Using the Reconcile function

[Eric M. Boyd, Broker]

How many of you are using the account reconcile feature within Buildium to reconcile your accounts each month?  Or, are you exporting the account data to an external program for your monthly reconciliation?  What's your experience with the Buildium function for this process?
 
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Eric M. Boyd, Owner/Broker
Step One Realty, LLC
Jacksonville, FL
Residential Sales and Property Management
http://www.StepOneRealty.com
cell: 904-813-5010 fax: 888-345-5054
mailto:Eric...@StepOneRealty.com

[Tim Hendricks]

I don't reconcile within Buildium. I use QuickBooks for my company books, and use that reconciliation function as needed.

My trust account is really the only account that flows through Buildium.I want to ensure at any given time the balance in the bank account matches what should be there, on a property by property basis. I have not found any reports in Buildium that give me exactly what I want.

I created a fairly simple spreadsheet with all my units managed, and all funds held in trust by category - sec deposit, pet deposit, PP rent, and reserves. After I've made my owner disbursements for the month and transferred my management fees to my operating account, the trust account bank balance, the Buildium record of that same balance, and my spreadsheet should all match to the penny.

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Tim Hendricks
REALTOR
Hendricks Real Estate
512-771-0188
www.512re.com

[Robert Bixel]

You are right about the problems reconciling the trust account balance to the individual owners' equity balances.  I balance the trust account (in the Buildium system) and then balance that to the Rental Owner Ending Balances report.  There are a few problems with that, particularly when there is more than one owner, in which case the deposits held and the equity is overstated by double.  You also have to net out the uncleared transactions, undeposited cash and a few other things that you would not normally think of.  I have an Excel sheet that I am happy to share that does this for you and tells your where to get the numbers.  It's a work-around but I think that if you pay for a management software package, you shouldn't have to go off-line to do a routine management function line reconciliation.  --- On Thu, 9/15/11, Tim Hendricks <t...@512re.com> wrote:

[Tim Hendricks]

Yes, the multiple owner situation is what has prevented me from using the standard Buildium reports as well.

How do other users handle husband/wife owners? I've talked to Buildium support, and they don't have a clear reco either way. I have a divorced couple that still owns a property together. In that case, I list them each, given them each copies of reports, and generate a 1099 for each seperately.

But for my married owners, I just list one owner or put both first names in. My only problem with this approach is that several couples want the reports and direct deposit notices to go to each. So I have to remember to send a separate email to the person who's not listed. I've requested that Buildium add the ability to send automated emails to multiple email addresses but no luck so far...

[Jay Raman]

I am sorry to be reviving a topic that maybe resolved by many of you, but I finally got a chance to ask questions and get feedback:

• Do the companies that use Quickbooks track the individual owner as liability accounts or do you simply make all the transaction in bulk or without worry about identifying cash movements for each owner?
• If you are not identifying each owner in Quickbooks as a potential liability account, then how do you track the trust accounting is being identified appropriately to the appropriate owner?
• If you are reconciling inside of Buildium functionality, then I could see the logic that you are tracking and insuring that all money movements are being tracked. If you are not tracking to each owner in Quickbooks and not using Buildium reconcile, then what are you doing?
• For owners with multiple properties, how are you recording transfers of money from one property to pay for another properties repairs? Do you basically owner draw the money from one property and owner contribute it to another property?
• Prior to sending money back to owners, how are you recording holding back funds to pay expense?
  

We want to simplify our obligations and accounting, but we feel that we expose ourselves to risk since there is a property management company perspective and a homeowner perspective for financial transactions. We are holding other peoples money so we have liabilities and payments are just decreasing how much liability that we are holding.

Quickbooks tracks this perspective. Our owners want to see how much they earned and spent, so Buildium tracks that since it creates financials for them.


We therefore are tracking:

1) Buildium Records more formal records for their financial perspective.
2) Quickbooks Records Liability increase and decreases for each owner.
3) Prior to sending owner money, we have a excel that tracks money in and out , but we also accrue back jobs that the invoices we have yet to receive to avoid delaying paying vendors.

I would love to see if there are thoughts on about the obligation to insure that the Trust Account is reconciled and appropriately reviewed if you are not using Quickbooks to track each owner liabilities or Buildium reconcile function.

Thanks

Jay Raman
Managing Director/CEO
Ashoka Lion
Web: www.LionRentalManagement.com
"Follow the Lion"