Set up board reporting
Overview¶
Goal. Keep the numbers behind every report your board sees, from the "LRS Report" your analyst prepares to the reports you run yourself, matched to the funding plan your board actually approved.
Audience. Account Admins, Property Managers, CFOs, Finance Managers, and Reserve Analysts who prepare for board meetings, and the HOA Board Members who review the results.
Board reporting spans four modules. Financial Management holds the assumptions your reports are built on. Reserve Studies is where a new budget year gets recorded. Reports is where the documents themselves come from. Role Management is where your board gets its own access. Work through this once each budget year, and repeat the reporting step ahead of every meeting.
Setup¶
You need edit access to Financial Management to set assumptions and build funding plans. Account Admin, Property Manager, CFO, and Finance Manager hold it.
You need edit access to Reserve Studies to advance a year into planning. Account Admin, Property Manager, CFO, and Reserve Analyst hold it. Finance Manager does not hold it, and cannot advance a year.
Generating and exporting a report needs only view access to Reports. Every role above already holds that. Changing a report's columns, sections, or data source needs full access to Reports instead. Account Admin, Property Manager, and CFO hold that.
HOA Board Members hold view access to Financial Management, Reserve Studies, and Reports, and no edit access to any of the three. Without edit access, the controls for adding a plan, advancing a year, and changing report settings are not shown. A board member sees the figures and the reports, not the controls that produce them. Components is not available to this role at all.
Your property's components and current reserve study need to already be set up.
Each step below runs against the fiscal year selected at the top of the screen. Confirm that selector before you start. Assumptions, plans, and reports all belong to the year showing there.
How-to¶
Give your board members their own accounts. An Account Admin or Property Manager invites each board member with the HOA Board Member role. Add access to the property or properties they serve. They can then open reports directly, instead of waiting on a PDF from you. See Invite a user to SmartProperty. For what that role opens, and what it does not, see What Can Each User Role Do? (Role Permissions Reference).
Set your financial assumptions for the budget year. Confirm the starting reserve balance, assessment income, and the rates your projections use before you build any funding plans. Saving these assumptions carries forward into every plan and report you produce next. See Set your financial assumptions.
Build and compare the funding plans your board will choose from. Create one or more plans for the year, and compare them on a single chart. Mark the plan you want reports to feature as recommended. See Create and compare funding plans for your next budget year.
Once the new budget year begins, advance to planning to record the plan your board selected. Advancing marks that plan as adopted, carries its figures onto your saved financials, and moves your association into the new budget year. See Advance to Planning: move your association into the next budget year for the steps, and Advance to planning: what it changes, and what your reports show afterwards for which reports pick up the adopted figures, and when.
Generate the reports your board reviews. Open "Reports", choose the report your meeting calls for, such as the "Reserve Analysis Report", the "Financial Assessment Report", or the "Plan Summary Report", and produce it as a PDF or a spreadsheet. Run this step ahead of every meeting, not only once a year. See Generate and export a report.
Before you send anything out, confirm the report matches the plan your board approved. A report can still show a different annual reserve contribution than the adopted plan when "Financial Assumptions" has not been updated to match it. Line the two up before the meeting, not after. See How do I make my reserve study match my approved Funding Plan?.
Reference¶
Reports your board is most likely to review¶
| Report | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| Reserve Analysis Report | "Summary Reports" tab |
| Financial Assessment Report | "Summary Reports" tab |
| Plan Summary Report | "Summary Reports" tab |
| Reserve Allocation Report | "Summary Reports" tab |
| Annual Financial Health Report | "Summary Reports" tab |
| Reserve Funding Disclosure Packet | "Summary Reports" tab, California and Washington properties only |
See Generate and export a report for the full list of reports and the controls each one offers.
Recommended plan and adopted plan are not the same thing¶
Marking a funding plan as recommended tells reports which plan to feature while your board's decision is still pending. You set this yourself, on the "Reserve Analysis Report" settings.
Marking a plan as adopted happens automatically when you advance to planning. It records the plan your board actually selected for that year. Reports that show a single funding plan use the adopted plan once one exists.
Reading current figures against the figures your board approved¶
On the "Reserve Analysis Report", the "Plan Summary Report", and a funding plan report, "Report Data Source" offers "Display latest" and "Display original". "Display latest" shows the report with your current financials and components. "Display original" shows the plan as it stood on the fiscal year start date, the version your board approved. Choose the one that matches the question you are answering.
Troubleshooting¶
A report shows last year's approved budget badge instead of this year's. This usually means the current year has not been advanced yet. See Advance to Planning: move your association into the next budget year.
A report's annual reserve contribution does not match the plan your board approved. See How do I make my reserve study match my approved Funding Plan?.
A board member does not see the controls you expect. This is expected for the HOA Board Member role, which is view only across Financial Management, Reserve Studies, and Reports.
"Reports", "Plans", or "Portfolio" does not appear at all. Confirm the person's role and property access first. If both are correct and the area is still missing, contact SmartProperty.