HOA Accounting: What You Need to Know

The Income Statement is meant to inform the Board how the association is doing compared to its budget. It shows the current period actual expense, budgeted expense and any variance between the two. Well, as you may have already discovered, there are many things that can go wrong – which makes for a logistical nightmare if not managed properly.

This should show how much money is owed to the association and by whom. This is money required by law to be set aside for the maintenance and replacement of the neighborhood’s amenities. Your HOA should also have a general ledger to show all account activity. This should include all balances and bank statements for the HOA’s accounts. The noncurrent element of this portion of the budget would ideally be part of a plan spanning the present and future periods.

Common property management accounting challenges (and how to solve them)

When you fail to budget your expenses properly, the HOA might run out of money. This will inevitably force your board to either take out a loan or charge special assessments to homeowners. And, if you have any experience with HOAs at all, you’d know that homeowners hate having to pay special assessments on top of their monthly dues. A homeowners association functions in very much the same way as any business organization.

It is something of a standout among the basic financial statements because the others cover financial performance over a specific period. Regardless, the standard balance sheet has two sides that must have the same value as one another. Meanwhile, the left side consists of the organization’s liabilities and equity. If so, it might be useful for interested individuals to think of the organization as having secured their possessions through both borrowing and other channels. The liabilities would be what the organization still owes to other parties, whereas the equity would be what the organization owns without owing to other parties.

Income Statement

When setting up your HOA accounting standards, you must first decide which accounting basis to use. To put it simply, the basis of accounting is the timing of recording financial transactions, be it revenues or expenses. Mastering HOA accounting means effectively managing fees and assessments.

• If non-compliance results in an HOA lien, it can be difficult or impossible to sell a home until cleared.
• Furthermore, the board can use this report to compare actual expenses incurred versus the budget allocated.
• With the modified accrual basis method, the amounts for Prepaid Assessments and Assessments Receivable will be the same as the amounts on the Balance Sheet, just as with the accrual basis method.
• Hiring a third-party property manager can come at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars per year.
• They likely won’t be available 24/7 to field communications from homeowners.

PayHOA is the single portal where you can connect directly with the needs of your homeowners. Your residents can use PayHOA to make online payments, view their payment history and important documents, submit requests, and access important updates, streamlining management for your whole community. Even if you’re not an expert, building a budget is easy using HOA software. By tracking payments, an HOA platform can more accurately forecast income and expenses through ready-made reports. You can access charts to compare your budget to current accounting data.

However, it’s not that hard when you understand the concepts behind it. While the Cash Basis is easy to understand and frank, it has blind spots with respect to unpaid bills or dues from HOA members. HOA fees can cover the cost of everything from basic recycling, landscaping and snow removal, to luxury dog parks, spas, valets and gyms, to uber-luxury on-site concierge, barista, fitness trainer, bellhop, and masseur services. As much as you’d want it to be smooth sailing from here, the truth is that HOA accounting is a subject that takes a lot of time and effort to master. Understanding the laws special to your state will save you a lot of time and trouble.

According to FASB Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 4, Objectives of Financial Reporting by Non-Business Organizations, budgets are used to allocate and control the use of resources. For example, budgets are pivotal in establishing levels of dues, taxes, and fees to be imposed. 1.30 CIRAs often retain legal counsel to assist in enforcing their rules and for other purposes. CIRAs engage accountants to provide accounting, auditing, tax, and consulting services to CIRAs.

What Is An HOA Audit?

Revenue is recorded when earned, and expenses are documented as soon as they are incurred. Accrual accounting is regarded as the preferred accounting method because it offers a more complete picture of the HOA’s financial status. It can be used for official recording and reporting since it conforms with GAAP. As an HOA manager, PayHOA offers you an all-in-one software platform to replace all those fragmented tools, so accounting, communications, payments, documents, violations, and owner requests can all live in one place.

Ideally, HOA software should help build a productive dialogue with homeowners. This makes your residents’ lives easier, allowing an HOA to do a better job and provide more value. Residents and other stakeholders expect transparency when it comes to how an HOA manages their money.

They are the entity that makes sure the whole neighborhood is well maintained and safe. A competent financial committee can be instrumental in providing clear financial oversight to a board of directors. In this download, this eBook helps provide a basic understanding of the unique aspects of Community Association Accounting and gives a general overview of standard CAM accounting practices. In extreme cases, poor HOA accounting can open the door to fraud or lead to legal action being taken against Board Members by the community. In these cases, having the correct paperwork in place can help to protect you in a court of law.

HOA Management Technology

As each cash payment is made, a voucher or receipt is placed in the fund in lieu of the cash removed. Revenue offsets should be clearly distinguished from expenses and deducted from gross revenues in the revenue section of the income statement . Such items as late fee or fine reductions do not represent expenses but rather revenues that are never in fact realized. The most common system of accumulating data for an enterprise is the double-entry system. As the name implies, the entry made for each transaction is composed of two parts, a debit and a credit. The system is based on the theory that the resources used to acquire the assets must be provided by other entities or persons.

Nothing beats the convenience and expertise you have access to when you trust your HOA’s or condo’s bookkeeping/accounting to Community Financials. Banks provide lockbox services to association management companies for customer payment remittals. Homeowner payments are retrieved from special post office boxes and then processed and deposited directly into the management company or HOA’s bank account. Also known as a Check Register, a Cash Disbursements Ledger is vital to any homeowners association accounting rules. To put it plainly, this ledger shows the board members an official list of money flowing out of the association. Accounts receivable are generally the same but where apartments pay for maintenance, rehab, and remodels on their building(s) and property, this is the individual homeowner’s responsibility.

That way, if you run into an emergency and need to track your time for a client later that evening, you don’t have to worry about not having the app with you. Smartwebs pricing starts at $0.40 per door making it affordable for self-managed associations and large-scale alike. Accounting is arguably one of the most challenging aspects of managing an HOA community. Yet, HOA accounting remains an integral part of your job as an HOA board member.

Basically, it shows you whether or not you made money in the past month. Not all expenses take place every year, but you should still plan for them to be Hoa accounting categorized under the same account regardless of when they occur. Don’t use “Events Income” one year and then “Income from Events” two years later.

The board may choose to prepare Accounts Payable, Prepaid Assessments, and Assessments Receivable reports. However, the accuracy of the reports cannot be verified easily by comparing the totals to the amounts reported on the Balance Sheet. The cash basis accounting method records expenses and income when money changes hands. When an elected community member self prepares financial statements, make sure that there is a backup of all financial records.

The particulars of HOA accounting may require ad hoc bookkeeping for assessments, or even supporting documentation in addition to the usual reports. An expert team of property management accountants can not only reduce accounting costs but free up your HOA board to focus on critically important stuff like trampoline colors and rose bushes. If that kind of time, savings, and expertise can benefit your HOA, drop us a line. HOA fees also contribute to a reserve fund for renovations or emergencies. Accounting best practices report assessments as “liabilities” on the balance sheet.

Professional HOA accounting services often help HOAs keep on top of finances. Read on to learn what HOA financial services are and why your HOA needs them. 7.01 Generally accepted auditing standards apply to audits of the financial statements of CIRAs in the same manner as they do to audits procedures that specifically to audits of CIRAs. These procedures should be considered in addition to the audit procedures customarily performed in audits of financial statements. 5.02 The legal documents creating most CIRAs require that assessments be based on budgets. The budgets of CIRAs are the monetary expression of their goals and objectives and emphasize the stewardship responsibility of their boards of directors.

Communication tools allow managers to get in touch with individual residents or send important community updates using mass or automated messaging. Manage all business processes for Condo and HOA with effective software. We will start setting up your community in our software after we receive a signed agreement and our on-boarding checklist with your answers to questions like your tax ID, fiscal year end, etc. One powerful way to reduce delinquencies is to impact one’s credit score. Click here to find out how reporting delinquent HOA and Condo owners to a credit agency works. By overcoming the top 5 issues that self-managed communities encounter you can have a great experience that meets or exceeds that of communities that pay for full management at a fraction of the cost.