Owner ledgers
One lot's complete financial story — every charge, payment and correction with a running balance. The page that settles disputes.
An owner ledger is the answer to "what does lot 204 owe, and why?"
FinancesOwner ledgers lists every lot with its current balance. Click a lot to open its full history.
What the ledger shows
Every line is a charge (fees, a levy instalment, interest on arrears, a chargeback), a payment, or a correction — with a running balance after each. Below the history you'll find the lot's invoices and the status of each.
Posting from the lot's own page
Two things can be recorded without leaving the ledger you're looking at:
Record a payment — a cheque or e-transfer that just arrived for this lot.
Issue an invoice — a chargeback, a move-in fee, or anything else owed by this lot alone.
The lot is already known, so it's stated rather than asked for. That removes the step where you read a balance here, go back to Finances, and pick the lot out of a list of all of them — which is how a receipt ends up keyed to the wrong lot.
What stays on the Finances page
Charge all units is a fee run across the whole corporation and would read here as though it charged this lot alone. An expense isn't owed by anyone. Both stay on Finances.
Reading a balance
A positive balance means the lot owes the corporation. A negative balance means they're in credit — usually a prepayment, sometimes a reversed charge.
The running balance is the number you quote an owner. It's also the number that appears on a Form F, which is why keeping ledgers accurate isn't housekeeping — it's what makes a conveyance possible.
Settling a dispute
Ledgers exist to end arguments, and they usually do.
Open the lot and read from the last agreed point
Work forward from a date the owner accepts. The discrepancy will be a line they don't recognise.
Look for the usual three
Interest they weren't expecting; a payment received after the statement they're comparing against; a payment credited to the wrong lot.
If they're right, correct it properly
Move, reverse or cancel — never delete. The correction is posted beside the original with a reason, so the ledger explains itself. How →
Show them the ledger
Owners can see their own at any time from their portal. Pointing them there usually ends the exchange faster than an email explaining it.
Why nothing is deleted
Suppose you'd simply deleted a wrongly-recorded payment. Two years later an owner produces a bank record showing they paid, and your ledger shows nothing at all — you can neither confirm nor explain it. With a reversal, the ledger shows the payment, the reversal, and the reason. That's a defensible record.
Opening balances
When you start on ManageStrata, any lot already in arrears needs an opening balance recorded as at your start date, or their ledger begins with a fiction. Describe it clearly — "Opening balance as at 1 January 2026" — so nobody mistakes it for a charge raised that day.
Ownership changes
When a lot sells, update the owner on the roster. The ledger stays with the lot, because in most jurisdictions the obligation runs with the lot rather than the person. What the buyer and seller each owe is settled in the conveyance, using a Form F certifying the position as at the completion date.
Issue Form F from a reconciled ledger
A Form F certifies what's owed on a lot, and a conveyancer relies on it. Make sure every payment received has been recorded before you issue one — a payment entered the day after you issued the certificate is an awkward conversation.
Statements for owners
An owner can see their own ledger any time. For a formal statement — for a mortgage application, an accountant, a dispute — generate it from the same page.
Spotting problems early
The ledger list sorted by balance is your arrears report. Anything more than one period behind deserves attention this month, not at year end. See arrears and interest.
On the Council plan, the Collections agent watches this for you: it spots overdue accounts and drafts a polite, rules-aware reminder for you to review and send. See AI agents.
Still stuck? Open Support in the top bar of the app, ask the Assistant, or contact us.