What Are the Basics of Homeowners Association Accounting?

So do the financial needs of the community, as it relates to its goals and its size. Of course, the more frequently you prepare the statements, the more helpful they will be for the board of directors. Newer HOAs or ones with more basic budgets can prepare one every month without much issue. When a homeowner declares bankruptcy, the first thing your HOA board should do is check with your attorney or management company.

Homeowners’ association accounting software is a specialist real estate accounting software that is specifically designed with homeowners’ associations and their relevant activities in mind. Have you ever wondered about the most effective solutions to manage your homeowners’ association? Finding the most effective opportunities to streamline your homeowners’ association management is often difficult, but this shouldn’t have to hold you back.

What Is an HOA Audit?

Much like a business, a functioning community incurs costs and earns revenue. As such, it’s important to set up HOA accounting standards to maintain accurate financial reporting. Using accrual accounting, you must record revenues when they are earned, regardless of when cash is received.

Your job will become convoluted by illegible or inaccurate financial reports and records, which—if you are not prepared—can be overwhelming. However, investing in HOA software for your business’s accounts will streamline the process, saving your staff time they could be using more productively. This can help reduce the costs of accounting for your business, making homeowners’ association accounting software an intriguing investment. According to Civil Code Section 5500(c), the Board of Directors must review the current year’s actual expenses and revenues compared to the year’s budget at least quarterly. The HOA board must review HOA finances for reserve and operating expenses.

As mentioned earlier, most accounting is carried out on an accrual basis rather than a cash basis. However, it is common for organizations to create cash flow statements, which sum up the cash that has been received and the cash paid out in a particular period. After all, this is beneficial information, not least because organizations can’t survive if they don’t have enough cash and cash equivalents to cover all of their short-term obligations. Income statements are one of the financial statements that cover a particular time.

Classification may be according to the nature of the expense elements, business functions, areas of responsibility, or any other useful basis. A good income statement is something more than an itemized list of revenues and expenses. In 1959 the Institute took the formal step of committing itself to a more comprehensive program of research into the problems of financial reporting. The Accounting Principles Board was formed with the responsibility of formulating and promulgating accounting principles related to financial reporting based on underlying research. The result has been the adoption of accounting procedures which purportedly conform to the basic principles of accounting and which minimize taxable income.

Cash is safeguarded by depositing it in banks and through the use of petty cash funds, which locate responsibility for relatively small sums of cash in a single person. The time covered by a cash budget is largely determined by the pattern of operations. An association which demonstrates an erratic management pattern presents special problems for the forecaster, and a very short range forecast may be all that is feasible and useful. On the other hand, a useful cash forecast can be made for several months in the future for an association which demonstrates a regular pattern of activity.

An Accounts Payable Report and Accounts Delinquency Report must also accompany the ledger. An accounting standard is a set of procedures, policies, and principles specifying how accounting transactions must be recorded and reported. In the United States, the Hoa accounting most commonly used set of accounting standards is the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). With the use of the Accrual Basis, you must prepare an Aged Assessments Receivable Report, a Prepaid Assessments Report, and an Accounts Payable Report.

Receiving Help From Experienced HOA Financial Advisors

Expenses of the HOA are reported when paid, not when incurred – the timing is the same as for the Cash Basis. However, it is critical for the smooth functioning of a wide range of both for-profit and non-profit organizations. If you’re looking for HOA software solely for accounting, Money Minder is a great option. What’s even better is that it is free for the basics, yet comes at $159 for the paid version for full capabilities. Those who want a taste of the features without risking anything are able to download the app for a trial period before paying. Buildium is free to try, and while pricing may not be ideal for all communities, it has plenty of options for those of different sizes.

Keeping a record of your association’s cash flow provides you with a thorough understanding of where you stand financially. Yet, accounting for homeowners associations isn’t just writing down your expenses in a notebook. When setting up your HOA accounting standards, there are some key practices and reports you must include.

Audit

The board needs to review this at every board meeting to see what action needs to be taken at certain late dates (30, 60 days), such as sending a demand letter or turning the account over to a collection attorney or agency. For a smaller community this can be all that is needed along with a willing volunteer to handle the accounting. A General Ledger functions as the master record on which all other reports are based. Due to the complicated nature of this report, many board members find it to be the most difficult to write.

For every report, the total balance must agree with the amounts reported as a liability or asset on the association’s Balance Sheet. The Balance Sheet should have Aged Assessments Receivable as an asset with Accounts Payable and Prepaid Assessments as liabilities until the payment of the amounts. Insufficient funds is another possible consequence of poor homeowners association accounting.

Financial Statement

It gives you a complete look at your HOA’s net worth, including how much money you have in your bank account. Poor HOA financial management can lead to a number of possible consequences both for the HOA and its board. For one thing, bad HOA bookkeeping can cause a major financial fiasco within the association.

• So, an HOA board can’t meet every day of the week or make sure that everyone’s paid their fees on time.
• This means all of the association’s financial transactions are reported.
• That way, it can depict your HOA’s financial standing for both the month and the year thus far.
• That means not letting a single person have control over every financial department.

Unfortunately, you will need to know about accounting and how accounting works before you can begin using homeowners’ association software. However, many people also assume that you first need to know how to use accounting software to use homeowners’ association accounting solutions. While past experience with accounting software may help, so long as you know how accounting works, it’s easy to get used to the HOA tools. It’s also worth noting here that HOA accounting software is important for streamlining the billing and accounting for several properties simultaneously. After all, it’s likely that your homeowners’ association has numerous properties to manage at once, and billing for all of these separately can seem like a headache.

Direct Access to Accounting Software

We recommend that HOAs use the Accrual Basis of Accounting for financial statements. Learn the differences between accrual, modified accrual, and cash basis accounting, and how they affect your financials. MoneyMinder provides software exclusively for HOA accounting, catering to its needs. This software also displays reports, sends invoices to homeowners for payment, and compares your budget with your actual expenses. In the planning phase of the audit, the auditor should review relevant documents, including bylaws, if any; the declaration for a condominium or HOA; or the corporate charter for a cooperative housing corporation.

There are numerous reasons why professional HOA accounting software is important. However, the most important thing to remember here is that HOA accounting software is designed exclusively with homeowners’ associations in mind. This report is used to “prove” that the cash assets shown on the association’s books and balance sheet agree with what the bank statement shows. It takes into account outstanding checks as well as deposits of cash that have not been processed by the bank. HOA fees are assessments paid to the homeowners’ association to fund everyday operational expenses like landscaping, maintenance, and insurance. HOA accounts receivable is money due to the community association, usually owed by homeowners in fees and assessments.

This usually consists of a group of residents that live in that neighborhood. Residents within the neighborhood pay money to the HOA so that they can enjoy certain perks. 1.32 The rapid growth of CIRAs has created a corresponding growth in the demand for financial information to satisfy the needs of users of the financial statements of such entities.

With every month that passes, the value of the unused insurances decreases. The California Civil Code has many requirements for homeowners association interim financial statements. The accrual accounting method significantly affects how the association records expenses and revenues. It also gives community members peace of mind when there is accurate and efficient management of finances.

• Your financials are only as reliable as the practices and procedures that define them.
• In turn, these can help ensure you have enough funds available to keep the subdivision clean, safe, and comfortable.
• Useful for HOA boards and managers, this software helps to manage day-to-day tasks such as Balance Sheets, Income Statements, and Cash Flow Statements.
• Most importantly, having detailed financial statements readily available to all HOA members can promote transparency between the board and the community.

Making major financial decisions for special projects or major expenditures requires due diligence. Outsourcing these types of decisions to HOA financial advisers and HOA accounting experts can help. As your association earns revenue through monthly dues paid by the HOA community members, it is only fitting that the association’s financial practices should be in a healthy condition. Well-organized, detailed and specific records are a must, and transparency and internal controls within the association’s working structure are also crucial. As such, HOA accounting software provides all of the same features and benefits as we have already clarified, including billing and maintenance request management, invoicing, and more. This helps streamline the process of accounting for your HOA, making paying your association’s taxes and managing spending substantially easier.