Your first week
A running order for getting a real corporation onto ManageStrata — what to do on day one, what can wait, and what to leave until after your next meeting.
You do not have to do all of this at once. This is the order that causes the least rework, drawn from what actually blocks what.
The app keeps this list for you
Setup tracks the same ground and shows how far along you are. It reads your actual data rather than a box someone ticked, so it can't claim credit for work that wasn't done — and it says, for each value, where in your own paperwork to find it and what happens if you leave it. See the setup checklist.
Day one — about 45 minutes
Register the corporation
Name, province, lot count, plan number. Five minutes, and it generates your compliance calendar immediately. How →
Set your fiscal year
SettingsFinancial controls. Budgets, financial statements and closing the books all key off it. Setting it after you've entered transactions means re-checking which period they landed in.
Import your lots
Units & lotsImport CSV. Check the unit entitlements sum correctly before you confirm. How →
Add the council
Council & rosterAdd member, then Add email & invite for each. How →
Turn on compliance reminders
SettingsCompliance. This is the single highest-value switch in the product: the council gets warned 30, 14 and 7 days before every statutory deadline.
Day two or three — the documents
Uploading your library is the step that makes everything else searchable, and it is worth doing properly once.
Upload the essentials first
Registered bylaws and any amendments, the last three years of AGM and SGM minutes, the last two years of financial statements, the current insurance policy and certificate, and the depreciation report if you have one.
Wait for processing
Each file shows a status until it has been read and indexed. Only then can it be quoted with page citations. How →
Run a red-flag scan
DocumentsRed flags reads what you uploaded and surfaces water damage, litigation, special levies and other risks recorded in your own minutes. New councils routinely find something they didn't know about. How →
Day three or four — the money
This is the part people put off. It is also the part that makes the software worth paying for.
Record your opening balances
Enter the current operating and contingency reserve fund balances as at the date you're starting from. Everything after this date gets entered as it happens. How →
Enter each lot's opening position
If some owners are in arrears, record what they owe now so their ledger starts honest. How →
Bill this period's strata fees
If your budget is already in ManageStrata and adopted, bill from it — FinancesBudget splits it across the lots by unit entitlement and bills the month. Otherwise FinancesCharge all units bills every lot a flat amount to get you started. How →
Connect online payments (optional)
Stripe lets owners pay by card straight into their ledger, which removes most of the chasing. How →
Start at a clean date
Pick the first day of a month or, better, the first day of your fiscal year. Entering three years of back-history is rarely worth it — an opening balance plus accurate records from a clean start date gives you everything you need going forward, and the old statements are in your document library anyway.
Day five — the building
Add your regular contractors
VendorsAdd vendor with trade, insurance (COI) expiry and WorkSafeBC expiry. The expiry dates are the point: ManageStrata warns you before a contractor's coverage lapses. How →
Log the repairs already in flight
Anything currently outstanding, as a work order. How →
Seed the component list
Assets & reserve study. If you have a depreciation report, record it and seed the component list from it. If you don't, you're about to find out when yours is due. How →
Then — bring in the owners
Once the council has used it for a week and the balances look right, invite the building. Post an announcement first, then send the invitations.
After your next meeting
Some things are best done once, at the next AGM or council meeting:
- Approve a budget in the system so your financial statements can compare actual against budget. How →
- Run the meeting in ManageStrata end to end, so you have one clean worked example — notice, agenda, quorum, votes, minutes. How →
- Close the books on the prior fiscal year once owners have had those financials. How →
The setup checklist
Setup. Eight steps, each with what the value is, where to find it in your own paperwork, and what happens if you leave it.
It's derived from your data, not from a stored flag, so it can't go stale and it can't claim credit for work that wasn't done. Delete the lots and the lots step un-ticks itself.
| Step | Why it's on the list |
|---|---|
| Register your corporation | Generates the compliance calendar |
| Add your strata lots | Nothing financial works without them |
| Record unit entitlement | Sets every strata fee under s.99 |
| Link owners to lots | Who gets the ledger, the portal and the notices |
| Upload your bylaws | What the documents can be asked about |
| State your opening balance | The difference between books that reconcile and books that don't |
| Adopt the annual budget | What fees are billed from |
| Decide on interest for overdue fees | A blank quietly means "we may not charge interest" |
Two steps you finish by saying no
Most corporations have no bylaw setting an interest rate, and one formed last month has no previous books. A blank is a real answer to both, so you can settle them explicitly and finish the list — rather than being nagged forever toward a charge you have no authority to make.
Unit entitlement is the one to get right
A lot with no entitlement recorded falls back to an equal share. That is not the s.99 formula — it is a s.100 formula, and using one needs a unanimous vote. The checklist says so at the step, and the count of blank lots is shown so you know how far off you are.
Am I done?
You are in good shape when all of these are true:
- The compliance calendar has no red items you didn't already know about.
- Every lot exists, with an entitlement, and most have an owner attached.
- The two fund balances match your bank.
- The bylaws and last three years of minutes are uploaded and processed.
- Your council can all sign in.
Still stuck? Open Support in the top bar of the app, ask the Assistant, or contact us.