Setting up finance correctly

Set finance up before importing day-to-day activity. A few reliable starting figures prevent old cash being mistaken for new income and make later reports easier to reconcile.

Before you begin

You need access to the association's finance records and permission to record transactions. Have the bank statement for your starting date, the bank pay-in details, unit list, charging shares and any existing fund breakdown to hand. If you only need to view your own charges, see your unit ledger.

Recommended setup order

Add association bank details.
Enter the opening balance date and bank balance.
Create an Operating Fund.
Review reporting categories.
Check units and the approved apportionment schedule.
Issue property payment requests.
Record supplier bills.
Import the bank statement.
Match every bank row.
Generate and review a report.

The Finance Overview shows this checklist and highlights unfinished bank rows, resident balances and unpaid bills.

Bank details

In Financial > Settings, enter the bank name, account name, sort code and eight-digit account number. These are the resident pay-in details used by Finance and may appear in financial documents.

Check the details against a trusted bank record. Do not copy them from an old email without verification.

Opening balance

Choose the statement date immediately before Our Stairwell starts tracking new transactions and enter the bank balance at that point.

The opening balance should:

match the bank statement;
represent actual cash, not the amount charged to residents; and
be dated before the first imported transaction.

The system carries this amount into cash at bank. It does not count it as income for the new reporting period.

If the association already tracks separate fund balances, also enter the appropriate opening balance on each fund. The total fund view explains how cash is earmarked; it should not be interpreted as additional cash.

Operating, reserve and sinking funds

Start with an Operating Fund for routine income and expenditure. Add a Reserve or Sinking Fund only where the association genuinely uses that pot for planned work or long-term assets.

Give each fund a clear name. A target is a planning goal, while the balance is the recorded amount in the fund.

Reporting categories

Categories classify bills or bank rows that do not match a specific resident charge or bill. Defaults cover common activity. Add a category only when the existing choices do not describe the association's records.

Choose Income or Bill carefully because it controls where the category can be selected and how it appears in reports. Archiving a category removes it from new choices but keeps it on older records.

System report groups are read-only. Fund groups come from the Funds section, and category groups come from the editable categories.

Units and apportionment

Confirm the unit list and charging shares before issuing a block-wide demand. Create an apportionment draft, explain the reason and approve it only after the committee has checked the total and basis.

Approved and draft schedules remain in history so a later committee can understand which basis applied and when.

Before importing a statement

Make sure the statement starts after the opening balance date. Importing older rows as well as an opening balance can count the same cash twice. Keep the statement file unchanged until the import preview has been checked.