Their statutory right to corporate financial records is a separate matter, satisfied by the financial statements you publish.