Board Financial Report - 84 pages long!

We are managed by a major HOA based in Texas. The Board meets every 2 months, and I am chair. When we get our financials for review we get a front page balance sheet that lists

Operating Cash $
Reserve Cash $
Accounts Receivable $
Prepaid Balances $
Net Loss or Gain $

.....and then 83 pages spit out from a computer system of every financial transaction in the month.

As a Board member I find it very unhelpful as a way of monitoring our finances. Yes, I can get some information from it all but what I really want is for the accountant/finance people to produce something that is more tailored and easier for volunteer board members to understand and extract crucial data from.

Do you all get 84 pages spit out from a financial computer program too 😒and I just need to ask? Sue

Thanks for your reply. If you get 100 pages and your meetings are monthly, then 84 every two months is par for the course!

While we are similar and show these summaries to all owners, our BOD Monthly Financial Report is about 40 pages long and only transmitted electronically to each BOD Member requesting such. Such requests happen very few time per year.

On the long report posted on the web portal for any owners to review in my HOA, no personal info is included, like delinquencies, I.e, there’s no individual owner pages. The Board can view those in the Board Portal..

Our is about that long, but it includes the collection reports (for Board use only), as well as the monthly balance sheets, income/expense report, bank statement and some other stuff I can't remember. You don't say how large your association is, but if you're only meeting every two months, that could be why you have a long report.

You may find the report too detailed for your taste, but do your colleagues (especially the treasurer) feel the same way? Everyone ought to review the report to understand where and how the money's going in and out. I was treasurer of my board and I didn't always focus on every single detail unless I had a question from reviewing something else and then I'd have to go to that section. I've always preferred having a bit too much information than not enough to save everyone time. Paying attention to detail is important in HOA finances, but yours may need better organization - have you discussed this with your property manager? If not, why not?

Consider what you want to know upon reviewing your report, focus on that, and have the treasurer focus on the details. Generally, I want to know if our assets are growing, liabilities decreasing, reserves are being funded according to the reserve study recommendations, are delinquencies being monitored and progress being made on collection efforts, which expense line items exceeded the budget and why, etc. Your colleagues may find some items more interesting than others, and that's ok, as long as everything's being reviewed. You want to identify trends - if lawn care increased by a lot this summer, find out why. It might be a quirk, or you might have to consider if you need to renegotiate the contract or look for another vendor.

As long as this is provided in searchable digital format, I am happy.

If your not reading and asking questions about what the financial transactions were.... and simply want to approve a final number, you do not comprehend what your responsibilities are and should not be a board member.

Adulting is so hard... wait till your in a HOA...

I like to weed out the ones who eventually will show their true colors just by one person not drinking their Koolaid....

The CFO of the corporation that is our management company advised new directors long ago to ski, as MarkM advises & focus on problem areas. The CFO also also advised to look for "anomalies." After a few months of skimming the report, you should be able tonoitce a sudden weird expenditure. Let's say that the landscaping contract always is $xx/mo and there are line items for plant replacement. But you see billing for replacement work that that you don't see in your community. You want to know what that bill is for.

Does your treasurer give a report at your board meetings??

Gee, you really are not very nice or supportive. My only question was do all Boards get reports 84 pages long. The first reply said they have monthly meeting and their reports are 100 pages. O I thought I’d finished the thread by saying 84 seems par for the course. I am not an idiot, or a careless board member just trying to learn but really don’t appreciate a sty responses like yours

And we know the problem now...

Hi Susan.

Most financial packages are that long, and typically include the balance sheet, income statement, general ledger showing each transaction, bank statements, and accounts receivable and sometimes copies of each invoice paid that month.

The income statement and balance sheet are intended to be that at-a-glance snapshot of the association's financial position that you seem to be looking for. The balance sheet shows how much cash you have on hand, the income statement shows the income and expenses for the given period.

Since you are managed by a large, national management company (I can guess which one!), you are probably not going to be able to get a customized report. But you should be able to set up a meeting with someone in their accounting department who can go over the existing reports with you and show you how to get the information you want out of them.

Thank you, that is a nice supportive and helpful comment. Why do folks have to be so mean, and think everyone be t themselves is an idiot. I don’t get it. With so much volunteerism required in running HOAs I would think the least is that we could be kind to each other

Yeah we are a 150 sfh HOA and the previous mgt company used to send us a hundred pages of bloat every month.
I am convinced they did it just to make it look more complicated. we have no major amenities, one electicity utility bill and the only vendor we hire a lawn guy for half the year. it's super simple books. But yet the other board members voted to pay a financial mgt company $4500 to help us collect about $4500 in late dues every year. In other words we could of just not hired anyone and do nothing and the HOA would be in a similar financial state.

if you go to youtube and serach for understanding hoa financials
there are several good videos that simplify what you are looking for.

also complain to your mgt company you want a summary of the financials that a normal member can easily look at and understnad in a few minutes. they might just be able to do that.

Let me continue on with the mean comments... Why is it that you need a shorter report versus what the report is? Which is long? It comes off sounding like you are "special" versus reality. The rest of us whom have been board members for years don't expect anything less than a Front Summary Sheet and then the detail sheets to follow. You can NOT always run your HOA by "Summaries". People need and require details. You may not like it but it's NOT about you.

Ditto.

Can a HOA get a financial package containing 84 pages, yes, by all means?

A homeowner should get a balance sheet and income-expense statement posted on their web portal or website.

Basic financial documents for a Board should be a balance sheet, income/expense statement with year-to-date data, check register, delinquencies, bank statements of ALL accounts, and operating and reserve accounts with all the corresponding bank reconciliations.

The rest should be backups of where all the information came from. More is also better than not enough. While Tim's reports might work for where he is, they wouldn't work in California.

Melissa Sweetie, you need to stop adding to this thread, the thread is done

Kerry wrote "Perhaps Melissa will share with us how many years it's been since she served on an HOA board. And how "many years," which she indicates, she served?"

Melissa, why haven't you answered Kerry's questions.

We can all figure out why you answered that way. Moving on.

Just some food for thought Melissa. How does it make you feel when you reply to posters with your vitriol? It makes me feel good to be helpful or share a personal experience that may have some relevance to the topic. I think you feel that way as well but when the ugliness comes through, I would not think that that makes you feel very good or anyone else for that matter. I missed the "fat" comment and presume that it got deleted. That is not helpful either... Human nature being what it is, sometimes we respond in ways that are not kind. Usually it is done in response to something some poster said that was rude and inappropriate or both. I have done that myself and I don't like myself very much when I do that.

Thanks for listening to my point of view. Now back to HOA topics.

I am just saying some people may need to see what others see in the mirror of their reactions. There were others who commented that were not indicative of being mean or negative. However the response was that it was and with the attitude of negativity. Which reads to me this person most likely is not winning anyone over in their HOA or MC.

Thank you Elle, your comment is spot on. In fact in the third post, mine, I thanked the forum and said what I get ( 84 pages) must be par for the course. All done, thank you Forum! Don’t really know why it went on to get out of hand. Your comment and a few others on this thread will help me post again but I was close to getting off it because I don’t understand the negativity. Regards Sue

I just reread the comments and think I see that the negative ones mainly come from Melissa, "whom" says there are 107 homes in her HOA. So, just ignore here in the future.

'm pretty sure she's referring to the HOA where she seems to have been a board member for 3 years. But she refuses to tell us when? C'mon, Melissa, will you at least tell us the decade?

SteveM also might be termed as "Negative," and he often is, but a least he does seem to be knowledgeable about HOAs and their financials. He doesn't post very often.

In my case, I did rely on our treasurer and our Finance Committee for about 2 years, but then started seeing errors in our complicated reserves studies (we have 3) & accounts and started paying much closer attention to, exactly, the details.